Breaking News: Thompson Quits Race

No one is surprised, I think, but Fred Thompson just officially announced his withdrawal from the race for the Republican nomination.

I believe this will help boost Huckabee's campaign. If it weren't for Thompson, Huckabee probably would have won South Carolina. They were competing for the same conservative voters and people who saw a need for a down-to-earth Southerner as the GOP nominee.

I do not feel compelled to say anything positive about Thompson, particularly after his bitter and libelous attacks on Huckabee in the past several weeks. Good bye and good riddance!

Conservatism's Inquisitors on Brink of Causing Their Own Demise

Polls over the last few days show that Republican primary voters are starting to believe the hype of the pundit classes that Huckabee is a one-state wonder and McCain is the man with momentum. Mike Huckabee was recently running in first place in Michigan and South Carolina, but he is rapidly losing ground to John McCain, and to a much lesser but still significant extent, Fred Thompson.

Much of this is the result of relentless attacks by pundits such as Rush Limbaugh and National Review against Mike Huckabee for being supposedly heterodox as a conservative. Most of what they claim against him is based on exaggerations, mischaracterizations and associative fear mongering. The exaggerations and mischaracterizations (e.g. feigned outrage at a 47% increase in taxes in Arkansas during Huckabee's term, never mind that income rose more than 50% in Arkansas and this 10+ year change only amounts to 3.7% annually; legitimate concern about certain voucher proposals = anti-school choice) are the sheen of legitimacy painted on an irrational fear of Huckabee based on associative thinking. Jonah Goldberg's recent NR article, The Horror of Huck, finally, honestly, reveals the true reasons that Huckabee's record is held to an impossible double standard in comparison to the other GOP candidates: "It's a Compassionate Conservative!" which Goldberg equates with several horror movie villains.

In the minds of Conservatism's Inquisition, Huckabee talks a lot about the struggles of the average Joe, John Edwards talks a lot about the struggles of the average Joe, therefore Huckabee's policy positions must be similar to John Edwards. Huckabee is compassionate in his outlook and embraces conservative social views, George W. Bush calls himself a "compassionate conservative" and supports expanding Medicare entitlements and quixotic federal meddling in education, therefore Huckabee must support expanding Medicare entitlements and more federal money and meddling in education. Never mind that a 10-minute perusal of Huckabee's website would reveal that Huckabee's policy prescriptions do not mimic either Edwards or Bush and actually show a great deal of fealty to the Reaganite principles of peace through strength, the power of innovation, and personal responsibility.

Unfortunately, a lot of voters don't take the time to read through Huckabee's website and they take the characterizations of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk on faith. Even if they don't listen to talk radio or read NR, they are likely to see one of Mitt Romney's attack ads or Fred Thompson's attack performance at the Fox News debate on January 10 and instantly believe the accusations that Huckabee is too "liberal" for Republican primary voters.

But who is more orthodox as a conservative? Only Fred Thompson, who is a dead man walking in this election by now. Despite a South Carolina bump from his uncharacteristic passionate (but entirely negative) performance last week, there is no realistic chance Fred could win the nomination, and even less the general election.

Mitt Romney is also orthodox, if you look at his paint-by-numbers conservative policy statements circa 2007 and ignore what he did or said from 1992 through 2006. But he isn't electable either, not because of his religion but because of his persona. When the nation seems poised at the brink of recession, and in any case a lot of families are struggling economically, people are not drawn to a guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth, a TV-perfect physique and an equally TV-perfect family, with a sense of entitlement that because of his "hard work" (ignore his fortunate accidents of circumstance) he can do anything he wants, including buy the Presidency, and anyone else who isn't succeeding just isn't working hard enough. Even though someone finally got through to him recently with the message "it's the economy, stupid," Romney's rosy declarations that Michigan can get back the same jobs it lost cannot reestablish his credibility with voters having incomes under $100,000.

Which leaves the pragmatic voter who identifies himself or herself as "conservative" with... John McCain. Oops! That's not what the self-proclaimed arbiters of conservatism want! But in expending so much fire power on Mike Huckabee, they have let the public forget McCain's decades of serious heterodoxy from conservative principles:

• Rape of the First Amendment - seriously limiting the ability of citizens to effectively communicate political views to the public through the McCain-Feingold Act, violating the first and most fundamental principle in the Bill of Rights.
  
• Opposition to Bush tax cuts - McCain does not believe the core Reaganite economic doctrine that tax cuts can actually improve government revenue if they are designed to stimulate economic growth. Huckabee agreed to certain tax increases when they were absolutely necessary to pay for critical government functions, but he also believes in pursuing tax cuts and changes that stimulate economic growth and improve American competitiveness.
  
• Opposition to addressing conservative social issues - In the Senate, McCain has fought tooth and nail to prevent votes on conservative social issues, and he also undermined the effort to use the "constitutional option" to stop the Democrats from imposing liberal litmus tests on judicial appointments. Former Senator Rick Santorum has been very outspoken about these points in recent days.

This is only a partial list of John McCain's serious defections from conservative principles. But to the conservative pundits, I ask this question: Would you rather lose your "right to smoke" in public indoor spaces, or your right to free political expression? Would you rather pay a small increase in the gas tax to stimulate innovation toward energy independence or see a return to Clinton tax rates and the death tax? Assuming you can't abide by McCain, you better turn your fire off of Mike Huckabee and onto John McCain immediately. Forget your unelectable puppets and form an alliance with Mike Huckabee before it's too late.

Remember, conservative pundits, that "John McCain looks at things through the eyes of the New York Times editorial board." If you keep encouraging a bitter 3-way split among the core conservatives, you won't get a nominee who listens to you at all. You will become entirely irrelevant, ruined by your own overzealous prosecution of Mike Huckabee.

Washington Briefing a Resounding Success!

I just got home an hour ago from the Washington Briefing. This event was a resounding success! Thanks so much to everyone who came, everyone who voted online, and everyone who prayed for Mike Huckabee.

You may have already seen the results of the straw poll - Romney narrowly edged out Huckabee by 0.5% of overall vote - after sending emails to supporters nationwide yesterday telling them to vote online. But Huckabee beat Romney by a 5 to 1 margin among onsite voters, and won 51% of the vote with 9 Republicans on the ballot (and the Democrats too, but this isn't really "their crowd," shall we say).

You also may have read the summary of Huckabee's speech posted by Erick at Redstate and reposted on the Huckabee website. I think this is quite accurate, but want to add a couple points:

• The crowd who went nuts at the beginning and wouldn't stop cheering weren't Arkansas folks. They were Huckabee supporters from all over the country. In fact, I didn't meet a single Huckabee supporter from Arkansas there! (Not that there weren't any, but no one I talked with and asked where they were from said Arkansas.)
• Huckabee got more standing ovations than all of the other Presidential candidates combined! Most of the others got one or two, at best. Huckabee's speech was interrupted by standing ovations so many times that the supporter next to me quipped we were practicing for Huckabee's first State of the Union address.
• Mike's mention of Jesus raising Lazarus was near the end of a litany of Biblical examples of the underdog winning or the impossible happening by the power of God. He started saying that his upbringing taught him that he'd rather be David than Goliath, a good reference to his position right now in terms of fundraising versus real strength as a candidate.

The energy on the ground there was amazing. Yesterday the Huckabee supporters who had coordinated online were handing out pins to people who saw ours and asked for them, and quickly ran out of the 50 or so we had. We were the only ones with a real grassroots there. Thompson brought an entourage that handed out stuff for an hour or two before he spoke, and quickly disappeared afterwards. Romney brought a much bigger entourage yesterday evening, but again, there were only a handful of Romney supporters there the rest of the time. We were all over the floor and growing every hour. Janet Folger was pigeonholing all the big-wigs and handing out color graphs of Huckabee's 63% win at the Value Voters debate in Florida a month ago. Three Huckabee supporters sharing a hotel room stayed up into the wee hours Friday night to put together an excellent flier in support of Huckabee that they handed out to conference-goers as they entered early Saturday morning. Huckabee inspires so much energy from his supporters, I think that alone might be the answer to energy independence. :)

After the speech, Huckabee met for little while with bloggers and other supporters and did a Q&A session, before moving on to the official media meeting. One question was about the difficulty he has had in getting leaders of his own faith to support him. Mike said that the problem was that these leaders seemed to think their job is to handicap the horserace. He said "you should be backing the horse you have, and feeding it." Several people wrote checks on the spot.

This was a great, great day for the Huckabee campaign. Thanks again for everyone who contributed their time, prayers, and votes!

A final important point: after this weekend, Fred Thompson is toast. He is in the race only to be an "electable other" for social conservatives instead of Romney. The social conservatives have spoken: Thompson is a dud. He received only 8% of the onsite vote; and only 10% overall--i.e. including people who didn't see him speak and compare with the other candidates. Many people who had walked into the event leaning or even supporting Thompson left supporting Huckabee. If Thompson bores the conservative base and his share of their votes sits in the cellar, he has no purpose in this campaign.

It's really clear now: there are only two possibilities for the social conservatives to coalesce around to make sure that Rudy Giuliani does not hijack the GOP with a minority faction. Romney or Huckabee. Will the opinion leaders of the conservatives focus on Romney's narrow win of a straw poll with virtually no checks against bias, his big warchest, and his saying all the right things to the value voters, even if the crowd is skeptical and feels pandered to? Or will they focus on Huckabee's gathering momentum, the fact he has won a clear majority in a straw poll of values voters where all the GOP candidates had 15-20 minutes to air their positions, and the fact he energizes the crowd and grassroots far more than any other candidate?

Pray, pray hard that it is the latter. We're with David!

More K Street for Main Street Not Buying Fred

This just in on NRO's Campaign Spot: rumors that the Arlington Group is turning against Fred Thompson and toward Mike Huckabee.

The Arlington Group, for those outside the Beltway, is a one-stop-shop for mobilizing Christian/conservative grassroots organizations for action on Capitol Hill. I've worked with some of their lobbyists - truly the "good guys" of K Street.

Update: Another unnamed individual reinforcing the bad self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm sick of seeing good people led by the nose by conventional wisdom. The Mary Matalin machine has such great judgment that we lay people must all follow her lead? Uh, who is her husband again?

Self-fulfilling Mistake?

I had a very interesting exchange today with an old friend, who I thought might be persuadable to join the Huckabee team. (Big Buchanan fan in 2000 when he was director of a non-profit; now a mole on Wall Street so he can provide for his 9 children.) Here in slightly abbreviated form for your illumination:

Wall Street Mole (in response to K Street Mole's expression of skepticism about Fred Thompson's campaign):

I'm aware of his reputation [as a "junkyard dog"], and sure it is well-earned. Hard to tell how it will play with soccer moms and core Republican women voters, and there's a minefield of Gennifer Flowers's out there ready to blow up. The abortion lobbying business is troubling, I grant you, but his voting record otherwise is solid on the issue, and he's attracted the support of solid conservatives.

FT is far from perfect and no Reagan, but I think it's too far to go and too long odds for Huckabee or Brownback, this time at least. If I'm right, the next question becomes which candidate who espouses conservative views is most likely to gain momentum and stop Hillary next November?

K Street Mole:

Here's my question: why has FT attracted the support of so many conservatives? As far as I can tell, it is because:
1. His votes in the Senate were reliably conservative.
2. He does not espouse socially liberal views (Giuliani).
3. He is not anti-first-amendment, pro-illegal-immigration (McCain), or Mormon (Romney).
4. He has been on a TV show, so people recognize his face.

Numbers 1-3 explain why conservatives are willing to vote for him, despite the bimbo erruptions to come. Number 3 explains why he wouldn't completely bomb in a general election. But only #4 is a positive factor suggesting he could capture swing voters in the general election. I think that's a pretty weak positive, and could backfire because people might not take an actor seriously. I have strong doubts that face recognition will trump distaste over his personal life. Particularly because liberals willing to overlook his personal life will not be attracted by 1/2.

So what is there in FT to attract the type of people who voted for Bill Clinton despite his indiscretions? Nothing, I would say. Can you think of any reason he is likely to gain momentum among independents and beat Hillary? I'd be willing to get on board the train if someone could answer me that.

I think Huckabee has something positive to offer swing voters, which is fresh perspective on domestic issues people really care about. So what if those swing voters never saw him before he got the Republican nomination? Simply by virtue of being the candidate he would get tons of media exposure to overcome that issue. And he is already getting attention from the MSM because the interesting dark horse angle, and the attraction of the populist elements of his campaign rhetoric. Earned media is worth more than grainy attack ads that the big donors pay for.

Wall Street Mole was essentially rendered speechless by this. His response:

I would be thrilled to see Huckabee take off, btw. Just don't see it happening. I know that people like me saying that is self-fulfilling, but I'm out of the mix these days, watching from the electronic wings. If Thompson impresses from the hustings, he has a shot. Most people vote on image, and he's got a leg up.

Yes, my Wall Street friend, people like us saying that Huckabee has no chance and Thompson is the one with "image" IS self-fulfilling. The key word in the next sentence is IF. IF Thompson impresses swing voters he has a shot. But Wall Street Mole can't tell me - and no one can - what evidence there is that Thompson will impress swing voters. As far as I can tell, the only reason he has traction with conservatives is because he's getting attention from the likes of Sean Hannity and National Review. That won't sway the Reagan Democrat in Ohio whose employer went bankrupt last year. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised next week, but I am terribly afraid the conservative opinion leaders have hitched their wagon to the wrong horse.

The only way to turn around a bad self-fulfilling prophecy is to stop repeating it and start acting to reverse it.

Finally!

It's been a long political winter for me.

At a Christmas party I chatted with a gal joining Romney's campaign. I liked his integrity in family values, his experience, his willingness to tackle the healthcare mess. It didn't bother me that he is Mormon - here inside the Beltway anyone on the right side of the culture war is a close friend and ally, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Mormon, what have you. But how would his faith play in Peoria? Thinking back to my childhood in the Land of Lincoln, I never imagined I would grow up to count Mormons among my closest friends. What about in Mississippi where my husband lived a couple years? They barely tolerate Catholics, much less Mormons, he tells me. Even worse, my formerly-Mormon, formerly-Southern friend tells me. I hold out, wondering if there is a better champion for the Republican party, though I rue the religious prejudice...

McCain - never an option. I will never forgive him for maiming the essential First Amendment freedom of political speech.

Giuliani - also not an option. A man who is unashamed of cheating on his wife will be unashamed of cheating on the people who elect him. You think this sexual libertine will keep his promise to appoint a "strict constructionist" Supreme Court justice who might overturn Roe v. Wade? Ask his children and you'll get a real answer.

Finally, this spring, the rumors of Fred Thompson began to spread. A number of my friends have drunk the Thompson Kool-Aid. But how can a man affectionately referred to by his friends as a "junkyard dog of Capitol Hill" (referring to his "robust dating life" until he married a tart half his age) be the savior of social conservatives? And why can't he be a man and debate with the others? What's this silly murmuring non-campaign-campaign? Just because he's a TV star doesn't make him the next Ronald Reagan.

Never really looked at the second tier...

Then Ames happened.

I remembered - who ever heard of Bill Clinton outside of Arkansas before 1991? Maybe prior name recognition isn't the be all and end all of a successful campaign. And then the chatter came on National Review, my most essential non-spiritual reading. What they praised about him I praised. What they panned about him, I cheered for his gutsy willingness to stand for what is good policy over party line. And this week, he's leading Thompson in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls. Huckabee's campaign is still a long shot, but now a real chance. A 3-pointer, but not a half-court toss.

In 1992, I was just barely too young to vote, and lost my political innocence as a "Reagan baby" as I watched this sleazy guy no one had heard of 18 months earlier win the Presidency of the United States. But it's a new day in America. This year my hope is the new man from Hope!