Huck & Mitt: Dysfunctional Duo Needs to Just Go Away

I think Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are both good men, and they both need to withdraw from Republican presidential politics.

The running gun battles between the Huck and Mitt camps are not healthy for the conservative movement. Huck is a slick, smiling gut-fighter who easily lapses into thinly disguised anti-Mormon conceit and liberal tinged populism. Mitt is a wildly successful businessman who is also an ideological chameleon.

I am tired of the bickering between these two men and their fervid supporters. Like matches and gasoline, each man is good in his own way, but mixed together they cause a conflagration that can only damage the conservative movement. And the arguments that spring up around this dreadful duo traffic in religion and personality rather than substantive issues. The ongoing argument has devolved into a third-world political mudball fight where the faithful worship their political idol and smear and demean the opponent. Viva Huck! Mitt is el diablo!

We need substantive debates on core issues, not personality contests. And these two shape-shifters and their cohorts have generated light and heat and sparks but very little substance.

And for this reason I also believe we need to take a cold-eyed view of Sarah Palin. She is a woman of great accomplishment, but we need to drop the mythology and ask if she really has the foreign policy credentials to be president.

Let's be honest, president Bush had no foreign policy experience, and I think that worked against him and the nation. President-Elect Obama does not, but it remains to be seen how that will work out. If it works out well for him, then Sarah Palin can make a case for herself by pointing to President Obama's success in spite of his inexperience. She can then make a case based on judgment and her Alaska record, which I think would put her in good stead.

We need to drop the politics of personality and judge our candidates on the merits of their ideas and experience.

I don’t see much of a future for the GOP when religious bigotry is part of strategic machinations behind the scene in party politics. [rottndog]

Religion is very important to a lot of people. I would never vote for a Muslim. Call me a bigot - I don’t care. [Nobama08]

Rottndog, you need to consult reality. (May I suggest a Rasmussen Report poll from late 2006? Then, you’d see once-and-for-all that voters taking “faith & beliefs” into consideration is hardly a rare deal) [see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1741561/posts

Excerpt from that thread: The Rasmussen Reports survey found that 35% say that a candidate's faith and religious beliefs are very important in their voting decision. Another 27% say faith and religious beliefs are somewhat important. Ninety-two percent (92%) of Evangelical Christian voters consider a candidate's faith and beliefs important. On the partisan front, 78% of Republicans say that a candidate's faith is an important consideration, a view shared by 55% of Democrats. However, there is also a significant divide on this topic within the Democratic Party. Among minority Democrats, 71% consider faith and religious beliefs an important consideration voting. Just 44% of white Democrats agree.

So, did you realize…
(1)…you’re calling 62% of the nation “bigots?” (add the 35% and 27% figures mentioned above) – ‘cause that’s how many told Rasmussen that a candidate’s faith is either very or somewhat important as a consideration? (Yes or no?)
(2)…you are also labeling as “bigots” a full 92% of Evangelical Christians who told Rasmussen they considered a candidate’s faith and beliefs an important consideration? (Yes or no?)
(3)…you’re also blasting away at the 78% of Republicans who said that a candidate’s faith & beliefs are an important consideration? (Yes or No?)
(4)…that even a majority of DEMOCRATS (55%) said that a candidate’s faith & beliefs are an important consideration? (Yes or No?)

I’m not blaming Christians/ evangelicals. I’m blaming people who wouldn’t vote for him because he is a Mormon (plenty of those here on FR). Those that do so are not only bigots, but stupid ones at that. Unfortunately, many of those are Christians/ evangelicals, but by no means is it my intention to broad brush all Christians/ evangelicals (I am one). [rottndog]

Listen, before you keep opening your mouth for more ignorance to spew forth as false ammo for those who disagree with Evangelicals, try also looking for data from Gallup poll people (Feb ’07).

Gallup Feb '07 data said that "conservative" voters were 9% more likely to vote for an LDS POTUS candidate than "liberal" voters; and 11% more likely than "moderate" voters. (I mean, give me a break! Why do you think McCain got the nod? ‘Cause all those moderates went for Romney? Not on your life!)

(In addition, 11% of Gallup’s expanded polling sample that month said, "No" that they would not vote for an LDS POTUS candidate...By the time you realize that probably half of them didn't vote or weren't Republicans to begin with -- either weren't registered, weren't registered as (R) or didn't turn out...and that most of them weren't conservatives, then the light finally turns on)

Now, let’s compare that to 1999, the year before Joe Lieberman was VP candidate: At that time, a Gallup poll said 8% would not vote for a Jewish POTUS candidate. 4% said they wouldn't vote for a Baptist POTUS candidate; and 21% in 2006 told the LA Times/Blomberg Poll that they wouldn't vote for an Evangelical POTUS candidate (though this poll’s “not vote” numbers were inflated across the board – not just for Evangelicals).

>>>Mitts foreign policy experience

He has traveled quite extensively over the globe for years in the business world. He has quite a bit of experience in that realm.

As for dealing with the possiblity of war with foreign nations, which is probably what you are really getting at, he follows his Dad's and Reagan's philosophy. "You can't a superpower military without a superpower economy". His dad George was responsible for the conversion of domestic automobile plants to manufacturing planes, tanks and bombs over 1/5th of the wartime material used in WWII. With our manufacturing plants about to go under it doesn't matter if we have a Hawk in the White House if there are no plants to build the tanks. During his time as Gov. of Mass. he also did quite a bit for upping National Gaurd and Veterans benefits.

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