Posted on 12/26/2007 6:11:47 AM PST by Fred
I like Mike. That’s not to say I dislike Mitt, Fred or Rudy. I, along with others, have been simply sitting back watching the Republican dark horse advance in Iowa.
My liking for Mike is not based on reasoning. It’s a gut, emotional reaction to his ease in the debates, his self-deprecating humor and his apparent emotional health.
His colloquial persona might make it easy for world leaders to relax in his non-threatening presence. I believe people are more satisfied with their compromises when they have negotiated with a friend rather than with a technocrat.
Mitt has more business experience. Rudy managed a city almost three times the size of Mike’s state of Arkansas. Fred is more circumspect in his sound bites. However, I find myself cheering anytime the underdog’s polls go up.
Maybe I want to think we all have a chance to come out of obscurity and can handle the big league. Plus, I tend to like Huckabee’s maverick style. Is he a Republican or a Democrat?
He wants to spend more money (democrat) on a manned spacecraft to Mars, and he would propose Hillary be the first person sent to Mars (republican).
He wants to build a wall along the Mexican border (republican), but wants to give the children of illegal aliens a higher education (democrat).
While governor of Arkansas, he never saw a tax he couldn’t lower (republican), while at the same time, he never saw another tax he couldn’t raise (democrat).
Mike has a theology degree and is pro-life (republican), but half the Southern Baptists are mad at him for running his denomination in a liberal direction (democrat).
He wants to lure more recruits into the military to make it so fearsome no one would dare to challenge it (republican), but wants to fight the propaganda war by moving the prisoners of Guantanamo somewhere else and closing it down, and forbidding water boarding (democrat).
He brazenly calls attention to how he believes President George W. Bush has failed at global public opinion by claiming Bush Administration has an “arrogant, bunker mentality” (democrat), but says he has nothing but respect for Condi Rice who chided him for his over-the-top comment (republican).
His “redemptive” beliefs are rooted in his evangelical Baptist faith (republican), but those beliefs prompted him to pardon far too many criminals during his tenure as Arkansas governor (democrat).
He is a glib politician who was born in Hope and was governor of Arkansas (democratic Clinton rerun?), but took on the entrenched appointees from the Clinton regime and won (republican).
His maverick style of relying more on his own counsel over others’ advice makes him as unpopular to some as it does popular to others. Regardless, I am always intrigued by his witty responses to his critics.
Even though I suspected his handlers were fully aware the bookcase in the background of his Christmas TV commercial formed a cross, I chuckled at Huckabee’s denial. He joked that anyone who thought the bookcase contained a subliminal message should play the commercial backwards to hear “Paul is dead…Paul is dead,” just as we all did on the Beatles’ White Album in the 1960s.
Huckabee seems to try to find solutions independent of the party line. He seems emotionally secure enough to search for the right thing to do instead of the popular thing.
Although I am not endorsing any candidate at this point (and Huckabee sure isn’t done being vetted), I enjoy toying with Huckabee’s possible campaign slogan. I’ve already alluded to it; the 1950’s Kansan General Eisenhower’s “I like Ike” slogan can be updated to today’s “I like Mike” slogan.
Huckabee and Hillary are both playing to the undecideds.
Hillary is pretending to be pro-defense. Everyone knows that’s utter baloney, because she “loathes the military” - you cannot change something you loathe. No matter what you pretend.
Huckabee actually is somewhat centrist, though he’s on the right side of some of the important issues, which Bush bailed on.
It really doesn’t help anyone, to keep attacking him.
First of all, Huckabee doesn’t have a Theology degree. Lying about having one is different from actually having one.
Second of all, if you have to wonder whether or not a politican is a Dem, he is a Dem.
Yeah I'm sure Vlad Putin and Achmed Ahmadinejad would be just too shy to deal with fearsome adversaries like Obama or RonPaul or Breckgirl or Hillaryclinton or... Please, no more columns by eighth graders.
Would that be a Pro-Amnesty Centrist.
Would that be a Pro-Convicted Murder Centrist, or would that be a
Pro-Tax Hike Centrist.
“There are only two things in the middle of the road, yellow lines and dead skunks.”
Replacing the “progressive” income tax with a flat tax, is hardly a tax hike!
Imagine for a moment if, the next time you receive your paycheck; all that federal witholding is ... STILL THERE. It’s all yours. And you only pay tax on that, if you actually spend it.
Finally. Americans might actually save. As in, savings.
And regarding the “released inmate” mantra:
“The parole board was made up entirely of Democrats appointed by Democrat Governors Bill Clinton and Jim Guy Tucker (who was later convicted on federal charges and removed from office). Not one member of the board was appointed by Huckabee.”
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Chuck Norris does not follow fashion trends, they follow him. But then he turns around and kicks their a**. Nobody follows Chuck Norris.
He’s a snake oil peddler, who will be whatever you like to get your vote.......and then be himself.
No more difficult than with the rest of the Republican candidates (except Hunter). THAT’S THE PROBLEM! But hey, Huckabee is not Hillary. It looks increasingly like he can win because of his rise in the polls without much money or pundit pushing. Wasn’t that what we were supposed to care about?
Its not that hard to tell what Huck is: he's a Jimmy Carter clone. They speak the same rhetoric. He talks like a socialist Dem. Rush called it 'identity politics' and he's right. Because Huck is a Christain, people vote for him. That's dangerous. Look at his policies, and they are not even close to conservative. I also think Huck will be even more of a 'compassionate conservative' and use big government social programs in ways that will make Dems blush.
Huck also has this strategy that if you criticize him, you are labeled as anti-Crhistain or 'establishment'. He doesn't answer questions about policy, but attacks Bush, or Rush, or simply lies.
The Huckster From Hope is Just a Donkey dressed in Elephant Clothing
Sherriff Taylor revisited...
He is “The Dope from Hope!”
He does NOT have a theology degree.
This is a trick question, right?
1 - the original income tax was 6% on income from $3-500K. Then Congress tweaked it, just like they would tweak the ‘fair tax’ - assuming you could ever get them to pass it in the first place. Running on the fair tax without explaining how you would pass it and how you would protect it from Congress is less than admirable.
2 - Huckabee strongly supported releasing Dumond. The parole board reversed their decision AFTER Huckabee announced his plan to pardon Dumond. And no democrats forced Huckabee to hand out pardons at a phenomenal rate.
And if Huckabee is elected, Congress will kick Chuck Norris’s rear end - and then raise taxes!
FReeper Plutarch made a VERY strong case recently that Huckabee’s weight loss nearly identically resembles that of someone who has had bariatric surgery (stomach stapling) though Huckabee has written a book purporting that he lost all that weight through diet and exercise alone.
Not that there’s anything wrong, per se, with bariatric surgery, but writing a book fraudulently claiming to have achieved enormous weight loss thru good ole fashioned diet and exercise when actually the weight loss was first and foremost the effect of surgical intervention is unethical and dishonest, and it shows VERY POOR JUDGMENT. See:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1937730/posts
I think if this guy gets the nomination.... there is no way he doesn’t get elected. But I doubt he’ll get the nomination. He’s got my vote though.
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