Romney Drops Out - Huckabee Last Rival to McCain Standing

Well folks, just when you thought all the crazy twists and turns of the 2008 GOP primary season were coming to an end, the fat lady singing has again grabbed one candidate but promptly disappeared over the horizon. Her victim today: Mitt Romney, who bowed out with a speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee annual meeting.

It ain't over for Mike Huckabee, no matter how much the Wall Street - Beltway axis of "expert" pundits wish to ignore him. In fact, he is the last conservative left standing.

John McCain, my friends, is not a conservative. He has only been winning at best 30-some percent of the vote in the states that he has won. Two-thirds of Republican voters want someone more conservative than McCain. They only have one choice left. And despite all the exaggerations and hysterics of the NRO-talk radio crowd, Huckabee is a conservative, and certainly there is no serious argument that he isn't more conservative than McCain.

Consider:

• Embryonic stem cell research: McCain supports; Huckabee opposes.
• Gang of 14: McCain's glory in the liberal press supersedes the need to ensure that all judicial nominees get an up-or-down vote in the Senate.
• Supply side tax cuts: McCain doesn't believe that lowering taxes helps the economy and ultimately boosts government revenue (opposed the Bush tax cuts); Huckabee supports pro-growth tax-cutting policies, recognizing they make the U.S. economy more competitive internationally and help create jobs.
• Immigration: McCain wanted to grant amnesty to 10 million+ illegals; Huckabee wanted to make the best of a bad situation he couldn't control as governor, but wants the Federal government to stand up strong to its obligation to stop the flow of illegals into our states.
• Campaign finance regulation: McCain believes that the free speech of concerned citizens should be regulated and oppressed so that the mainstream media has a monopoly on shaping political debates and lobbyist-funded incumbents can't be effectively challenged. He even got away with it, with the acquiescence of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
• By the way, count on McCain appointing another weathervane Supreme Court Justice like Sandra Day O'Connor (and like himself).

Yes, McCain is good on national defense issues, but Huckabee doesn't disagree with him on those issues. Let's talk about Huckabee making McCain VP to shore up his foreign affairs flank, not the other way around.

It's time for conservatives to flock to the polls and show this is still a real race, and they're voting for the more conservative candidate -- Mike Huckabee!

The Potomac Primary is next Tuesday: Virginia, Maryland and DC all go to the polls February 12. I especially hope that Virginia tops off Huckabee's sweep of the South (minus the Thompson spoiler). Even better, if Maryland were to go for Huckabee, it would prove that he can win outside the South in a 2-man race.

Everyone get out there on the field and win this one for Huckabee! And to the man who has planted his foot in the neck of the 1st Amendment, don't forget the Virginia motto: "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (translation: an Amazon woman stands astride a fallen king, declaring "always thus to tyrants").

Huckabee's Economic Stimulus Plan

First, a note on Michigan. I'm sad that Huckabee didn't win, as the polls indicated he might a few weeks ago, but I'm glad that Romney broke McCain's "momentum." This should deflate the McCain bubble and give Huckabee a better chance at winning South Carolina on Saturday. It's do-or-die time!

Romney seems to have won Michigan because of his conversion in the past week to the idea that the economy is hurting and maybe the government can do something helpful. In Romney's case, that "something helpful" is promising to shovel billions of dollars to Michigan in corporate welfare while mandating health insurance coverage for every American, thereby saddling the whole nation with similar health care costs as the auto industry. I guess Romney has decided that buying elections with his own money wasn't working too well, and buying an election with the taxpayers' money is cheaper for him and apparently more effective too.

Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee, who has been characterized by certain quarters as an "economic liberal" for having acknowledged the looming economic problems months ago, has put out an economic stimulus plan that addresses the struggles of the entire nation. Called the "Fair Deal," Huckabee's plan is both forward thinking and remarkably, well, conservative in its economic tone.

First off, Huckabee explains that "I know that Main Street, as well as Wall Street, is threatened by a weakening economy. But we are all in this together." Doesn't sound like John Edwards to me...

Principle 1: Strengthen the economic health of middle class families. Eliminate the marriage penalty. Cut taxes on savings. Make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Stem the tide of housing foreclosures. Cut bureaucratic red tape that hampers small businesses. Open new foreign markets for exporting U.S. products and services. (Weird! I don't see anything about capping executive pay or raising taxes on the rich.)

Principle 2: Work with the Federal Reserve to take a balanced approach to stave off recession while not encouraging inflation. (This is the key short-term element of the plan.)

Principle 3: Create jobs by building up the strength of our military, borders, and critical infrastructure. We desperately need to do these things anyway for the safety of our nation. It so happens that getting them done creates new jobs too.

Principle 4: Invest in energy independence. Not just for cars to buy Michigan's votes, but for all forms of energy, to get us off dependence on foreign oil entirely.

Principle 5: Make the tax system more competitive. Of course Huckabee advocates the Fair Tax, but recognizes it will take a long time to get there. In the meantime, reduce counterproductively high personal and corporate income tax rates and eliminate the death tax. (Super weird--he even wants to reduce taxes on the rich!)

The great thing about this plan is that it is balanced and addresses the long-range problems that are causing economic security and the move toward a recession. Some on Capitol Hill are proposing band-aid stimulus ideas, like retroactive tax cuts for 2007 to put rebate checks in people's hands this spring. A rebate check is nice and all (just got one from Sears tonight) but it doesn't address the core insecurity. For families that are really struggling it pays their fuel bills for a couple of months, and then what? For people who aren't as strapped, maybe they'll go out and buy golf clubs like someone I know did with his 2002 tax rebate check, but a tiny, temporary spike in consumer spending isn't going to cause employers to hire more people or give raises or stem the tide of home foreclosures.

Huckabee's plan is designed to address, over the long haul, the core problems of stagnating wages, rising energy costs, and an anti-family tax system. Bravo, Governor! If only our country could get past partisan hatred and pigeonholing to actually enact such sensible solutions!

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!