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Huckabee Says Demonizing Obama `Fatal Mistake' for Republicans
I have to confess that of all the candidates I have seen this year, the one whose talent impresses me most is Mike Huckabee, by far the smartest, best all round politician of the lot. Southern populist without being racist, insightful, even funny. Knocked Mitt Romney out the race and did it on a shoestring.
Here is this from Bloomberg.
Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee warned members of his party that any attempt to undermine presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama by ``demonizing'' him would backfire.
``The Republicans will make a fundamental, if not fatal mistake, if they seek to win the election by demonizing Barrack Obama,'' Huckabee told reporters in Tokyo. ``Don't underestimate the extraordinary, substantive moment that Barack Obama's nomination represents in our country.''
Huckabee, 52, dropped out of the Republican nomination race on March 4, paving the way for presumptive nominee Arizona Senator John McCain. Huckabee is considered a potential choice for McCain's running mate.
``The truth is that the vice presidency seems to be a job nobody wants and nobody ever turns down,'' said Huckabee, who is visiting university campuses and meeting business groups in Japan. ``I'm not seeking it, and that's the truth.''
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Comments (60)
What does that mean, "smartest politician"? How smart are you when you reject evolution? Release a convicted raper from prison after being told he'll rape again (and he not only rapes, but murders as soon as he gets out)? Think homosexuals are all going to Hell, literally?
"Crafty," "slick," good-old-boy persona -- yes.
I have this debate with my older daughter. What does it mean to be "the smartest kid in class" if your grades are crap? Well, I tend to be outcome-oriented. In which case, it means nothing. The proof is in the outcome. Same with Huckabee.
Thanks.
mp
June 18, 2008 7:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm also wondering how David came to the conclusion that Huckabee was the one who "knocked" Romney out of the race, since Romney had far more delegates than Huckabee did. I'm pretty sure it's McCain who can take credit for that.
June 18, 2008 8:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
David pulled that one out of his arse.
June 18, 2008 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Religion and populism go hand in hand. "Religion is the opium of the people" in the same sense that "opium is the opium of the cancer patient". At issue is pain, if you propose no real cure for the disease, why begrudge the palliative drug?
June 18, 2008 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, you're bouncing off the walls today, gramps. A little extra something in your Zoco?
June 18, 2008 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am nomaly not sensitive to gramar and consider the people who complain about it to be a pain but I am going to be a pain this time. It is 'rapist' not 'raper'. I thought you were saying 'rapper' at first.
June 18, 2008 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course you like Huckabee, you old gasbag. You're a goddamn Republican.
June 18, 2008 8:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Republicans don't feel very comfortable with Huckabee, because he is a populist. And it was Huckabee that took the wind out of Romney, who was by far the favorite of the GOP establishment.
As to evolution, if the Democrats want to win southern white people or even a lot of evangelical black people they had better not put evolution at the center of their program, More than religious, this is a cultural thing. Poor people never have liked Darwinism very much... think about it.
If I were you I would concentrate on the phrase
And then think how many Republicans you know, beginning with Karl Rove, who could say that, or even think that.
June 18, 2008 8:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just a question: you aren't Billy Glad's alter ego, are you? The two of you could entertain each other for days on end, holding forth on various nuggets of insight you've dug out of the back of your pants.
June 18, 2008 8:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Au contraire, mon grandpère. The Republican base liked Huckabee just fine. It was the Independents that rejected him. And who said anything about evolution?
June 18, 2008 8:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually Huckabee blew apart the Republican coalition between the rich and rednecked
June 18, 2008 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
You don't have a clue what you're talking about. The rednecks elected George W. Bush. The rich pulled his strings.
June 18, 2008 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes the rich pulled the strings and the rednecks voted for a rich kid, born in Connecticut, educated in Andover, Yale and Harvard thinking he was a Texas cowboy.
Huckabee put a little dent in that in Iowa.
June 18, 2008 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, if anyone was fighting for Huckabee's demographic, it was Hillary. They were both dumpster diving for the sort of people who run up huge phone bills casting multiple votes for their favorite American Idol participant.
June 18, 2008 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is what I mean when I say that Obama and especially his followers, are not of the left and why I call him the "nerd's Mussolini".
June 18, 2008 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Sir Winston Churchill
The reason you refer to Obama as the "nerd's Mussolini" is because you know nothing about Obama, Mussolini, or politics in general. You're the sort of insufferable twat who hangs around in bars, grabbing people by the sleeve and forcing them to listen to your inane ramblings until the bartender finally calls the cops. You're the Frank Fontaine of modern politics.
http://bp2.blogger.com/_e4dtmUxgaHY/SCW6OJ_nD_I/AAAAAAAAAGQ/cdIkaOUt-n4/s1600-h/fontaine.jpg
June 18, 2008 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
June 18, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why does that not surprise me?
June 18, 2008 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
The religious part of the base like Huckabee. The pro-corporate welfare part and the neocon part absolutely detest him. The Club for Growth ran ads against him. He was a very dangerous candidate for the Republicans, since he could have exposed the hypocritical manipulation of religious conservatives by the rest of the GOP.
He's fundamentally a decent guy; just not the best judgment in some circumstances.
June 18, 2008 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/19/exit-polls-conservatives-go-for-huckabee/
June 18, 2008 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
So what? Do you really think that conservatives are monolithic?
June 18, 2008 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think conservatives are monocephalic.
June 18, 2008 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
monomorphous
June 18, 2008 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
You've just about captured my opinion of him exactly. I respect Huckabee's calls for restraint on attacks on Obama (both now and during the Wright brouhaha), and I respect that Huckabee seems to stay true to his beliefs. I might fear that consistency some (considering what his beliefs are) if he were anywhere near the White House, but as he isn't, I have no problem expressing my respect for the man. He appears to be a genuinely kind man, interested in the welfare of his fellow citizen, if somewhat misguided in some other ways.
June 18, 2008 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
You've got it right.
If the the economic crisis deepens and widens, you are going to hear a lot more from Reverend Huckabee, be sure of that.
June 18, 2008 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I, for one, hope Huckabee is right.
I hope he is right because the only tool in the Republican toolbox is a hammer. They are unable to do anything other than attack and demonize; It's all they know.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/6/17/133655/182
June 18, 2008 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wouldn't pushing the silly 'whitey" smear tape be considered trying to demonize?
June 18, 2008 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
If it doesn't exist of course it would be a smear and crude attempt at demonizing. If it does exist it would be fair game.
The tape either exists or it doesn't, if it doesn't, the whole thing will be forgotten. If it does exists, it will appear at the moment that he or she that possesses it thinks it is most to his or her advantage to have it appear.
Look, I am in agreement with what Michelle is reported to have said on that tape and except for the bit about creating AIDS in a laboratory,in agreement with most of the things Reverend Wright said in his rants.
I, for example, would be an enthusiastic Obmamite myself if I thought for even a minute that he was a dangerous radical or had ever been a closet Muslim. It is his "all things to all men" quality and his empty, rhythmically delivered rhetoric ...and his betrayal of the Palestinians that has me against him.
June 18, 2008 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, come November (because I'm sure you won't concede the point until then), when the tape fails to materialize, will you at that point admit that you've been smearing Obama?
June 18, 2008 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
If doesn't appear soon people, including me, will have forgotten about it long before November... it is an "October surprise", by then it will be... a surprise.
June 18, 2008 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
You might find that some of us have better memories than you do.
So, when I bring this up to you in November and there's no such tape, will you admit that you smeared and made a "crude attempt at demonizing" Obama?
June 18, 2008 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
June 18, 2008 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, now you're contradicting your earlier statement:
I mean, really, she "may have said" something, so you feel justified in repeating that despite all evidence that she didn't actually say it? (I.e., the original release date of the tape has come and gone.)
It really sounds like you're saying that you have no ethics when it comes to election politics because it's the "hardest game of hardball in the world", and that you're quite fine with that. Well, pardon those of us who do have a problem with your lack of ethics, not to mention your problems with logic. (Earlier you stated that our opinion of the tape reinforced your idea that it existed. I mean, wow, that's some class-A delusional thinking right there.)
June 18, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not pushing it... I think it could exist.
However I don't, repeat don't believe that Michelle Obama ever used the word "whitey", but I think she may have spoken (probably did)very frankly about America's role in world affairs to an audience of African-America ladies in Chicago four years ago and she may have said some harsh things about American foreign policy: the sort of things that all of us around here and over at Kos were saying in 2004, and that in the context of the presidential run of her husband in 2008, with its move to the center-right, she dearly wishes she hadn't said.
And I would not be surprised at all if the opponents of Senator Obama, if having possession of the tape, would spring it at the moment it most suited them.
Is that clear.
June 18, 2008 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most rational people would consider 3 blog posts in a row to be "pushing" it. It's interesting that you're not willing to admit to it.
What's even more interesting is that you don't think that Michelle said the word "whitey" on the "whitey" tape. Are there tapes of her where she's said some things that can be twisted by the opposition? Of course, we've already heard her "first time I'm proud" statement ad nauseum. Might they sit on some of these? It's possible. However, you really seem to have changed your original claim here, and I'm frankly disappointed in you that you can't admit that your original statements were just plain wrong. I mean, why did you keep referring to it as the "whitey" tape if you never thought she actually said the word "whitey"? That would seem to be a blatant example of smearing.
There's no weakness in admitting you were wrong.
June 18, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think she ever said "whitey", but the 2004, Rainbow-Push tape is commonly known as the "Whitey Tape", in the same way that American beer, which bears little actual resemblance to beer is referred to as "beer".
June 18, 2008 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
The difference is that American beer is, technically at least, beer. (Aside: How is American beer like making love in a canoe? It's fucking close to water.)
Quite frankly, if you never thought you she said the word "whitey" on the so-called "whitey" tape, an early disclaimer might have saved you a lot of grief. That you didn't make the disclaimer means you're either a fool or trying to deceive. Which of those is more accurate, do you think?
June 18, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Guilty until proven innocent?
You'll believe it until you never see it?
I think the current back and forth here is a bit much, but what are you talking about?
If there is a tape, there is a tape. If there isn't, there isn't. (I think I have followed rightly) I would give it up now, and revisit the issue if said tape surfaces.
Or,
Be on the lookout for a box with something in it that will damage something if somebody doesn't not do it first.
June 18, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
If it is not up on YouTube yet it does not exist. It would be imposible to hide it.
Your argument against Obama would be excelent if there was a candidate running who was closer to your pentultimate candidate. Since there are only two running and he is closer to it than McCain you are just allowing you ideal to be the enemy of the achievable.
June 18, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
You think he betrayed the Palestinians because you're a lazy listener. You've overlaid what you wanted to hear on top of what he actually said.
June 18, 2008 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
June 18, 2008 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
June 18, 2008 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK, so Michelle with her as-yet-unreleased sassy remarks will sink her husband's campaign - sure thing - we get it. I'm sure that must seem logical to you from your perch in Seaton Observatory in Spain, but if you want to actually take the pulse of this contest you should get your pontificating ass over here and soak up the day-to-day reality for a while. Your current opinions re: the Obamas, Huckabee and the American electorate reveal that you are clueless.
June 18, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Go and talk to taxi drivers, that sort of thing?
June 18, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Spain is playing Greece in the European (real) football championships tongight, so I'm off to see it in a pub with some friends.
In a few hours, I'll pick up this thread to comment on any insults you guys may toss my way.
All the best
David
June 18, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Spend some actual time in the country you purport to understand so intimately. You don't get a free pass for having been born here. You've been away for decades. Your "first-hand understanding" of the US is about as valid as mine of Spain (never been there).
June 18, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
All insults aside, I hope you enjoy your game. I'm sure if we met in person we'd actually get along. (Although I might still think you're a loon.)
June 18, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Seaton,
While I am an avid defender of the freedom of speech (verbal, written and/or sign language) I am also a supporter of taking into account the author's intent and goal in choosing to publicize their works.
In your bio you state:
"I am an American expatriate who has been living in Europe since I was a young man (I'm now in my early sixties). I write a weekly column about international politics in a large Spanish daily.."
I am really not interested in the rationale for your posts, because I find them to be lacking in substance but rife with hyperbole and senseless rhetoric and don't care enough to ask:
What is your impetus to continue to post on TPM? Is it to help you obtain data for your weekly column? Or perhaps just to see your verbiage published?
You see it doesn't matter to me because I not only tend to discount your 'messages' but find it insulting and the epitome of chutzpah for you to attempt to interject your opinions into the conversations.
You don't live in this country and haven't for many decades. You and yours will not directly either benefit or suffer from the outcome of this election. Yours or your family's ability to either achieve or maintain needed housing, healthcare, education, energy resources and more necessities will not be impacted. Therefore, I don't care what you think, feel or opine as it relates to this election.
Note: After the brouhaha about your posts by others at TPM I chose to review a few and now understand the antipathy for your product.
But, in keepiing with Obama's message to be positive I will end this with, "Have a nice day."
June 18, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think one actually has to live here in order to have an interesting viewpoint. Rather, quite the opposite that I hear plenty of viewpoints from those who live here and enjoy hearing the viewpoints from those abroad. That said, his insistence at understanding us is quite puzzling since he's so often so far off the mark that he's gone past the point where it ceased being funny into the territory where it actually is funny again.
This is more a defense of posters such as ami_in_deutschland than it is of David himself.
June 18, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is his incessant postings that seldom, if ever, serve any positive purpose. I agree it is interesting and sometimes useful to learn how those from afar perceive our processes and issues, but Seaton's posts are (to me) not interesting or useful. (Truth is I found using his posts as open threads much more so - as well as humorous.)
To my knowledge, he has not published his agenda and really, I don't care.
I will now go back to ignoring him and his tripe.(I will also try very hard not to post items of more interest such as good recipes, other - more newsworthy items and/or jokes in comment section of his posts.)
June 18, 2008 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aunt Sam, he has stated before that as an expat journalist he uses forums like this to get a feel for what's happening in the US political scene. I believe his words were: "I apply a stimulus, I observe, I report back." Note that this indicates his attitude toward us - we are a bunch of lobotomized lab rats that he pokes with a stick or zaps with electric shocks, and then when we recoil from this torture it reinforces his certainty that his cynical hypotheses are 100% correct. It hasn't occurred to him that he might obtain valid information by engaging in a straightforward, respectful dialogue.
Anyway, I think his real intent is simply to fuck with us. He pontificates endlessly and never acknowledges any uncertainty, but is always quick to crush any positive energy with a glib blast of thinly-veiled black-hole cynicism. He is apparently some variety of sociopath.
June 18, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Spend some actual time in the country you purport to understand so intimately. You don't get a free pass for having been born here. You've been away for decades. Your "first-hand understanding" of the US is about as valid as mine of Spain (never been there).
June 18, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, this was meant to be a reply to one of Seaton's many inane comments above - reposted above, though still in the wrong spot because he drives me nuts!
June 18, 2008 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aunt Sam, he has stated before that as an expat journalist he uses forums like this to get a feel for what's happening in the US political scene. I believe his words were: "I apply a stimulus, I observe, I report back." Note that this indicates his attitude toward us - we are a bunch of lobotomized lab rats that he pokes with a stick or zaps with electric shocks, and then when we recoil from this torture it reinforces his certainty that his cynical hypotheses are 100% correct. It hasn't occurred to him that he might obtain valid information by engaging in a straightforward, respectful dialogue.
Anyway, I think his real intent is simply to fuck with us. He pontificates endlessly and never acknowledges any uncertainty, but is always quick to crush any positive energy with a glib blast of thinly-veiled black-hole cynicism. He is apparently some variety of sociopath.
June 18, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
And I know you (as are most here) way too smart and savvy to give credence to his mock "I apply a stimulus, I observe, I report back."
For those that do buy into it, I have some oceanfront property in Arizona for sale - with a view of the White House.
June 18, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you have reached the only sensible conclusion - ignore him. I'll try that again.
June 18, 2008 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah! Or if we really wanted to be snarky - we just daily post a 'Instead of David Seaton's post, come to this open thread for interesting, useful and humorous interactive items..'
June 18, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seaton doesn't like to face his words from the day (or even hour) before... so I very much expect he'll forget all about Huckabee by the time his football game ends. Huckabee is a vegetable. Just one example - Canada's National Igloo. A comedy reporter went to Arkansas to get responses to a spoof - that Canada's Parliament was actually an igloo, made of ice, now threatened by global warming. Therefore, a dome was to be built over it to protect it. Huckabee met with his advisors, and - straight-faced - offered congratulations on preserving the National Igloo.
Seaton has already explicitly told people he recommends voting for McCain. Can't be much clearer than that, about where he stands. Then there's the tape smear.Then there's little gems like, ""My problem with Barack Obama is that ... he is as proud, clever, gifted and as opportunistic as Lucifer." And that Obama is "worse than George W. Bush," a "vile and unprincipled opportunist," and "either the most cynical demagogue who has ever graced our fair Republic, or bat shit crazy, or both."
He also likes to apply the label "fascist" to Obama's supporters - "fascists for wimps," and seems to feel witty calling Obama the "macchiato Mussolini."
Finally, even living in Spain (surrounded by literally hundreds of thousands of families who lost members to Franco's fascism), he says: "That's why I think it's a shame that Bush can't be president for at least eight years more. In the same way that forty years of Franco's rule was the bitter aversion therapy that finally produced the peaceful, tolerant moderate, open, liberal Spain of today..."
He may well be a nice man, with a great deal of history under his belt. But something's not quite right with him, at least in this point of time. Personally, I think I'm gonna give him a break for a while. If I hear he's admitted that he's been a tad over-the-top (see: Lucifer) - I may wander back.
June 18, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I confess Quinn, that I have been "over the top", I confess quia peccávi nimis gongitatióne, verbo, ópere et amissióne. mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa.
Shucks, there I went and did it again!
But, I do feel much better, as if a load had been taken off me.
June 19, 2008 3:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Concrrn trole iz sew concrrrrrrrrnd hez gonna bussed a gutt!!!!
Y iz u guyz nott affrayed alrdy?
I tole u and tole u and tole u!!!
Itz no fun bein cussandrra. U no, noin evrythin an al an u guyz downt bleev me.
Im gonna havta reely reely showt reel suun nao!!
June 19, 2008 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
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