Posted on 02/22/2008 11:42:36 PM PST by Kurt Evans
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee met with conservative Christian leader James Dobson Friday as he vied to pick up the Colorado delegates pledged to Mitt Romney, who dropped out of the race. Huckabee's visit comes two weeks after Dobson endorsed him for president.
"Personally it was a great encouragement," Huckabee said of the endorsement. "I think it also was an extraordinary boost for our campaign because Dr. Dobson is seen as such a true national leader when it comes to issues of life, marriage and family."
Huckabee is an ordained Baptist minister and a former governor of Arkansas. His campaign has been kept alive in part by support from conservative Christians who don't want to back Arizona Sen. John McCain.
Appearing without Dobson at a podium on a lawn outside the campus of Focus on the Family, Huckabee declined to describe what he and his friend of 14 years discussed.
Huckabee, who was in Colorado Springs to speak Friday night to the conservative group, Leadership Program of the Rockies, said the meeting was "personal" in nature and "not a meeting that I was having with him in his capacity as the leader of Focus on the Family."
Although Huckabee said Dobson's backing has helped him, he doubts the Focus on the Family founder will be campaigning for him.
"I think it would be very difficult for him to go on the campaign trail," Huckabee said. "I did not ask for that, and I would not expect that."
Through a spokesman, Dobson also declined to describe the conversation and cautioned against reading into why he didn't appear with Huckabee.
"This was a long-planned private conversation between two friends and Dr. Dobson wanted to keep it that way," said Gary Schneeberger, a Dobson spokesman. "It's certainly not meant to temper his support of the governor."
He said Dobson would not comment on a private meeting. Schneeberger also said Dobson was sensitive to IRS rules that restrict tax-exempt groups like Focus on the Family from getting involved in politics. When Dobson endorses political candidates, he emphasizes he is speaking as an individual and not for the group.
Many political observers believe Huckabee, with 254 delegates, doesn't have a chance of catching McCain, who has 958 delegates of the 1,191 needed to win the nomination. Romney, who dropped out of the race earlier this month after picking up 280 delegates, has endorsed McCain.
That hasn't discouraged Huckabee.
"There's 46 delegates at stake in Colorado that could be mine," Huckabee told dozens of cheering supporters.
Dick Wadhams, Colorado chair of the Republican Party, said that that the Feb. 5 caucus—where Huckabee came in third after Romney and McCain—was a "preference poll" and that delegates are still up for grabs.
Huckabee also commented about a New York Times article Thursday alleging that McCain's staffers were concerned about a relationship with a female lobbyist during his first presidential run eight years ago. McCain and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, have denied they had a romantic relationship.
"My only experience with (McCain) as a fellow candidate the past 14 months is a positive one," Huckabee said. "I see him as a man of integrity. He's denied the allegations in the New York Times article. I have no reason to doubt him."
Mimi Hailes, 50, of Colorado Springs has been working on Huckabee's campaign in Colorado and it was thrill to meet him and see him person.
"I told him that I've been praying for him and that I pray for him every day," Hailes said. "I'm very hopeful that he's still going to be our candidate."
The cheerful, lighthearted Huckabee cracked some jokes with his supporters and talked about his upcoming guest appearance on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" on Saturday, saying that if he couldn't make it they might get Brad Pitt to portray him.
“You are a blatant LIAR. Huckabee is responsible for pretending to wonder about the beliefs of Mormons. It was a rhetorical question and he played it to anyone scared of/prejudiced against Mormons. It’s so blatant a lie to say otherwise.”
What is the answer that the world is supposed to know about the unique Mormon beliefs?
Yup just like Huckabee came up to Mass on Super Tuesday declaring he was going to win. He got, what, 10% or so. His rationale for his visit, like the Cayman Islands, was on it's face a lie. Huckster, just like his predecessor, Clinton, has mastered the art of "Aw shucks." He develops a defense strategy using some joking theme riddled with a couple one-liners. The media eats it up because it makes good copy and then, because the MSM likes his spoiler role, he is hardly challenged.
People can support his spoiler role - I can work with that. They are unhappy about McCain, the GOP etc. They simply won't accept the presumed nominee so anybody else is welcome. What I won't accept is the implication that Huckabee isn't in the role of a spoiler. The delegate count and his declaration today make his spoiler role irrefutable.
Rumor had been that should Paul not finish in the top three, his delegates would walk out of the convention. Instead, they met in closed session in the 'Ron Paul Room' at the Charleston Civic Center to consider a proposal from the state Huckabee leadership and a last minute offer from the state leadership of the Mitt Romney campaign. Although Mr. O’Neil, one of the state Romney leaders, offered five national delegates to Paul in return for their support, Burgess indicated state Paul leaders did not consider it a credible offer. “The Romney supporters in WV had not been treating our Ron Paul supporters in WV well. We did not feel we could trust [the late offer from those] who did not care to invest anything in a relationship of trust. West Virginians that support Huckabee took the time to develop a relationship of trust, they treated us fairly, they treated us as equals, and they recognized we were genuine Republicans and a force to be reckoned with,” Burgess said. “West Virginia Romney supporters thought we would leave the convention after the first round,” Burgess said. “We caught them off guard. They underestimated us. They believed their own lies about Dr. Paul and his supporters.” West Virginia Huckabee and Paul leaders had treated each other with mutual respect since November. Anticipating no candidate would receive 50% on the first ballot, the agreement was to present an offer to the delegates of the candidate who finished in fourth place. “There were no back-room deals,” Burgess said, adding, “ We pledged to them that we would present the offer [of three convention delegates] to our delegates. We caucused amongst ourselves, discussed the long standing relationship; we discussed the Johnny-come-lately offer, and we decided to go with those who had treated us with respect and taken the time to treat us as equals,” Burgess explained. It had been agreed by WV leaders in the Huckabee and Paul campaigns. This explained why Mike Huckabee said in a national television interview that he had no knowledge of the agreement. It was exclusively the culmination of a relationship that had developed in West Virginia among honorable state leaders supporting both candidates.
Whatever. The whole long paragraph is a statement by a Paul supporter that says, without any explanation or substantiation, that the WV Romney delegates "weren't nice to us" and so we talked to the nice Huckabee folks. We made a deal with them for three delegates instead of Romney's offer of five because we've really dig each other. There was no backroom deal, we just "caught them off guard" by not waiting for the second vote and announced our switch.
The guy completely contradicts his shared view with Huckabee that there was no backroom deal. They just took two less delegates and jumped the gun before the second round. Romney couldn't counter offer because he had ALREADY OFFERED MORE DELEGATES TO THE PAUL PEOPLE THAN HUCKABEE.
This was a textbook example of a backroom (clandestine) deal. And Huckabee and his supporters that deny such show exactly why me and others believe Huckabee to be a bald-face liar and insulting to our intelligence.
And all this time I thought Ron Paul was the crazy one.
We don’t caucus in my state, but it is my understanding that this is exactly how a caucus works. If your candidate doesn’t cut it in the first round, you are free to switch to another candidate. If I remember correctly, a little more than half of the McCain delegates went to Huckabee, but without the Paul delegates, Huckabee would not have won.
Doesn’t sound like a backroom deal to me...sounds like a caucus.
Doesn’t sound like a backroom deal to me...sounds like a caucus.
I never said it was against the rules. I said that the Paul people made a deal for 3 delegates instead of 5 because of some supposed slight then caught the Romney folks, as the Paul guy said, "off guard", which means they gave the impression to the Romney folks that they weren't going to deal then made a DEAL FOR LESS DELEGATE BOOTY with the Huckabee crew. The only thing less sneakier would have been for the Huckabee folks to have offered MORE delegates than Romney and then pulled the switch. That would have made sense. But this "they weren't nice to us" defense for taking a worse deal doesn't cut it.
And whether only half of the McCain folks switched just means the deal was orchestrated so as to spread the fingerprints. It was smart backroom politics and an obvious deal to create an early Super Tuesday Romney-loss storyline to the benefit of the other three candidates.
Bottomline: the Baptist made a deal with the Foreign Policy Nut and the Frontrunner to cut down the Mormon. Now we are supposed to believe The Baptist should replace the Frontrunner. I know it's politics but when it comes to the veracity of a single, biased account on a convention switcharoo...don't pretend we should ignore the inherent bias, obvious contradictions and specious reasoning.
His people sent out greeting cards in SC featuring Romney endorsing polygamy.
Ping
“Huckabee meets with James Dobson; vies for Romney’s delegates”
After the crapola that Huckboob pulled on Romney throughout this election, he can pound sand.
ROTFLOL!
So, if I wrote: "Aren't you the FReeper who liked to play with little boys?" you wouldn't call it a smear?
Right, and I didn’t address this post to you, but if I did, this is what it would look like, LOL!
ROTFLOL!
“There’s 46 delegates at stake in Colorado that could be mine,”
I’m going to the Colorado state convention as a delegate and I guarantee there is NO WAY I would vote for a Huckabee delegate to go to the national convention.
My caucus preference vote was overwhelmingly for Romney and Huck only got one vote. I don’t think many in my precinct appreciated the nonsense Huck pulled.
You couldn't be more wrong. Being an Iowan, we had plenty of opportunity to get to know these candidates as well as we wanted. Huck may be conservative on the life and marriage issues but after that, his conservatism disappears. We could get the pro-life and marriage positions from other candidates, as well, and not have to take the socialistic push. He's a nanny stater. Huck is no conservative. The longer he keeps up this charade, the less respect, I have for him.
But he held himself as being uniquely qualified to fight the war on Islamic fascism because he held a theology degree:
“In fact I think I’m stronger than most people because I truly understand the nature of the war that we are in with Islamo fascism. These are people that want to kill us. It’s a theocratic war. And I don’t know if anybody fully understands that. I’m the only guy on that stage with a theology degree. I think I understand it really well”
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/266712.aspx
Did his Baptist theological studies teach him more about Islam than LDS? I find that hard to believe.
“Did his Baptist theological studies teach him more about Islam than LDS? I find that hard to believe.”
Everybody learns about the world’s second largest religion, I know that I was taught about Islam and Judaism, but we don’t particularly study Mormons and Hare Krishnas and Scientology and such.
I think that's likely the view of many Romney delegates.
bttt
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