Same Party, Different Style - Romney, Huckabee Present a Stark Choice For Iowa Republicans

Wall Street Journal ^ | December 26, 2007 | LAURA MECKLER and ELIZABETH HOLMES

[Tlaloc]

Mike Huckabee loves homespun tales and self-deprecating jokes. Mitt Romney basks in PowerPoint slides and statistics. Mr. Huckabee, a firefighter's son, is a Southerner born and bred. Mr. Romney, son of a CEO-turned-governor, roamed from Michigan to Massachusetts to Utah.

They embody two wings of the Republican Party -- social conservatives and economic conservatives -- that sometimes sit uneasily.

While John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson are competitive in national polls, all three are focusing on states after Iowa. The kickoff Jan. 3 caucus here is largely between Messrs. Romney and Huckabee.

Mr. Huckabee displays his Southern Baptist religion proudly, dropping Biblical references and telling reporters he wouldn't hesitate to put the Ten Commandments up in the Oval Office. Mr. Romney is uncomfortable discussing his Mormon faith. He gave a speech devoted to "Faith in America" only after his campaign was put on defense in Iowa by Mr. Huckabee's rise. In the speech, Mr. Romney mentioned Mormonism by name just once.

The differences are a matter of style, too.

Last week in Waterloo, Iowa, Mr. Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, talked about the challenge of overhauling the tax system this way: "In the South, we say if you can't fix it with duct tape and WD-40 it can't be fixed."

A week earlier, Mr. Romney showed a PowerPoint presentation charting the budget deficit. "See how big it gets?" he said, pointing to a line tracking entitlement spending. "This line is the historical average of how much money the federal government takes away from taxpayers."

[Tlaloc]

Fred Thompson voted for permanent normal trade relations with China when he was in the senate. When Huckabee was governor he signed a free trade agreement between Arkansas and Taiwan!

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

>>Those quotations don’t directly contradict Senator Thompson’s past statements that he opposes laws prohibiting abortions.<<

I believe that they do contradict his earlier apparently pro-choice statements more that 10 years ago, but you and I agree that Thompson does not believe that a human life amendment will pass, and we agree that something needs to be done about Roe v. Wade and even worse judicial rulings, such as Doe v. Bolton, following Roe.

Since I have not heard and relevant Huckabee quotes on this, I will repeat my question to you:

What penalties for a woman who has an abortion has Huckabee advocated? You think that Huckabee would “prohibit abortions,” but I am not sure how that would work.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

>>Fred Thompson voted for permanent normal trade relations with China when he was in the senate.<<

Russia also has “Most Favored Nation” status. Suppose that Putin led Russia into a pre-Gorbachev anti-USA stance, Russia was receiving a trillion dollars from its trade surplus with us to strengthen its military, and Russia was threatening to re-annex Eastern Europe.

And suppose the US government stood by and did nothing because some US companies were making money from that arrangement. What would matter more to me would not be the fact that Russia once had MFN status, but the fact that our elected leaders continued to sell us, and indeed the free world, out.

Fred Thompson should say something else than he believes in “free trade.”

[Tlaloc]

Mike Huckabee on Russia
"Since Russia benefits from high energy prices, President Vladimir Putin has more incentives to keep energy markets jittery than to resolve the crisis with Iran. Russia also profits handsomely from selling weapons to Iran, mostly air defense systems intended to protect Iran from possible U.S. air strikes. I support going forward with the current plan to set up ten missile interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic to protect Europe from Iranian missiles. Putin opposes an antimissile system in the former Soviet satellite states (even though we have offered to share the technology with the Russians) and our potential use of Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, as a staging ground for an attack on Iran. We must remember that with the collapse of the Soviet Union came the revival of Russia, which has always had both imperialist ambitions and an inferiority complex vis-à-vis the West."

[Sun]

“.. Last month a Chinese stealth sub surprised a US Navy carrier group by surfacing suddenly near the USS Kitty Hawk. Worse, the Chinese have developed anti-satellite weapons, are developing and probably spying on us with cyber-science (including hacking as you mentioned), and want to beat us in many other fields of research, including nanotechnology and military exploitation of outer space. Their current capabilities may not always work today, but they are getting much, much stronger, and their trade profits with us are funding all these efforts, while our manufacturing base and incentives for our students to become engineers decline. “

Great info.

I don’t understand why Duncan Hunter is the only Republican candidate coming out about Communist China. Surely the other candidates must know what’s going on.

[Sun]

As voters are finding out the flaws of who they once thought to be conservative candidates, I think they will be more willing to research Duncan Hunter more thoroughly.

Duncan Hunter is the ONLY candidate who thoroughly understands the Communist China threat.

Duncan Hunter is the ONLY candidate who had a fence built at the San Diego border.

Duncan Hunter is the ONLY candidate that authored the bill for a fence from CA thru TX which was signed into law.

Duncan Hunter is the ONLY candidate that has a son that did three tours in the Middle East, two tours in Iraq (including Fallujah) and the third tour in Afghanistan.

Duncan Hunter was Chairman of the Armed Services Committee (when the Republicans had the majority), gave us ABS deployed in Alaska, and Hunter built up the defense that Bill Clinton tore down, and got equipment and weapons to protect our troops, and our country.

Hunter and Brownback (but Brownback dropped out) were the only presidential candidates to attend the pro-life march in D.C., Hunter fought the aclu to keep the Mt. Soledad cross, Hunter fought to allow students to pray in schools, and President Reagan even called Hunter and praised him for his fight, and Hunter introduces the personhood-at-conception law each year.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Yep. He has the credentials alright.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

>>I don’t understand why Duncan Hunter is the only Republican candidate coming out about Communist China. Surely the other candidates must know what’s going on.<<

Some may honestly believe that trade will plant the seeds of democracy in China, and reform will arise from "the bottom up." Some may think that "free trade," like capitalism itself, benefits all people by means of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" (i. e. each individual who makes money enriches everyone). Both of these principles are valid, everything else being equal, and I think trade on a level playing field is a good thing. But I believe we do not have fair trade with China.

And some politicians might just be greedy.

Some will read this and say I am a "protectionist," but no, I understand that we shuld not return to a Smoot-Hawley tariff policy. I just think we can negotiate better trade deals, and do more to nurture our own manufacturing base.

Keeping American Industry and Jobs in the U.S.

[Sun]

You would think by now, the pro-trade with Red China people would realize that China isn’t interested in democracy, even after years of trade.

And it is Red China who is a protectionist, not those of us who want fair trade.