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Just when you thought it was over, Mike Huckabee not only scores a series of wins, but takes the gloves off in the closely-contested Washington caucuses.
More >>Mike Huckabee has been the forgotten man in recent days. Many media reports about the GOP contest didn't even mention the former Arkansas governor. It was repeatedly cast as a contest between Romney and McCain. Yet early projections show Huckabee winning at least three states today: Alabama, Arkansas, and West Virginia. Georgia, Oklahoma, Missouri and Tennessee also look strong for him.
Mike Huckabee has won West Virginia, beating Mitt Romney 52% to 47%. But perhaps more interesting is that John McCain may have had more of a hand in the victory than his 1% vote tally might suggest.
Here's Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic:
After the first round of balloting in West Virginia, Mitt Romney was solidly in the lead with 41% of the votes, followed by Mike Huckabee with 33% and John McCain with 16%.Since 50% is needed to win all 18 delegates, a second balloting is underway.
But sources say that representatives for John McCain called many of his reps in WV and asked them to vote for Huckabee...in order to thwart Romney on the second ballot.
And now comes word from local TV station WSAZ that Huckabee also picked up support from Ron Paul's West Virginia supporters by pledging to give him three national delegates in return.
UPDATE: The Hill has more. Romney is accusing McCain and Huckabee of a shady "backroom deal."
“Unfortunately, this is what Senator McCain’s inside Washington ways look like: he cut a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Governor Romney’s campaign of conservative change,” Beth Myers, Romney’s campaign manager, said in a statement.
I don't see anything shady about this. In fact, it looks a lot like a brokered convention.
/Hat tip: DailyKos
The Wall Street Journal's Laura Meckler has an excellent story today detailing the growing pains of the post-Iowa Huckabee campaign. The piece deftly highlights the charms of his populist campaign, while also providing strong evidence for why he is highly unlikely to ultimately be the GOP nominee. Huckabee's folksy, snuff-using campaign manager, Chip Saltsman, delivers most of the yucks. Here's an anecdote about the campaign's Michigan misadventures:
It was barely 24 hours after the New Hampshire polls closed, but Michigan was less than a week away. The campaign was focused on South Carolina and had almost no infrastructure in Michigan. Polls showed Mr. Huckabee had a shot there, so Mr. Saltsman decided to make an effort.
He sent Shane Henry, a 28-year-old Arkansas lawyer who had helped get Mr. Huckabee on state ballots. Mr. Henry, whose father-in-law is close to Mr. Huckabee, sold some property in September, making enough to forgo a paycheck for a while. He signed on as a volunteer, and calls the timing of his windfall "a God thing."He was hardly the ideal organizer. Asked what Mr. Henry knew about Michigan, Mr. Saltsman says he knew where it was. Mr. Henry, asked about his experience in organizing events, says, "I was student-body president at my university."
But read the whole damn thing.
What is with conservatives and bestiality? Why do they like to talk about it so much? Specifically, why do prominent right-wing politicians keep trying to put gay people in the same category as Manimal lovers?
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum was the prominent example of such, though not nearly the first. The latest: Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
More >>The world, as Annie Savoy noted in Bull Durham, is made for those not cursed with self-awareness. So it is with the young men who deliver this clever, if oddly-chosen, parody of the Beatles' "Help!". It's been altered to endorse Mike Huckabee.
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Seeing Chuck Norris in Mike Huckabee's posse during his Iowa victory speech reminded me of Shepard Fairey's ubiquitous Obey Giant stickers. So I recruited City Pages Associate Art Director Mike Kooiman to design a spoof. I think you'll agree that he nailed it:
As with our image of Huckabee morphing into Nixon, feel free to download it, send it to friends, put it on your web page, etc. Just please provide a link back to this post. Thanks!
PS It would really make my day if I saw one of these out on the streets of St. Paul during the RNC convention. Anybody want to print up some stickers?
One of my favorite passages from Matt Snyders's cover story this week was his visceral description of the resemblance between Mike Huckabee and Richard Nixon:
If you took Richard Nixon circa 1973, sheared his jowls with a meat cleaver, and filed 1.3 centimeters off the tip of his nose with a synthetic grindstone, you'd be left staring at a creature physically identical to Huckabee.
Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, City Pages Associate Art Director Mike Kooiman has brought the concept to life with this gif:
Feel free to download it, send it to friends, put it on your web page, etc. Just please provide a link back to this post. Thanks!
