Posted on 02/22/2008 4:42:09 AM PST by torchthemummy
Drudge is ~2.5 weeks late on this....
My in-laws are steel mill types who do whatever the union tells them to. Allegheny county where Pittsburgh sits has the second oldest population in America.
Philly, as you know, regularly has precincts where 100% of the voters vote and where they will not let in Republican poll watchers.
Central PA is republican but doesn’t have the popultion to overcome the margin of corruption in the big cities.
Huckabee has no chance of forcing a deadlocked convention, and if he DID he wouldn’t be the “conservative alternative”.
In fact, nobody would be, and McCain would win anyway. I doubt we could get agreement even HERE on who the conservative candidate would be if we could choose them.
That would be a great poll question. My guess is the winner would be someone who is already proven to be unelectable.
I am all for deadlocking this thing, if at all possible, and stopping the liberal socialists within the GOP. Just too bad that it has to be HUCKAPHONIE to be the one to do it. I much would have preferred Hunter, Tancredo or Thompson to have been the one to put a stop to McSHAMNESTY. But whatever works.
Well, he said that HE would be the conservative alternative.
Quite the opposite, I am glad he’s sticking it out to the end to send the message that the “religious right” is a powerful voting block that McCain is going to have to go to extreme lengths to woo if he thinks he will have any hope of winning, and that the GOP in general had better stop taking for granted!
Santorum's loss remains a mystery.
Firstly, it disproves the theory (espoused by Limbaugh and every other conservative in America) that "conservatism works every time it's tried."
After all, who was more solidly conservative than Rick Santorum.
The only thing he ever did to tick off conservatives was to endorse Arlen Spector in 2004.... which is the type of offense that ALL junior Senators commit in politics.
Santorum got trounced in large part because many conservative Democrats (who hold a registration edge in PA) voted for the "ProLife" candidate Bob Casey Jr., the son of former PA Gov. Bob Casey Sr.
Also, black Democrats and union Democrats in Philly and Pittsburgh went 86% against Santorum.
Democrats hated Rick Santorum as much as Republicans hate Hillary.
Santorum was and still is my favorite Republican of all time, outside of Ronald Reagan... and I am still depressed over his loss.
How do you figure? Fred dropped out of the race awhile back; he has no delegates (or at least very, very few) to use for bartering. I'd love to see it happen, but can't see how it is anything but impossible.
Even if McCain dies, Huckabee won’t be the choice. Probably not Thompson or Romney either, although Romney probably has the best claim to it, having been ahead of the others in both delegates and popular vote at the time he suspended his campaign.
In fact, I am betting it would be Rudy Giuliani. Remember, you are talking about McCain having a strong majority of delegates. I’m sure some of those delegates chose McCain for his conserative differences with Giuliani, but most are probably more on the moderate side and would be just the kind of people you’d expect to jump to the guy they THINK is the 2nd-most electable.
Of course, Rudy did SO badly in the primary that they probably would see him as unelectable as well, but then the question is, who else is there in the republican party who has any proven ability to compete in enough states to win a nomination?
In 2000, there was really just McCain and Bush. in 2004, just Bush. In 1996, there was really nobody, which is how we ended up with Bob Dole.
If you were king, and McCain was gone, and you had to decide which conservative, or even which republican, had the best shot at getting majorities in enough states for an electoral college victory, in a 2-month election race, who would you choose?
Lincoln was a great man, Obama is not. Lincoln lead of life of virtue and unbelievable courage, Obama is an America hating racist who whines about nothing. Obama’s only talent is manipulation. Obama is a weak minded parasite.
If McCain isn’t picked, then who ever was selected would have failed once, whether it was the Huckster, Flip Romney, or Fred.
Delegates are not winner-take all in either state, so even if Huckabee pulls off a popular vote win, McCain will pick up at least 30% of the delegates. But Huckabee has shown little ability to compete above the mason-dixon line, so I’m guessing Ohio is out of his reach.
McCain is going to get the number of delegates he needs, and he’s going to get them pretty easily — about all Huckabee can do at this point is prolong that time.
I’m no longer asking him to drop out though, because I’ve decided that the more states Huckabee loses, the better it is for McCain. It shows he can win conservatives, it gives him time on the news after each primary, and it should assauge social conservatives who will see that they were given their shot, and their candidate simply couldn’t win majorities.
Yeah. . .that's why McCain's people asked their delegates in WVa to vote for Huckabee.
:::rolls eyes:::
There is no “good faith” line in the establishment clause.
Good grief man.
Whoever said that doesn't have the slightest idea what the life of the average pastor is like.
On the other hand, we are all ministers of one sort or another, so perhaps, the person who said it was basing his/her comments on his/her ministry. ;)
“Yeah, Fred could be back in it.”
“How do you figure? Fred dropped out of the race awhile back; he has no delegates (or at least very, very few) to use for bartering. I’d love to see it happen, but can’t see how it is anything but impossible.”
I was just being TIC; however, in ‘68 Humphrey got the nod without winning a single primary. Stranger things have happened. When this Bimbo produces pictures of McCain mud wresteling with Lindsay Graham, Huckabee is caught with a Bimbo in the Caymans and Romney accepts the position of President of Planned Parenthood, Fred could be right back in the mix.
Huckabee insists he’s as tough as anybody on illegals, and he’s signed the two pledges that exist that would show it. It’s really a matter of whether you trust him now.
I’m not sure “quitter” is fair for any of the candidates who are gone. But most candidates dropped out because they were hopeless mired in the bottom, so frankly their chance of coming back would be slim — they dropped out because it was clear nobody was going to pick them.
Romney on the other hand was sitting in 2nd place in delegate counts AND popular vote. He had money, he had organization. His reason for dropping out was because he couldn’t catch up to McCain, not because he couldn’t beat everybody else (he’s still ahead of Huckabee two weeks after dropping out).
Romney could easily come back, and most of McCain’s delegates would support the man who supported their candidate over the man who they would blame for driving their candidate into a medical condition that force him out of the race.
But it wouldnt be Romney either. I’m just saying that if you had to pick between candidates that were in the race, it would be Romney, not Huckabee, that would be chosen.
Except I’m afraid it would be Giuliani.
Hucklebee got into the race for President for ONE reason ---- to stop Mitt Romney.
In fact, Hucklebee so hates Romney and Mormons that he will stay in the race even now JUST so he can claim he got more delegates than Romney.
I can see myself (reluctantly) voting for McCain --- unless he picks Hucklebee for VP.
Hucklebee would so divide the Republican party and conservatives that we wouldn't recover for a decade or more.
With Hucklebee, secular Republicans would flee the GOP, as would Jewish Republicans, as would Mormon Republicans, as would fiscal Republicans, as would Northeast Republicans, as would strong-border Republicans.
Hucklebee is popular with a unique and determined segment of the Republican base - fundamental PROTESTANT BAPTIST Christians.
Hucklebee's brand of identity politics will NEVER translate into cross-over votes, which is what the GOP desparately needs to win.
Ah, so you're 'Lincolnesque' comment was based on external things, and not on the character or policies of Obama. You might want to make sure your kids know that, as most people would not automatically assume that was what you were refering to.
I was speaking with one of the pre-eminent virginia democratic bloggers last night at a meeting. He was supporting Hillary, although he pretty much sees she is finished.
I don’t agree with his politics, but he’s uncanny in his ability to read the political landscape.
He is convinced that McCain will beat Obama in November — certainly in Virginia, which otherwise he thought was a reasonable pickup for the democrats.
If we had a conservative, and they lost, it would be because the middle was tired of republicans and voted for Obama — and it would happen no matter how many conservatives walked on broken glass to vote for “our candidate”.
With McCain, we would well get those independents — McCain will only lose if conservatives decide they want him to lose, and Obama to win.
If conservatives were pushing a true conservative 3rd-party candidate in the general election because they thought they could really win, I’d credit them for trying but consider their case hopeless.
But so long as the conservatives are pushing for Obama to win to “teach the party as lesson”, I give them little credit.
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