Obviously, this is a superb night for Mike Huckabee. His spending in Iowa is roughly equal to the amount of money currently residing under the cushions in Mitt Romney’s living room couch. And yet, he won — handily. But he’s going to fizzle. He’s got nothin’ in New Hampshire, and he’s too extreme for normal primaries (yes, even Republican primaries) where large numbers of people vote. So the big winner tonight is John McCain, whose chief NH rival has just suffered a catastrophic loss.
Conversely, tonight is a terrible, terrible night for Mitt Romney. Why, if I were him, and I were driving home on Fresh Pond Parkway right now as the news of Huckabee’s win came over the radio, I might just pull over to the side of the road and weep. His strategy all along was to spend a fortune in Iowa and New Hampshire, win both, and ride the momentum to the nomination despite his persistently 12%-ish numbers nationally. Ain’t gonna happen. He lost Iowa to the Huckaboom, and the McCain surge is likely going to beat him in New Hampshire. The moral of the story: voters are much smarter than charlatans like Romney give them credit for. They will seek out authenticity, and they will reject fakery. Like or hate what Mike Huckabee stands for, it’s hard to question his belief in what he says. That’s why he won tonight.
I thought for a while that a Huckabee win tonight would mean a Giuliani nomination. I’ve changed my mind, in light of Giuliani’s miserable performance recently — now I think John McCain will be the Republican nominee. That is, in a sense, good news — McCain is an honorable guy who, unlike his competitors, is sane on some important issues (immigration and torture, for example). It is also bad news for the Democrats, IMHO, because of all the Republicans he is probably the most difficult to beat.
I think a Huckabee win is a Huckabee win is a Huckabee win. McCain may win NH, but he’s not going to win SC. Huckabee will win SC. And that’s the ball game.
You think Huck wins the nomination if he wins SC? I respectfully disagree, but time will tell.
As I said before, back in late November, we could assume Huckabee would win Iowa. His numbers will jump in NH to make him in the top 3 in NH. Romney, McCain and Huckabee. Not necessarily in that order. When he survives that, it’s on to SC. With Huckabee the only person who can realistically win South Carolina as Romney implodes, Huckabee’s national numbers will only go up. Besides, Huckabee is gonna do relatively well in NH I only point to national numbers, which usually don’t matter, because it’s a good indication of how folks are doing throughout the country with low-information, relatively low campaigning. Again, you’re seeing that beautiful, beautiful Huckabee curve. Giuliani loses Iowa? He can survive, maybe. He loses NH? Okay, maybe he can survive. Loses SC too? Not gonna happen. Thompson? 4th place in Iowa doesn’t bode well. Conservatives are gonna try to rally around an emerging nominee, and start pummeling Democrats.
Only a minority of Republicans are religious fanatics. The Republican Party right now is a fragile coalition between fanatics and corporate lackeys. Watch the Hucka-bees split what Bush and Rove built into one 35% religious piece and another 65% splintered series of factions. McCain is best positioned right now to be the strongest man standing in that second confection, because he’ll come out of NH as the Republican front-runner, with Kommandant 9/11 nowhere to be seen. There is no way the Republican Party leaders will voluntarily nominate preacher Huckabee. If they do, they will lose the election. McCain has a much better chance. I think David is exactly right.
I don’t really know how I’m going to convince you any more than I have. Frankly, I think it just comes down to the fact that Huckabee is more hopeful, more humble, more likeable, more charismatic, and more savvy politically than McCain or any of the rest of the field is. I think he’s more dangerous than any of the other candidates on the Republican side, too. So, we’ll see.
That time will tell! đŸ™‚
It’s a victory for McCain because Romney is hurt and hurt bad. So the second most viable candidate benefits. That’s not Huckabee. Not on a national level. It’s McCain, at least right now.
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p>SC is hardly the ballgame.
has the strongest SC organization. His organization includes Senator Lindsey Graham, the speaker of the house, the president of the senate, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State etc… He basically has the entire South Carolina Republican Party behind him. He is set up to win SC. He is strong in Michigan. He is the big winner because it shows Romney to be vulnerable.
Brilliant.
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p>Additionally, if I were Mitt Romney I’d weep too. Not because I lost Iowa, because I’d be Mitt Romney.
He probably just needs a splash of water from a firehose. Since you’d want to clean the turds off the car anyway, it’d be easy anyway.
Which would allow one to listen to the radio in the first place.
by questioning his belief in what he says about immigration.
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p>I’m glad it’s not Romney, but I don’t take solace in the fact that a religious extremist, tax fundamentalist, foreign affairs know-nothing has won IA for the Republicans. Except insofar as I’m glad I’m not a Republican.
Ah, that beloved Zeppelin — what would we do without it? Just some choice, choice Schadenfreude tonight.
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p>Yeah, Mitt’s done. Hate to say I told ya so … Rudy, too.
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p>McCain may be the most formidable of that sad bunch, but he would be OK with us in Iraq for 100 years …
http://www.motherjones.com/moj…
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p>And he’s 71 years old, and has flip-flopped on the Bush tax cuts, and has no hard-core conservative support, etc. etc. He’s vulnerable to some serious and true attacks from an aggressive Dem candidate.
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p>I mostly fear Huckabee, because he’s a charismatic crackpot. He’s bound to be caught with his pants down (intellectually) any number of times, but he’s likely to be able to cover it up with any amount of aw-shucks.
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p>In any event, it could be a truly historic, epochal meltdown for the GOP. That’s a real possibility.
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p>I think its bad news for Mitt but I also think you guys are so excitable about anything anti-Mitt that you’re taking it a bit far.
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p>Words like “catastrophe” used to be employed when, for example, you just lost all of your crops for the winter and there is no forseeable way to procure more food. But hey, hyperbole rules the day so now a second place finish with bad momentum into a still competitive NH constitutes a catastrophe. OK – I just hope you don’t ever have to describe a real catastrophe.
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p>(I guess most of that was for the original post)
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p>On a whim I say:
Clinton is your Romney
Edwards is also your Romney but much dumber
Obama is your Huckabee
Paul is our Dean
Dodd is your Brownback
Biden is your Hunter
… but our candidates aren’t douchebags.
goes with the blimp.
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p>”Oh, the humanity!!!”
Massachusetts Avenue. Mystic Street. Even better, tears on Pleasant Street. Let Mitt cry for his exit from the GOP race in Arlington. We would love to put up a historical marker at the site.
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p>(Full disclosure, I’m an Edwards supporter.) The winners tonight are Obama and McCain, at least until next Tuesday. This sets up McCain as the anti-Huckabee for at least one week. Romney is the big loser.
to McCain vs. Huckabee.
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p>Romney never signified in this election cycle. Except for veep, which is still possible only he’s managed to tick off everybody (what was he thinking?).
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p>At this point McCain looks to be in the sweet spot but I wouldn’t count that preacher out just yet.
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p>McCain poses problems for Clinton I think, though surmountable ones.
I think Mitt made the same mistake as Healey – he went negative a little too long and its backfiring. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
has been vanquished, apparently.
wasn’t noted for going negative on other Republcians so much as he was noted for shivving Democrats.
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p>I doubt that ghost has been vanquished.
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p>I am more than a bit worried that our Mr. Obama thinks it has.
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p>I still remember the following:
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p>Back in 1988, when Dukakis was running for President and he got the Democratic nomination and G. H. W. Bush Sr. got the Republican nomination, Lee Atwater ran a very nasty campaign against Dukakis with the Willie Horton situation. One remark that Lee Atwater made, which is notable, but many people have forgotten was “I’m gonna chew the bark off of the little bastard (meaning Mike Dukakis), and make Willie Horton his running mate.”
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p>That, to me, was what the Republicans stood for back then, and that same sort of negativity is still being played out by the Republicans today, only worse.
Recent experience in Massachusetts notwithstanding.
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p>The triumph of hope over experience seen in Massachusetts can be attributed to two factors: (1) the attacks were not very well done (they outraged the Devalniks, and left everyone else wondering what was going on at Camp Healy), and (2) Mass independents were, and are, really, REALLY pissed at Romney for pulling a bait and switch.
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p>If Obama goes for hope, then he better hope that the GOP nominee uses Healy’s ad team, and that independents are as pissed at Bush next November as the local I’s were at Romney in 2006.
However, it’s also true that many people were put off by the fact that Healey ran a nasty campaign, and voted for Patrick. However, while I agree with what you were saying about the attacks on Patrick not very well-done, thus baffling and/or outraged everybody else, there are at least a couple of other things that came into play:
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p>A) Regarding Mike Dukakis, although this was a long time ago, Mike Dukakis, although he meant well, was kind of dweebish, which made him a prime target for getting eatten alive by the Republicans at that time. He didn’t rebut the attacks on him the way he should’ve done. Inotherwords, Dukakis had no spine.
Deval Patrick, on the other hand, unlike Dukakis, had much, much more spine than Dukakis, hence enabling him to rebut the attacks on him and win our State House.
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p>B) The “bait and switch” business, which has long been a favorite tactic in Boston/Massachusetts politics generally, has been successfully hijacked by today’s Republicans, including former Bay State Governor Mitt Romney, as a tactic to be used and abused as a way to trap an unsuspecting and/or gullible electorate to vote for them, not realizing until too late that they got screwed royally.
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p>I’m especially in agreement with the above-mentioned quote from your post, CentralMassDad. Let’s hope that there’s even more “fire in the belly” coming from the Democrats so that we can take back the White House in November.
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p>Thank you, CentralMassDad, for a neat comment.
… I think his ghost morphed into a ghost of Christmas present, giving Christmas cards in SC reminding everybody that tricks aren’t just for Halloween. đŸ˜‰
When he’s not spinning tales about his sky-wizard and the telepathic connection they share, Huckabee seems downright reasonable. I think he’s primed for a very good debate in NH coming up, and if Obama eats up the independents in NH as he did in Iowa, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Huck in the top two.
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p>And good for Ron Paul…
If I had figured out the race just a week earlier I couldve made big money off the predictions markets, unfortunately my check didnt arrive in the mail in time to be considered.
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p>In any case I predicted the Obama, Edwards, Clinton showing and also agree with David that McCain is likely going to win. Republicans of all stripes are terrified of Huckabee and I feel McCain will benefit most from Romneys collapse, the medias ignorance of Rudy, and the willingness of defeatist Republicans to pick the most electable candidate they have. Look to McCain as their John Kerry, the last man standing and their only hope, or another parallel to Bob Dole the guy who finally earned his turn. And hopefully McCain will lose, though he is definitely the best against Clinton or Obama.
…and that’s to his advantage. I agree that the money that drives the party can’t stand him, but voters like Huck. Even when you take the “crazy Christian” element out of him, he’s still got a lot to offer. His record as governor of Arkansas ain’t popcorn, and he comes across as pretty warm and likeable. Huck’s victory speech last night was clearly aimed at New Hampshire, and it was no more religious than Ronald Reagan’s and frankly was more progressive than Barack Obama’s. With the attention he’s likely to get, I still think he’s got a good shot. We’ll see.
… but the things that the GOP doesn’t widely know about Huckabee might actually peel a large percentage of independents away from him in the general. I’m not as afraid of Huckabee because although he is great on the stump, in front of a mike, rehearsed or not,… I do think that his baggage will catch up to him in the general. I think the key now is to watch what the moneyed interests in the GOP do in next few primary states.
If it winds up seeming like the GOP has nominated a Pat Roberston clone, leading to (more of a) electoral implosion next year, the aftermath could lead to the death of the Rove legacy and the return of a Republican party for which moderates can vote.
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p>They’re going to have a bad year anyway. It would be better for them (and the country) if they have a REALLY bad year, but are better and sytronger in the long run.
… their message control will work well at avoiding the impression of him being a Pat Robertson clone. I think he will hang himself on rope from his political past. He’s too good at controlling his demeanor.
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p>What worries me is that even if they have a spectacularly bad year, we still have to capitalize on it and make serious progress while they’re down, or their bad year won’t be as helpful to the Dems as could be useful for the country. In particular I worry that although we could be in a political position to make some real differences on a large scale (health care reform in particular), that the moneyed interests will derail the efforts and we will have squandered what may be the best opportunity to really fix some things in the last 30 years.
Saying the Huckabee is a “Robertson clone” is tantamount to saying that Obama is a “Jesse Jackson clone”. Not all evangelical Christians are alike. Robertson didn’t have a policy record to speak of, had almost nothing on foreign policy, and ran a campaign that consisted mainly of hectoring non-evangelicals to be evangelical. Huckabee has a lot to run on independent of faith, and he can use that to good in NH and elsewhere.
Before Robertson came off as insane, he came off as extreme. I was just saying that a candidate thatcomes off as extreme might be good for the long term health of the GOP by aiding de-Rovification.
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p>That, imo, is what makes Huckabee all the more dangerous.
I don’t buy that conclusion. If voters are “smart”, why did they re-elect Bush in 2004? If voters are truly smart, as in having in IQ above a dirt pie, how the hell did they end up voting for Huckabee? The man is an icon for stupid.
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p>The only thing I get from the Iowa caucus is that voters are mostly instinctive and emotional creatures. For Iowan Republicans, it seems Huckabee’s homegrown stupidity was a better gut-feeling match than Romney’s glitz and flash.
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p>Something we learned from the last two elections (hopefully) and now Iowa is that people don’t have walls in their heads that separate their “rational” and “emotional” thinking. It’s all mushed together. Don’t downplay the “I’d like to have a beer with him” factor. If anyone is hoping for a particular matchup because voters won’t be “stupid enough” to choose a particular R nominee over a particular D nominee, then expect a whole new set of reading material for 2009; books with titles like What’s the matter with thinking about Kansas elephants? and the like.
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p>Huckabee has just as much a shot at winning as Bush did.
may be influenced by the long time Republicans who have become registered Democrats, not just ‘unregistered’, in the last 6 years. There are a lot of them.
With a good percentage of the moderate wing of the NH Republican party gone, Huckabee may have a good chance to win.
Huckabee sounds like a dangerous guy, made all the more so by his charm, charisma and likeability. Don’t let that fool you, people.
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p>It’s quite true about the Republican party losing its “moderate middle” so to speak because of many republicans moving over to the independent or democratic parties. Inotherwords, the Republican Party has radicalized itself more to the right. To paraphrase an old adage “The wounded bear is the most dangerous animal in the Big Horn”. It’s quite true, and could be applied here.
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p>McCain is sneaky and also too much of a loose cannon. He’s displayed his rather Vesuvian temper publicly on numerous occasions. Frankly, regardless of a presidential candidate’s party/ideology, I would not want somebody in the highest office (as President), who consistently flies off their handle when things don’t go their way.
Has anyone asked McCain recently about his vote to summarily remove a sitting president of the United States? What an honorable guy he is.
One thing I think will be very interesting is how Rudy Giuliani’s strategy will play out. He’s being written off already by many people here, but that may be because we are all so used to the way things are. However, despite miserable numbers last night, the media is still seeking him out and giving him time and press.
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p>If I understand what he is doing, instead of going for the traditional “momentum” of winning the early contests, he is instead applying resources based on the actual number of delegates available in each state.
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p>I have no idea whether or not this will work, but if it does, it might have more of an effect on the future primary system than all of the hand-wringing we do about the overt influence of Iowa and NH. If you want change in the primary system, maybe you should root for Rudy???
has a funny post after last night Huckabee win. As usual he’s spot on, and he cuts right through the bullshit, even though it’s almost a throwaway for him:
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