Ex-Governor Mike Huckabee and Governor Chris Christie relegated to the kid's table; Pataki and Gilmore, out

By Jack Brummet, 2016 primary and caucus ed.

Ex-Governor Mike Huckabee and Governor Chris Christie didn't poll well enough to stay on the main stage and are now relegated to the kid's table at the 4th Republican debate next Tuesday. They both failed to come up with the 2.5% share in the polls. 

On November 10th, Huck and The Governor will be standing with Gov. Bobby Jindal. and Sen. Lindsey Graham.  Ex-Gov. George Pataki and Jim Gilmore didn't even pull enough points this time to be at the kid's table.

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Huck pulls out::::Ron Paul leaps in with a sure-fire way to energize the rights and tea-party--legalize heroin:::::Trump stumps::::::Newt Leaps in:::::And now, all the contenders will draw a bead on Mitt

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
Illustration by Jack Brummet

Ex-Governor Mike Huckabee today pulled out of the Presidential contest.  I was surprised, although he has clearly been waffling, and his consultant Ed Rollins hinted this week that Huck was a no-go.  This is a definite game-changer.

“All the factors say go, but my heart says no and that’s the decision I have made,” he said.  Huckabee stressed the decision was not financial (many pundits have noted the vast amount of money he has made in the last couple of years on books and Fox--and he is building a very expensive home in Florida), or political.  He said his family urged him to run.  The polls showed he was a serious contender and that he could draw voters from outside the south and wingnut arm of the GOP.  He is known to really dislike fundraising, but was convinced recently that he could raise the cash for a serious run.  I'll admit, I don't agree with much--if anything--he says, but he has always seemed by far the most likable of that entire crowd. 

In the meantime, of the serious candidates, Pawlenty is in, Mitt is in, and Newt Gingrich is in.  Interestingly, Jon Ward, on the Huffington Post wrote today that "Perhaps no one will benefit more than Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) if she decides to run. She has the capability -- probably more than any other potential GOP candidate -- to unite social conservatives in Iowa in the manner Huckabee did last election."  God forbid!

It's always fun to watch the Republicans when they are out in the cold.  They start acting like Democrats.  I suspect everyone's gunsights (to use Sarah Palin's metaphor) will be focused squarely on Mitt Romney, who sometimes at least, seems to be the only possibly electable one of the entire pathetic bunch.

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Ex-Governor Palin riding low in the water & high in the polls

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
& Jack Brummet, Social Mores & Ethics Editor

Holy S***t!    People laughed when Jack wrote a year and a half ago that Sarah Palin had a serious shot at succeeding President Barack Obama--after one term.  Pablo laughed, and didn't take his jabbering as half-serious...it was just Jack being contrarian Jack.   But then, a few months later, the Teabag movement began gathering momentum, Sarah Palin had sold millions of books, and piled away millions of dollars. She was making highly paid speeches.  She's been racing around the country and beating the drum for teabagger-approved candidates. 

This recent Gallup Poll raised the collective hairs on our necks. 

We haven't seen any recent Palin-Obama head to head polls, but this is feeling more than a little spooky.  The juggernaut we all thought would blow itself out by now is still picking up steam.  Even Levi is back on the bus.
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Dean Man Walking--->> The brief transit and rapid eclipse of Mike Huckabee's political career

click to enlarge

Illustration by Jack Brummet
Editorial note by Pablo Fanque, All This Is That National Affairs Editor

Huck, a/k/a Ex-governor Mike Huckabee, has cashed his check. It's all over now. His clemency grant to a child rapist became national news when his boy assassinated four Seattle-area policemen. Any Presidential ambitions Huck had have been utterly and irrevocably extinguished.

Back in 2008, Huckabee had a brief couple of weeks as the GOP "It Guy." He was fairly rapidly smacked down, after snagging a lot of magazine covers, ink, and talking head oxygen. But his pardon of the northwest cop-killer seems to have laid his Presidential ambitions permanently to rest.

I am completely serious when I say that Sarah Palin is thereby jumped up one big notch in the small pack of apparent Republican Presidential contenders.
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Five Paintings: The Presidential Candidates Left Standing

Click to enlarge Barack

The Presidential Candidates Left Standing, are paintings of the last candidates in the race for the Presidency (excluding the absolutely hopeless Communists, Socialist Workers, Libertarian, and other fringe parties). Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee are just barely standing. Hillary is standing, but becoming very wobbly.


Click to enlarge Ron Paul



Click to enlarge John McCain

Click to enlarge Huck

Click to enlarge Hillary

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The Day We've Been Anticipating & Dreading::::::43 Presidential Contests In 24 States

click to enlarge

Maybe this will all be settled by Wednesday morning. The polls seen to say no, but they've been very wrong before in this race. With the Republican winner-take-all system, it may well be decided on their end. We Dems, however, like the fractiousness of proportional primaries, and as a result our contect will likely NOT be settled tomorrow. Maybe it will be settled enough that I can return to the happier days of made-up stories, alien lore, poetry, and parody, instead of obsessing over a bunch of rich people seeking glory who could care less if we woke up tomorrow.

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The Last Weekly Tracking Polls & The Prospect Of A McCain/Clinton Matchup and Love Fest

Pals

The latest weekly tracking polls (from 1/20/08 by Rasmussen Reports) show Senators Clinton and McCain in the Dems lead, and McCain and Romney heading up the G.O.P. heading into the southern primaries and on to Super Tuesday.

G.O.P.

9% Giuliani
19% Huckabee
11% Thompson (oops...he's outta there and his supports are swinging to McCain)
19% Romney
23% McCain

Dems

39% Clinton
31% Obama
16% Edwards
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If Hillary Clinton and John McCain are nominated, this could be the most civilized election ever, at least according to Bill Clinton.

According to CNN, former president Bill Clinton "brushed aside suggestions his wife would prove to be a divisive nominee for the Democratic Party, pointing out how she has successfully worked with Republicans in the Senate," including Senator McCain.

"She and John McCain are very close," Clinton said. "They always laugh that if they wound up being the nominees of their party, it would be the most civilized election in American history, and they're afraid they'd put the voters to sleep because they like and respect each other."

At an ABC debate in January, the two were seen chit-chatting. A Clinton side said "she told the Arizona senator he’d done a “good job” staging a comeback in New Hampshire. He asked that she say hello to Bill Clinton for him."
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Huckabee & Obama take the Iowa contest

click the winners to enlarge

Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama took the Republican and Democratic caucus votes in Iowa on Wednesday, and in the Democratic race, left Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd on the sidelines, as they dropped out of the race. Mitt Romney is sweating. Hillary Clinton "the electable one" is really sweating. John Edwards feels OK. He survived another day. Rudy? McCain? Richardson? The rest of the pack? Hanging on by their fingernails, or mired in the back where they've always been...

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Are Obama and Huck in a tailspin?

In what has to be her best Christmas gift this year, an ARG poll released this week seems to show Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton with a comeback double-digit lead over Senator Barack Hussein Obama among likely caucus-goers.

Clinton and Obama were in a dead heat in last week’s American Research Group poll. In the new survey (December 20-23), she leads the Illinois senator by 15% (34 to 19). If you account for sampling errors, Obama is now in a statistical tie for second place with Ex-Senator John Edwards, who has 20 percent of the vote.

Last week, Mike Huckabee was ahead of Mitt Romney by an 11-point margin. . .but the new poll puts the two back in a statistical tie, 23 to 21 percent, followed by John McCain at 17%, Rudy Giuliani with 14 percent, and even Ron Paul has climbed to 10 %, up from 4 % last week. Man, if Ron Paul is doubling his numbers Huck, Mitt, Crazy John, and Rudy "Queeg" Giuliani must really be blowing it!
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Huckabee Apologizes to Romney Over Mormon Comments/Clinton Apologizes To Obama Over Aide's Drug Remarks

Huckabee Apologizes to Romney Over Mormon Comments

Clinton Apologizes To Obama Over Aide's Drug Remarks

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Mitt Hits Huckabee: Values

This is a video response by Stranahan on YouTube to Mike Huckabee's Message to Iowa . I like it. Thanks to Dean Ericksen for suggesting it.



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Huck-a-mania! Ex-Governor Huckabee nipping at the heels of the "front-runners" who laughed at him weeks ago

click to enlarge Mike Huckabee

Ex-Governor Huckabee continues to surge in the polls. Sure, he may come back down to earth, but it seems like he is having one of those "Howard Dean" moments of political Midas Touch. In the first full round of tracking polls since last week’s “debate” among G.O.P. Presidential hopefuls, Huckabee pulled within three points of Rudy Giuliani. Before that debate, Giuliani was ahead of Huckabee by twelve points.

New polling data released today shows that Huckabee has pulled within 1% of Hillary Clinton in a general election match-up. Huckabee is leading in Iowa and tied for second in New Hampshire. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Giuliani with 20% support nationwide, Huckabee at 17%. Fred Thompson 14%, John McCain 13% and Mitt Romney, 11%. Ron Paul is pulling 7%.

The G.O.P. is experiencing some disequilibrium over the last week, between the debate, the Chuck Norris endorsement of Huckabee, and the apparent flowering of Huck-a-mania! Some of the frontrunners are gasping for air like goldfish on the sidewalk.

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The Iowa Straw Poll - Romney wins; Huckabee snags second

The ex-Governor

Mitt Romney won the Ames straw poll this weekend because a) he was dogged; and b) he has money.


The Governor

With a somewhat convincing victory in the Republican straw poll in Ames, Iowa Saturday, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney launched himself into the next phase of a presidential nomination battle pitting his traditional early-state strategy against a more unorthodox (a/k/a wacky) approach by national front-runner Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Romney's win in the nonbinding Ames contest, sealed by his appeals to the party's conservative base and throwing money all around the state, highlighted his attempt to focus time and people on the opening states of Iowa and New Hampshire, in hopes early victories there will give him The Big Mo. It's worked plenty of times before, but this one is looking to be a strange race indeed.

Giuliani, who is in the doghouse with the traditional GOP folks, and the Neocons, ducked Iowa and is placing his bets on the big states that hold their contests in late January and on the first Tuesday in February.

Romney said the margin of victory represented a major validation of his strategy (saturation coverage of the states + big money infusions. Since three of his major rivals skipped the poll, Romney visited the state 17 times, spent big, and emerged the victor.

In a press conference, Romney taunted the missing. “It’s too bad the other guys weren’t competing here… but they ‘d have played if they thought they could have won,” he said.

Second place went to Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. “We had two fish and five loaves and it fed 5,000,” Huckabee said of his victory. Whether this enables Huckabee to raise huis national profile and raise the all important $$$ remains to be seen. Huck doesn't seem to like fund raising much, and he has virtually no internet visibility.

Several of the second and third tier candidates came close to betting the farm on Iowa and came up with bupkus. Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, had earlier said he would drop out of the race if he did not place at least second. See you around, Tommy.
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