Dec 11 2007
Why The Huckabee Surge? Resistance
The GOP is going through an interesting process – the far right is trying to find anyone but Rudy Giuliani or John McCain to support who can beat the Dems. These two RINOS stick in the craw of the far right.
There is no option because the far right as done such a great job of insulting and repulsing moderates that Giuliani is the only consensus option out there. Otherwise too many indies would defect to the Dems. This can be seen every time a poll comes out comparing the ‘moderate’ options like Giuliani, McCain and Romney to the latest far right Fav (previously it was Thompson and many initially clung to Tancredo’s now sinking ship – hey somebody had to say it!). And as before we see Huckabee (a great guy by the way, like Thompson) failing to even come close the democrat challengers:
In head-to-head matchups — the first to include Huckabee — the former Arkansas governor loses to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York by 10 percentage points (54 percent to 44 percent), to Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois by 15 points (55 percent to 40 percent) and to former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina by 25 points (60 percent to 35 percent).
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The poll also shows that Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona would do best against leading Democrats. He beats Clinton by 2 percentage points (50 percent to 48 percent), ties Obama (48 percent to 48 percent) and loses to Edwards by a smaller margin (8 points) than the other Republican candidates do.
QED: a lot of moderates move from the GOP column. It’s really simple – either vote for a center right candidate or let Hillary take over the country. There is no Nirvana option out there.
I still like Fred. He is in Iowa this month…..so we will see what happens.
As much as I hate to say it, AJ, the far right would rather be principled than victorious.
Harold, you are so right. And there are those who actually WANT to lose…to punish America or to be able to say, “See I told you so. Now you need to listen to us hard righters…”
All this tells us a whole lot about them NOT about the republican field. We have a great field. The “unexcited” have their issues which can never be satisfied. Imagine if Newt were running regarding his two wives…sheesh.
Power, power, power. And frankly, I think they have jumped the shark.
The thing I lament the most this year is the infantilization of so many republicans/conservatives on line lately.
The ones who have picked their candidate and all the others are anathema. It’s the worst on Free Republic.. it’s like watching little kids squable over who has the best toy. it’s embarassing
AJ,
My take on the Repub field is that it is the strongest in years.
I discount Tancredo (single issue) and Ron Paul. I discount Giuliani as without broad conservative support. The rest are decent candidates and I believe both McCain and Romney can beat any Dem. Both would do well in debates with Clinton or Obama and both are clean and smart.
Sadly, I think Huckabee will win Iowa by a wide margin – enough that Romney will not make it. Thankfully, it seems that Giuliani’s February 5th strategy will pay off, so Huckabee won’t win.
But it’s still leaving a very bad taste in my mouth.
If Giuliani wins the primary, his choice for vice president will be Huckabee to make himself look more conservative. But I hope, however, that Romney wins, though I like Giuliani too.
I think Huckabee will do just fine. He got a lot of Cross over vote in Arkansas. In the end there is a reason why the far right is attacking him and callijng him Bushabee(which I take as a compliment). It is still early yet
It’s still VERY early…and I expect this to be a brokered convention.
Here’s my logic…
First, there are no really jaw-dropping candidates. Guliani and Romney are both too liberal and too northeastern to suit the rank-and-file. McCain has made too many enemies across the spectrum. Thompson never closed the deal. Huckabee is like Bush…socially conservative, but fiscally liberal. The rest never got any traction.
Huckabee appears to be in the lead in Iowa. Don’t rely on this, Romney’s superior organization will aid him – but I can see Huckabee winning Iowa.
New Hampshire, on the other hand, probably goes to Romney. He’s right next door, and the voters there don’t like southern accents.
Which brings us to South Carolina. Guliani has been strong there.
The result is that the first three caucuses/primaries could go three different ways…and that brings us to Super Tuesday. And people will have to vote their conscience.
The result…very interesting. A brokered convention is VERY possible. With the potential for an off-the-wall candidate.
Jindal for President, anybody?
There’s a tremendous undercurrent of fear about the economy out there. And Huck’s FairTax plan ( http://snipr.com/irsgone ) is catching on. But most have yet to understand why moving toward the consumption tax plan is essential. (Top Dem contenders call the plan, supported only among Dems by their own Mike Gravel, as “unworkable” – as though the current system is!)
Renown economist, Dr. Laurence Kotlikoff, has stated (9/26/2006),
“Yes I think [the U.S. is bankrupt] because if you look at our long term fiscal obligations and compare them with our tax receipts that are projected to come in, you end up finding the difference in present value is equal to $63 trillion. This is according to an update of a U.S Treasury study. So it is not an academic study but rather a government study.
“To come with $63 trillion in present value, you would have to have an immediate and permanent roughly 70 percent hike in federal corporate and personal income taxes. Alternatively you could immediately double the payroll tax. So we are talking about gargantuan adjustments here, huge problems that we are facing, and a lot of this has to do with the fact that the society is aging. We are currently facing 33 million people over 65. But when the Boomers retire there will be about 77 million people over 65. And we are currently handing out per old person roughly $30,000 on average in Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid benefits. But when the Boomers retire we are going to be paying them a lot higher level of benefits because these benefit levels continue to grow much more rapidly than wages per worker. So think about 77 million Baby Boomers getting roughly $40,000 per head, and you see the magnitude of the problem. We are talking trillions of dollars. $44,000 times 77 million is a very big number. It is in the trillions, A couple trillion dollars a year in obligations. So I do not think it is an exaggeration to say the country is bankrupt.”
Kotlikoff sees passing Huck’s FairTax as a vehicle to derail economic meltdown: http://snipr.com/meltdowninprogress
And he’s not alone: http://snipurl.com/econsopenletter