Huckabee just spoke at the NRA convention, and cost himself the Vice-Presidential nomination…
“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”
What a tool…I watched the video, and at least the audience treated that comment with the shocked silence it deserved.
Thank god. I hate Huckabee. His appeal to anyone escapes me.
Huckabee is everything I don’t like about Bush (Big Government conservatism) and none of the stuff I do like (killing our enemies).
Hopefully, he’ll go to selling used cars somewhere and leave politics forever.
It’s incredibly witless to make jokes about pointing guns at public figures, and doubly so in a presidential campaign.
To his credit, he’s apologized rather than trying to salvage it. (He didn’t say, “I’m sure you all have a crazy old uncle who points guns at you all the time.”)
All the same, I would be happy never to hear Mike Huckabee’s name ever again.
It’s pretty rare I find myself saying this, but I’m with Rockford on this one. Good riddance.
Now John McCain won’t have to explain to Mike Huckabee’s supporters why their man can’t be his running mate. Good.
Veep? I’m guessing it’ll be Bobby Jindal, the charismatic Indian-American governor of Louisiana.
Totally pathetic–but please, somebody reassure me that Huckabee wasn’t really in the running for a VP slot even before this? Please????
I agree, Jindal would be a great choice. It would effectively neutralize the “not enough experience” charge that at the moment seems to be the core of McCain’s campaign against Obama, and perhaps the only one that has any hopes of having traction at this point.
Bring him on!
“I agree, Jindal would be a great choice.”
I do like the idea of sinking Jindal’s presidential aspirations early by putting the McCain albatross on his back.
The guy is fairly impressive.
Jindal has about as much chance of being picked as VP by McCain as Jim Rockford or I do.
McCain is pretty good at not pandering to the whacko Republican base, but a brown former Hindu would be taking that way too far, it would negate any advantage to McCain from “low information” voters who believe that Obama is a crypto-Muslim.
Jindal may have a future in national politics, but he would have to have a strategy to avoid the 20-30% of Republican voters who are racist, religious fanatics, or both in a nomination fight. Something like what McCain did this year, rely on independents. Or become a Democrat.
Metrico — Jindal won in LA as a Republican. What you are calling “racist” (a meaningless word by the way, post Wright) is the natural outgrowth of Identity Politics.
Dems in LA pander to Black voters by presenting them with policies they like: soft on crime, various corruption of machines tolerated, etc. They depend on massive Black turnout and various wealthy white elites dependent on corrupt machine patronage (various tax breaks for industries, c*sino gambling, video p0ker, etc).
As a former LA resident, video p0ker is a plague upon LA. It’s just horrible. And the whole business is corrupt from top to bottom.
Jindal is another Foster-like Republican promising both an end to corruption which increases the cost of living to everyone (connected people skim off the top) and tough on crime policies. Jindal won because he’s a Republican like Foster (appeals to the northern Evangelical white part of the state) and reforming Republican Catholic (Southern White Cajuns).
McCain won’t pick Jindal because he’s too young, not known enough, and not “moderate” enough. My guess is someone like Lieberman, or maybe Romney, possibly Fred or Rudy. McCain doesn’t care about the “base” so social conservatives won’t count. It’s worth noting that Huckabee depended on a pastor-network and didn’t raise much money, has no real base outside of some Evangelicals associated with his church (and even then it’s fragmented and thin). Before this he had nothing really to offer.
Fred probably helps with Social Conservatives, people who want social values that help with economic advancement (get married and stay married, education, deferred gratification, avoid drugs, patriotism, other “bourgeois” behavior.)
bq. My guess is someone like Lieberman, or maybe Romney, possibly Fred or Rudy.
All excellent choices! Actually I think “Independent” Lieberman would be the best at this point, or really anyone who is not a Republican for that matter.
You can be sure, though, that whoever he chooses, it will be touted as a “smart” choice by his Network News buddies…you heard it here first.
JR – Absolutely there is an “identity politics” issue. Jindal is not a good fit with the “identity” of a large part of the Republican base.
I don’t think it will be any of the names you mentioned.
Romney: a flip-flopper and his Mormon northeastern background goes not shore up the base.
Fred: an uninspiring campaigner, and old (65) to boot. He looks older than McCain.
Rudy: Loads of scandals, corrupt in both private and public life. Personally abrasive and a loose cannon. Blew a big lead in the polls. Press would have a field day. I don’t think he could carry NY for McCain, so why?
I still would not rule Huckabee out, but I think it will be a relatively young southern governor or senator, who is not a whacko, someone like Bob Corker, Charles Crist or Mark Sanford. Especially Crist. Also I would look at Republicans in MO, like Chris Bond, or OH, like Boehner.
“Jindal may have a future in national politics, but he would have to have a strategy to avoid the 20-30% of Republican voters who are racist, religious fanatics, or both in a nomination fight.”
Errr…. Jindal won Louisiana running as a Republican handily. He’s by far the most popular figure in Louisiana right now.
This mythical 20-30% of Republican voters who are racist just doesn’t exist. I’m what you would call a gun totting religious fanatic, and I’ve repeatedly said that Bobby Jindal is my choice for POTUS.
Jindal’s biggest hurdle in winning the Presidency would be winning despite scaring the non-religious segment of the United States. The religious fanatics (as you call us) think Jindal is God’s gift to Louisiana (and perhaps America).
“Jindal is not a good fit with the “identity” of a large part of the Republican base.”
How so? Reaganite conservative evangelical Christians aren’t going to be accepted by the Republican base merely because they are Indian?
Your nuts and you no nothing about the South or the GOP. The KKK votes Democratic. I know because I used to know klan members. The GOP is not a racist party and never has been. Thier are still people in the South that remember when Republicans were lynched alongside blacks. Dems still dominate local politics in the South. Do you really think that Powell or Rice couldn’t have won the GOP nomination if they wanted it? As for Republican racists in the South, I suppose there are a few as everywhere but ‘religious nuts’ tend also to be missionairies and such with plenty of contact with non-whites. Even the racial barriers that used to separate the white churches from the black churches is slowly breaking down as the worship style of the two is increasingly converging on praise choruses and modern instrumentation. Really, its just worship style and other cultural factors now, and the evangelical charismatic churches I attend are increasingly multiracial.
Besides which, most Southern racism is very specific neighbor hating neighbor sort of thing. The KKK style white supremacy bit is largely a dying Democratic legacy that has nothing to do with the GOP base. For example, I can remember a black Jamaican pastor preaching at a rural Southern church in a community steeped in black-white racism, and after hearing him speaking the more old fashioned folk agreed that he wasn’t ‘black’ he was ‘Indian’. Jindal will face virtually no racial oposition in the South once it is well known that he isn’t African American, and would face comparitively little opposition (I’m guessing under 10% of the GOP base) even if he was. That latter number is insignificant compared to gains the GOP would make among black Southrons should the GOP field a black candidate.
“McCain won’t pick Jindal because he’s too young, not known enough, and not “moderate” enough.”
Personally, I don’t want Jindal to run yet, nor do I think Jindal wants the VP pick at this time.
It’s a travesty how little executive experience the three candidates still in the race have. I wouldn’t pick any of them to run the country based on thier resume, and Obama is the worst joke of the bunch. He’s barely qualified to be a city councilman, much less POTUS. He’s never even been mayor of Chicago for crying out loud, and if he had been would that really be something to be proud of? Chicago is a mess right now. Guilliani at least could claim he made his city a better place while in office.
Jindal already has a better resume than anyone running except perhaps McCain (although having purely legislative experience doesn’t thrill me either). However, he really needs to have a term or two as governor, and a successful couple of terms at that, before you could really say he was qualified.
Besides which, Louisiana needs Jindal. I don’t think the state wants to give him up yet, and I don’t think Jindal wants to give up on the state until he has made a real contribution to the state.
“As a former LA resident, video p0ker is a plague upon LA. It’s just horrible. And the whole business is corrupt from top to bottom.”
Ditto the LA lottery. When you run the numbers you realize that virtually no money actually makes it into the school system (the bill of goods that was sold). Something like less than 20% of the profits – the net not the gross – actually is returned to the school system. What actually happens is that it pulls money out of the lower class and puts it into the hands of a few government cronies. It’s just another factor contributing to the widespread poverty in what otherwise should be a very prosperous state.
#11 from Jim Rockford:
bq. “As a former LA resident, video p0ker is a plague upon LA. It’s just horrible. And the whole business is corrupt from top to bottom.”
It’s the same in Sydney. These things are a curse. And Christianity is the backbone of useful opposition to them. “(link)”:http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/sydneystories/the_game_is_up
By and large, Christian engagement in social issues is a Good Thing.
And those who bring Christianity in the public square into disrepute are a bad thing, because they detract from what could otherwise have been a benevolent influence.
I hope John McCain picks Mitt Romney for his running mate. I think Mitt would be far better qualified than anyone else to take over if McCain, being old, suddenly keeled over. I think Mitt has great credentials as someone who understands capitalism, and John McCain could use that. And I would like the split that Mike Huckabee opened up between Protestants and Mormons to be healed. I would like Mike Huckabee’s divisive legacy to go away.
I don’t know how many times I’ve waited in line at some Stop-and-Rob, behind a middle-aged woman with two kids (and likely no husband) buying lottery scratch tickets or Powerball, and it seems like every business in the country is set up now to peddle this shit to poor people.
Much superior to meth amphetamine, I suppose – it doesn’t kill the people it feeds on. Say one word against it, and everybody points to the river of money it brings in.
Good luck doing anything about that. Go tell it to the so-called family values Republicans, and the Democrats who talk big about getting the rich but are perfectly happy to shear the only sheep they can catch.
Consider yourself so reassured. The only people I know of who were pushing “Huckabee as Veep†were Democrats. If Huckabee or Brownback were ever to be McCain’s nominee, that’s about the only scenario (barring some unforeseen shift on the issues) where I could see myself NOT voting for McCain.
I agree with you although for me, it’s largely because Romney has outstanding experience working as an executive fixing problems that other people have kicked down the road. Read: Medicare, Social Security, et al.
#19 from Thorley Winston:
I wish Mitt Romey had run mainly on his record of administration – as the Turnaround man. His record in that department is bulletproof. He ran instead on his claims to be the conservative in the race. He didn’t have a bulletproof record there.
And Mike Huckabee did a great job of splitting off Romney’s potential supporters who were Protestant Christian first and conservative second.
We need to look at the process which gives three such mediocre candidates.
What do you want for a “lousy 860 million dollars?”:http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/
For a fraction of that price, we could have had an automatronic POTUS up and running by now. An automatron that speaks 67 languages, can beat the world chess champion, and is 100% guaranteed to not be a racist or a Muslim. And it would scare the sweet bejeezus out of that little skidmark Ahmadinejad, too.
Good, I dislike Huckabee, and he is the opposite of everything the GOP should stand for (free markets, tough on terror, low taxes, moderation on religion).
McCain should pick a VP who is :
a) Slightly (only slightly) more conservative than he.
b) Someone who is not a white male.
The one exception to the above criteria is Joe Lieberman. A McCain/Lieb ticket would be a great one.
Another person who should not be considered is Bobby Jindal. Don’t waste him on 2008. Save him for a better year, when he himself has a stronger resume.
“McCain is pretty good at not pandering to the whacko Republican base, but a brown former Hindu would be taking that way too far, it would negate any advantage to McCain from “low information” voters who believe that Obama is a crypto-Muslim. “
metrico : Stop right there. The GOP is very friendly to Indians. Dinesh D’Souza, Ramesh Ponnuru, Raj Bhakta, etc. are all Republicans with a variety of ideologies.
I find the Democratic party to have a much worse race record than the GOP. Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton have made racist remarks about Indians in recent years, which are much worse than George Allen’s semi-justified confrontation of a troublemaker who happened to be Indian.
________________________________
Jindal may have a future in national politics, but he would have to have a strategy to avoid the 20-30% of Republican voters who are racist, religious fanatics, or both in a nomination fight. Something like what McCain did this year, rely on independents. Or become a Democrat.
How about the 30-40% of Democrats who are racist? The Democrats still have a former KKK Kleagle as their seniormost Senator. George Wallace was a Democrat. Strom Thurmond was a Democrat when he ran as a segregationist.
Good riddance. Huckabee did do one backhanded service by demonstrating the high water mark of the theocon faction in the Republican party. I watched part of one of his speeches- once. I guess I just didn’t get it – he came off as a smarmy used car salesman.
Agreed on Romney. He was below McCain on my own pick list, but he complements in several ways: age, geography, business experience. However, he will NOT help bring his home state into McCain’s column, and that might be a killer even if he wants the veep slot.
#25 from Tim Oren:
I agree that theocons have had or (less likely) will have a high water mark. The white Christian family is toast, demographically. Without that base, theocons have nobody to appeal to.
The Black Church is a different animal entirely, as can be seen from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s view that abortion is a fundamental right. White Christians might ally effectively with other Christians committed to racist hatred of them, provided the whites were willing to sacrifice their interests and dignity (likely), provided that these other Christians shared politically relevant key values with them (less likely but still fairly likely), and provided these other values were more important as organizing principles than anti-White racism (unlikely – that’s why there has to be a Black Christianity in the first place). But it’s not possible when the top value is hate whitey, and other values are also opposed, as on the vital abortion issue.
Therefore, as the white Christian family falls, so the theocons also must fall. There is no replacement to be had for the population base that’s shriveling away.
But I think Huckabee isn’t a good measure of the high water mark of the theocons.
First, he’s not a very good theocon, since he has distinguished himself by his anti-Catholic problem and by making the Mormon faith an electoral negative. I have not read that he’s reached out successfully to any religious faction other than his own. While you may see theocons as inherently divisive, to be a star theocon, the high water mark, you at least have to be divisive in the sense of pitting theocons against others. Mike Huckabee starred in setting the faiths against each other.
Second, he’s not that big a winner. Yes he’s proved that he has a base of support, so he will have a place at the table when Republican leaders meet, for many years to come. (I expect his influence will be bad.) But the guy who demonstrated a a golden knack for upholding his own faith fervently while making himself palatable to religious leaders of many denominations was George W. Bush, who has been the American President for a good deal longer than Mike Huckabee is ever likely to be.
I think George W. Bush really is likely to be the high water mark. If anyone follows him with greater success, it will have to be soon, because as noted the base they would need is collapsing without hope of recovery, and if it’s soon they will have to deal with the divisive influence of Mike Huckabee and others, and the sour legacy of George W. Bush himself.
“The white Christian family is toast, demographically.”
That’s an interesting theory.
“The Black Church is a different animal entirely, as can be seen from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s view that abortion is a fundamental right.”
Are you asserting that Wright’s church is representative of the black church in America?
“But it’s not possible when the top value is hate whitey, and other values are also opposed, as on the vital abortion issue.”
In your average predominately black or historically black congregation in the United States, ‘hate whitey’ is certainly not a top value nor is there disagreement with the white church over the moral depravity of abortion. In fact, your average black church sees abortion as a greater social scourge than your average mainstream white church.
If you google ‘black Christian abortion’, once you scroll down past the first few references to the current Wright contriversy, you’ll find scores of websites where the opinion is that not only is abortion morally wrong, but it is specifically an attack on black people in America.
And you know what. They are right.
The Reverend Childress is far more representative of mainstream black congregations than Rev. Wright http://www.blackgenocide.org/director.html, which you would know if you’d ever darkened the door of a black congregation.
“The white Christian family is toast, demographically. ”
White Christians certainly breed at faster rates than white leftists.
It is true that all whites are lagging blacks and Hispanics, demographically, but that still means white leftists are shrinking faster than white Christians.
In solid red counties, whites have fertility rates of around 2.0. In solid blue counties, it is 1.5 or less – European levels.
Blacks, meanwhile, are at 2.3, and Hispanics at a whopping 3.0.
“The white Christian family is toast, demographically.”
#27 from Celebrim:
bq. _”That’s an interesting theory.”_
It’s more the colloquial summary version of the contents of a link I posted recently in another thread. It’s description rather than speculation. And it’s not something I’m wildly interested in. It just seems that that’s the state of play.
“The Black Church is a different animal entirely, as can be seen from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s view that abortion is a fundamental right.”
#27 from Celebrim:
bq. _”Are you asserting that Wright’s church is representative of the black church in America?”_
“Representative” is a slippery word. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s not the elected President of All Black Churches or anything.
Rather than “representative”, I’d say “mainstream, but minority” – like being a Mitt Romney supporter in the Republican Party. He might not have more than a quarter of the vote, if there was a vote, but he’s been a respected part of the family, or he would not have been able to confer on Barack Obama the Black authenticity the politician needed, and he would not have had Black leaders closing ranks with him till it became him or Barack Obama the Great Black Hope, but not both.
And yes I do think that racial solidarity is a higher priority over other values, like life, sufficiently that theocons in the GOP have no hope of substituting a Black alliance for their shriveled White base. Therefore, there has been or there soon will be a high water mark for the theocons.