You Have Got To Be Kidding Me
This election just keeps on getting better. As you all know, I am not exactly a fan of Barack Obama. Yet, he will win the Democratic nomination. Neither am I a fan of McCain, but he is normally acceptable (although his age would be a big problem to me if I were American). So, McCain is acceptable but has his weaknesses… and then, instead of doing something about those weaknesses (not traditionally conservative enough to many Republican voters), he decides to make them worse: Mike Huckabee, of all people, tops his VP shortlist.
I sincerely hope that this is a big joke. If not, this election is one sad affair. Huckabee, the idiotic preacher-in-chief, the man who was responsible for taking Romney out of the race by appealing to the anti-Mormon sentiment among members of the Religious Right (especially Evangelicals); Huckabee, the man who believes that people who suffer from AIDS should be put on an Island together, so that they cannot infect others; Huckabee, the moron who believes that he knows what God wants; Huckabee, who does not know anything about the economy, Huckabee, the man who is despised by America’s traditional conservatives…
That Huckabee tops McCain’s VP list.
How… ironic.
Well, I am beginning to hope that McCain will pick Huckabee as his running mate. Then, at least, no one can accuse me of being biased when I write about the elections in November…
Lets hope it’s a trial balloon. If it isn’t it shows that McCain isn’t exactly politically intelligent.
The person happiest with that decision would undoubtedly be Obama. What better way to unite the Democratic party than to put a guy like Huckabee in second place behind an elderly gentleman for the presidency.
I wonder how many feminists, angry as they may be with Clinton’s loss, will do anything but campaign heavily against a man who says that "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband".
It’s not PC to mention it, but McCain’s age plays a big factor if Huckabee gets the VP slot. With McCain the posibility that the VP becomes POTUS is more inmediate, and therefore the VP pick rather more relevant. Obama will be thrilled if he’s the choice.
Although I think you greatly overstate Huckabee’s negatives and ignore the political reality that is his popularity among the religious right, I don’t take this story seriously at all. If there’s any truth to it at all (and I have doubts even about that-it’s anonymously sourced and could easily have come from someone either trying to hurt McCain or from someone who supports him but thinks he needs to be forced into a corner to say that he will not choose Huckabee) then if anything, it could be a trial balloon of sorts but not even one to be taken seriously. There’s no doubt that Huckabee having stayed in the race and having gathered convention chips, that he represents a faction that has to be recognized (that was obviously his point, when it became clear that he would not get the nominaton.) McCain’s camp could be floating this out just to make a symbolic gesture to show that they do recognize that voting bloc, and then he’d go on to choose someone else after having made the gesture ("Huckabee’s a good man, Senator McCain greatly respects him, so much so that he was on a very short list for consideration for VP".)
Michael, Michael, Michael, calm down. You got so excited that you left out the Main reason Mr. Huckabee is not a wise choice. He passed over any hope of electability when he sat down to talk Jesus with Mr. used car salesman himself, Kenneth Copeland. This shyster is under investigation for the the fraud that he and his wife are. If he took money from this organization, he needs to return it, apologize for his lapse in judgement, and look for his "miracle" that true conservatives will forgive him.
Note here that WAPO over the weekend gave what they think are McCain’s top 5 picks, and this sounds about right to me. Personally I think Crist is probably out now that it looks pretty sure to be a race against Obama (Crist would have been in consideration if Hillary had been the opponent, to help sure up FL- but FL is pretty safely GOP when McCain is pitted against Obama.) I’d have thought that SC governor Sanford was on the short list but I haven’t seen him mentioned lately so maybe he’s been ruled out for one reason or another.
I can certainly think of some less conventional picks that he could go for too: if putting a woman on the ticket is considered important he could go with CT governor Jodi Rell, or a bit riskier if he wanted to also emphasize his ‘green’ agenda he might consider Olympia Snowe. I also think AK’s Sarah Palin would be an excellent choice except that she’s too young and inexperienced (she’s like a female version of Bobby Jindal, with similar positives and negatives, and in both cases they should improve with age.)
Huckabee? DON’T. A Bible-thumping populist with few redeeming qualities other than his sense of humor, he lost me with that "Armies of God" speech.
Mitt? Please don’t.
Crist? Not unless Clinton’s on the ticket, then strong maybe.
Pawlenty? Good strong maybe.
Dem side:
Sebelius? Well, it would be nice to be shut of her, but she won’t give Obama Kansas. Nothing can. And she’s term-limited out here in two years anyway, so we will get rid of her eventually. She was elected in KS mostly because the state GOP just can’t resist running far-right fire-breathing Bible thumpers, who can win the primaries but always get slaughtered in the general by Dem moderates.
I’d say Granholm would be a good pick, but she’s not eligible. Born in Canada, a naturalized citizen, not native-born.
Nunn or Strickland look possible, but no one looks ideal. No Clinton, please.
Tully- my theory is that McCain’s going to make sure that Huckabee and Romney’s names continue to get floated for as long as possible in order to show deference toward the primary voters who supported them- even though it’s unlikely that he’s seriously considering either one of them. Would you agree with that assessment? I’m guessing that the idea would be that the base of each of those former candidates will more easily accept it when he ultimately announces someone else for VP if they don’t feel that they’re guy was completely dissed.
I’d agree with that assessment, Christine. And in any case, no one’s going to announce a choice early and close off any potentials, so we can probably speculate right up until the conventions.
Yes, in particular McCain would be a complete fool to pick before it’s absolutely certain who he’ll be running against, because he basically has to run two completely different campaigns depending on who his opponent is. I suspect even now that Obama is looking pretty certain to nail it, he won’t want to take a chance, plus he’ll probably want to see how the polling numbers are holding up in various states and with various demographic groups as the electorate starts to see it as an Obama/McCain matchup.