Recently in Huckabee Category

I CALLED THE WASHINGTON STATE Republican Party this morning and party officials say that they will let people know the actual vote results and who actually won the Republican caucus later this afternoon.  You can read the results when they are posted here.   The shenanigans the GOP elites tried to pull this weekend are the kind of things that leaves citizens cynical about the politics.  Saturday night the party was saying the final results would be tallied Sunday morning.  Yesterday afternoon they were saying the vote would be counted Monday morning.  Now more delay.  The party only had about 13,000 voters.  The problem can't be the adding up of these small numbers ...

UPDATE:  Pudge at Sound Politics weighs in on "the meaninglessness of the Presidential preference tally" in the Washington caucuses.  Well, yes.  Not so significant in terms of what happens next in the arcane workings of the Washington caucus process, but significant in terms of the most important thing this election season -- the perception race.  The nationally important perceptions race and the fresh air of sunshine into the process are the only reasons to release any result from the caucus --  and the party botched it.

UPDATE II:  There is a gigantic Red State / Blue State divide in the state of Washington.  Eastern Washington is traditional Barry Goldwater / Ronald Reagan country -- libertarian and socially conservative.  Western Washington is much more Country Club Republican territory.  Well, the votes that weren't counted in the Washington caucus were Eastern Washington votes -- and the Red State Easter Washington Republicans are as mad as hell:

I am a Washington State precinct committee officer in one of the rural areas of our state.

There are a number of things wrong with the WA caucus.

One is that me and a number of people from my community took valuable time out of our Saturday to go and caucus.  Then, when I call the state party office I am told that the declaration was made even though they did not get the official results from "some people" in the rural areas who may be sending the results in via snail mail. 

Aaarrgghhh... I said... That would be me!

So my question to the party was whether or not we should have even shown up to caucus?  I mean I expect that the good folks in Seattle would dearly love to have us show up on the second Tuesday in November.  Considering we are likely to have a knock down drag out rematch between Republican Dino Rossi and Democrat Christine Gregiore.

It is this kind of treatment by the party establishment that has fueled the suspicions of the grass roots folk such as me.

Add to those suspicions the generic dislike for John McCain and you have a "not good" scenario potentially building for the general election.

Disclaimer: I am a former Fred head who became a soft Romney voter who ended up caucusing for Huckabee to send a message to the McCainiacs that he still has work to do.  And for what it is worth, my precinct did not include ONE McCain vote.  And we were not counted by Luke Esser?

Also this:

I happen to be a Precinct Committee Officer for one of the rural counties that are NOT included in that "McCain victory" poll that Esser is touting.

I called the party office today and the kind secretary said that all the votes had not been counted and that some of the rural counties rely on snail mail to deliver results. WELL DUH! I told her that I happen to be one of those rural precincts and can say that in MY precinct there was not ONE vote for McCain.

I can also say that I know for a fact that one of the other precincts, that was caucusing with us, had at least one other voter who said she would never be able to vote for McCain. She is a former mayor of a town here on the east side of the cascades.

Then to ad insult to injury the "official" website of the state party had on their front page a "news" story that declared "Sen. McCain Wins Republican Precinct Caucuses in Washington State."

I asked the communications director how one can "declare" anything if all the votes have not been counted? Unless of course you folks on the west side of the state really don't care to count those of us on the east side at all.

Hey Luke Esser perhaps you don't really want us to vote in November either? Care to go the general election alone?

The bloggers blog is called NW Republican.

MIKE HUCKABEE HAS CRUSHED John McCain in Kansas.  The base of the Republican party continues to defy the East Coast Liberals and the Party Establishment.  The real 'foot soldiers" who make up the party simply aren't going to take marching orders from Bill Kristol, the Senate insiders club, the Wall Street Journal, Bill Bennett, the liberal war hawk neo-cons or anyone else.  It's a bottom up party in a bottom up country -- and the voters need to remind them of that now and again.

And lets make if simple for Rush and Levin and Coulter --Mike Huckabee is far more conservative than Hillary Clinton, and far more preferable as President.  And if you'd pick Huckabee over Hillary and Hillary over John McCain, certainly you've got to pick Huckabee over John McCain, otherwise you're just talking nonsense to the rest of us.

A side note.  It's telling that Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney talks with conviction about how the goodness and greatness of the country comes from the bottom up -- from the people.  It's a natural theme for them, but not so natural coming from John McCain on some of his supporters.

UPDATE:  Michelle Malkin has a Saturday night primary and caucus open thread.

HOW DID HUCKABEE do it.  Let's take a look at the exit polls.

GEORGIA:

Huckabee had a strong showing in Georgia among pro-life voters, young voters, and folks who spend a lot of time in church.  Huckabee took 56% of the vote among the 29% of voters who attend church more than once a week.  And you read that right -- voters who attend church more than once a week.  Romney's worst group was among this demographic, scoring only 19% of the vote compared to the 30% and better he did among weekly church goers and all others.  John McCain was strongest among older voters and Catholic voters.  And an interesting side fact.  37% of Georgia Republicans said the Giuliani endorsement was important.  More than half of these voters voted for John McCain.

WHAT'S HUCKABEE'S MOTIVATION? He's promoting John McCain every chance he can get.  He's kicking and cutting Mitt Romney like an Arkansas chicken in a cock fight.  And he doesn't have a chance of winning the GOP nomination -- Huckabee is in single digits nose-to-nose with Ron Paul among Republican voters who are not Baptist and/or evangelical.  And the chances that John McCain will put Huckabee on the ticket are almost zero.  Huckabee doesn't gain McCain any values voters, and he costs McCain voters in McCain's favored "independent" demographic.

So what is Huckabee's motivation?  Well, it's not like Huckabee has been hiding his motivation.  Again and again he's said that what drives him in the campaign is the thing most important to him, and again and again he's said what is most important to him is his theology.  And he's used that theology to drive an identify-politics campaign that has attracted baptist or evangelical voters and almost no one else.  But what no one will talk about but which is evident if you look at the exit polls is that Huckabee has used his theological identity politics as a wedge issue against Mitt Romney.  Those who tell pollsters that it matters a lot that a candidates shares their same religion vote predominately for Huckabee -- and the person who almost never gets their vote is Mitt Romney.

It wasn't an accident that Huckabee spoke about the supposed Mormon belief that the Devil is Jesus's brother.  It's not an accident that Huckabee has repeatedly identified himself as the leader of Christians in the race, leaving unsaid what doesn't need to be said among many Baptists and evangelicals -- that Mitt Romney is a leader in a religion of what they believe are non-Christians.

So Huckabee has told us that his theology drives his campaign, he's used his theological identity as his chief means of acquiring votes, and he's used his theology directly against Mitt Romney.  So now with Huckabee not having a change of being President, and with Huckabee clearly campaigning against the strong-on-values / strong-on-judges candidate Romney and in favor of the weak-on-values / weak-on-judges candidate McCain, you've got to ask yourself what's going on here.  And although no one wants to talk about the elephant in the middle of the room, I think we should talk about it. 

John McCain is a knife-fighting, divorced fly-boy, but a conventional Christian.  Huckabee is comfortable with that.  But Huckabee has issues with the decent, hard working, good values, nice guy Mitt Romney. You've got to ask yourself what is up with that.  And then when you recall the "Jesus and the Devil are brothers" stuff and Huckabee's keynote participation in the Salt Lake City convention of the Baptists which focused in part on the theological rivalry with the Mormon religion, a glimmer of things falling into place begins to emerge.

When it comes to assisting McCain and blocking Romney, it may be about what Huckabee has been telling us all along it's about.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but when or if McCain with the aid of Huckabee takes the nomination from Romney, we should all be clear why and how this happened.

One thing to note -- in the West where people know and are comfortable with Mormons, and where people historically have tended to be more tolerant than in the rest of the country, you don't see the anti-Mormon vote so much among the Baptists and / or evangelicals.   I'd be surprised to see McCain win a single state out West today besides his own state of Arizona, and he might even lose that.

HERE'S the Florida Republican debate transcript.  I'll have commentary a bit later.

DUNCAN HUNTER GIVES Mike Huckabee a strong endorsement for President.  The most interesting thing here is that Huckabee has managed to convince Hunter that he's credible on Hunter's two standout issues -- building a border fence and competing with China.  Most in the pundit class have yet to believe that Huckabee is to be taken seriously on illegal immigration or foreign policy.  Has Hunter been fooled, or does he know something the rest of us don't?