go huckabee!! deliciously wonderfully unelectable huckabee!!

Don't you realize he could actually win??

no! he can't! he really can't!

he's been on the radar for about 3-4 weeks. the republican machine and money is committed elsewheres. the rest of the country has no idea who he is. when they learn, they'll be repulsed.

I's and U's will flock AWAY from another evangelical the second he gets creepy about it (it was all he could do to keep from saying "god made me win iowa" in his speech -- and you know his advisors will lose that battle eventually).

in a huckabee-obama race, obama wins. every. time.

"Don't you realize he could actually win??"

The Republican establishment doesn't seem to think so. Not that that's gospel.

By the way, I also think Huckabee will probably lose if nominated, but not because of his opponent. Instead, his nomination would cause a major rift in the Republican party, and probably would lead to a viable 3rd party candidate with more "proper" conservative mores. The conservative vote split thusly, the Democratic candidate will win in a landslide.

crazymonk agreeing with jbg... black now white... up now down... must... stop... universe... from...

*plink*

What scares me is that my father, who pretty much always has voted Democrat, said he likes Huckabee. And huck seems like a naiiver version of GWB. If the Republicans decided to shift their money and embrace Huck, I bet they could do a good job of making him seem somewhat more likeable to the non-religios, and then we'd have a bush-like candidate running as an outsider, which could bring back some of the 2xbush voters who are now disaffected.

Yeah, I find Huckabee likable as well. He actually wants to help out the poor, for example, unlike virtually all of his Republican colleagues. And I would prefer Huckabee as president to Giuliani and Romney (but maybe not McCain).

As a Mark Twain fan, I strongly object to you calling him Huck.

After the last eight years, I have zero faith in the American people (or Californian voters; cf. the 2003 recall). I certainly hope jbg and/or cmonk are right, but I strongly suspect that this nation would vote for a dog if the dog promised them big piles of money, cool wars with laser guns and a "return" to "Christian values."

I will be taking The Handmaid's Tale out of the library the next time I go, to better prepare for our new evangelical overlords.

i want a return to "jew values."

high interest rates, all-you-can-eat chinese buffet, and not believing in god!

Wow, you should move to Nevada.

that's funny, I just read handmaid's tale and was having just such thoughts.

I LOVE electoral-vote.com!

Side note, I would probably vote for cool wars with laser guns.

Huck would only cause a major rift (read: major third party run) IF Obama is not the Democratic nominee. That third party candidate will be Michael Bloomberg. No other major third party Republican can do it.

Ron Paul may very well run as an independent this fall regardless of who the Democratic candidate is. He can raise $6 million a month from non-party affiliated voters and will likely be able to do so regardless of whether he's a Republican candidate or not. $70 million is enough to get him to November with no problem. His support is capped at around 10% (probably lower) and draws primarily from non-affiliated voters or Republicans that are so extreme and angry that they probably don't vote anyway given this year's potential crop. They certainly wouldn't vote for Huckabee and hence cause no additional damage to a Huckabee run. If Ron Paul runs as a third party candidate, which I think he will, it won't have a major impact. He could play spoiler if the election is very close.

Bloomberg is different. He draws from a moderate group of voters. I think he draws primarily from Democrats, but if Huckabee (or another unpalatable Republican) is the nominee he'll pull across party lines from loosely affiliated Republicans who will be turned off by Huck's extreme Christianity and general creepiness. Bloomberg's message is one of national unity, which happens to be the exact same message that Obama has been pitching. If Obama is the Democratic nominee, Bloomberg looks like an ass going up there asking for unity when there's already someone doing that. His draw in that case from Democrats is likely minimal and his draw from Republicans would also be low as those same people are probably more likely to go to Obama anyway.

The only chance Bloomberg would have over Obama would be banking on racists, but it seems unlikely that there are all that many true racists AND that they would favor a Jew over a black man.

Watching Obama win for me was double edged. Of the top three Democrats, Obama is by far my favorite (I also liked Biden and, despite his campaign, Richardson). But more than Obama, I was excited about the potential of a Bloomberg candidacy and all the fun that creates. I'm convinced that Obama = no Bloomberg, so I'm conflicted about Obama's success.

Bloomby '08.

while i would enjoy the novelty of a medford son becoming president, i'll be really pissed off if we have a jew president before a black president. there, i said it.

The Bloomberg thing is a pipe dream, and the media has played it up as much as they played up Fred Thompson before he entered.

If Huckabee gets the nom, the dissatisfied wing of the Republican Party will not get what they want from Bloomberg.

Doesn't it seem like "national unity," as a message, is sort of vague and hand-wave-y? Like campaigning on a platform of "kitties are cute" and "people should be nice to each other." I don't disagree, I just want some sort of solid policy goal or plan before I'm willing to vote for it.

I agree that they largely won't get what they want from Bloomberg. As I said, I think his draw is primarily from Democrats (he's basically a candidate from the city political party that I thought was described by Dan Savage but I now can't find the link)... but not entirely. My entire family voted for John Kerry in the last election. You know the deal with my family, if they're not voting for Republicans you know there's trouble in at least one wing of the party.

There are a lot of Republicans who aren't interested in the Christianity and they can be stolen by a strong businessman. Those Republicans aren't anti-abortion or -gay rights... I heard a stat last night that the Republican party in New Hampshire is more pro-choice than the general national average. The Republican party is in trouble because it's making its biggest stands on issues on which the popularity of their side is on the decline (the social issues: abortion, gay rights). This is going to break the party in the next few cycles. It will need to adopt a new tone if it wants to stay competitive. Bloomberg (and to a lesser degree Ron Paul) could be on the leading edge of that change.

Lorelei, Obama has the general Democratic agenda. With him, you're voting for more health care and more taxes and a slightly faster pullout from Iraq than under a standard Republican. With Bloomberg you're voting less for specific policy and more for general bureaucratic ability. That's his major selling point, potentially, that he's good at running large organizations much more so than anybody else out there. Along with that you'll get, most likely, a mix of liberal social policy and vaguely conservative economic policy.

Also, he owns at least two private jets.

But, unless the candidate is Clinton, I don't think there will enough dissatisfaction from Democrats for them to switch over to an independent candidate. I still think there's gotta be someone out there who will appeal to the dissatisfied wing of Republicans, as *they* are the ones who will be looking for alternatives (assuming a Huckabee win). A 3rd party Mitt Romney run is the closest match I can think of.

Lorelei, if you're looking for more Obama-specifics, try these links:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/01/in-his-own-...
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/15/15918/791

Clinton is a no-brainer -- if she's the nominee Bloomberg runs and takes a decent number of dems with him. I'm willing to put a decent amount of money on that proposition.

If Edwards is the nominee he's still in a good position because, again, he's more of a city candidate than a Democrat. I have to think that the Southern twang is going to turn off voters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, etc. If we're going on Demographics, I'd rather vote for a northern Jew than a Southern.

I assume Bloomberg knows what he's doing and isn't just messing around. If he wasn't intending to run, at least under some circumstances, he wouldn't be holding these silly national unity conferences (well timed for just before the first two primaries/caucuses). He's doing something every two weeks or so to keep his name in the papers (remember his weird breakfast with Obama?). It's not an invention by the media, it's a campaign for name recognition on his part.

Thanks for those links, cmonk. I was more criticizing the vagueness of a "message of national unity" than asking for info. But I SHOULD be asking for info, what with having to vote in a primary soon.

I just deleted a bunch of stuff that's pure speculation, but consider this, guys: There exists a large core of liberals that deeply loathes the Bush administration. I cannot picture them abandoning a chance to put a Democrat in the White House now that we have one. I think there also exist people who (correctly or not) believe Nader in 2000 showed that third-party candidates are spoilers, and will hold their noses and vote for the Democratic nominee no matter who it is.

yeah, but you know who's dumb?

a sizeable portion of the voting population, that's who.

Oh, you don't have to tell me. In this case, I'm arguing that dumbness = fear = unwillingness to leave the party.

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