The No Kool Aid Zone

Here’s a fitting final post on the courageous campaign of Mike Huckabee, who gave the nomination a run that few pundits thought he would. Given Huck’s great sense of humor, I thought this would be a good one to end on:

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This article presents both sides of the issue:

What Huck Hopes to Win

I really can see a good argument both ways. I hope that, if Huck stays in, he maintains quite the respectful approach toward McCain that he has thus far, recognizing that conservatives need to come together in November to defeat socialism.

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Kansas, Convincingly to Huckabee

From a guy polling at one percent 6 months ago, to the last of two men standing in the Republican field (OK, OK, Ron Paul is still “standing”), Mike Huckabee has come a long ways. And now, when just about everybody has handed the thing to McCain (yeah, me included), Huck scores his most impressive triumph. I wrote an opinion a couple of months back that the thing would come down to Rudy Giuliani and a conservative alternative, Huck or Flip Flopney. OK, so I was wrong about Rudy, but McCain is playing the Rudy character now, the moderate-conservative to Huck’s more solid conservative credentials (despite what Rush, et al, say).

Could it be? Is there still a chance?

Stranger things have happened…

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These posts are dated by five days; sorry, I’ve been away on an emergency, and they are pre-Flopney flip-flopping one last time, deciding to pull out after he’d said he’d stay in (kind of fitting, isn’t it, for ole Flip?). But here are two great posts from Joe Carter that you need to read. The first talks reality about John McCain and Mike Huckabee:

Voter-Based Reality: Reflections on Super Tuesday

The second is an extensive treatise on why those who were pining for Flip were not dealing in reality when it comes to his record:

The Case Against Romney

As I see it, the conservative pundits and some of the Religious Right (Dobson) have really made just about total monkeys of themselves in this campaign, and all so needlessly. Aside from Mike Huckabee, there was only one real trustworthy conservative in this race (well, I’m not counting Duncan Hunter—who endorsed Huck, by the way, prior to Flip’s final flip-flop—and Sam Brownback, who left the race during the Mesozoic), and it was Fred Thompson. Even Half-Dead Fred sponsored McCain/Feingold, so he had a chink or two in his own armor, but yeah, OK, he was a conservative. Treating Flip like a real conservative never, ever made any sense; he never got traction with voters (as Joe points out), who I think saw him as a too-perfect patrician politician (the John Kerry of Republicanism, and that analogy goes a long way if you think about it). He’s not substantively very different from John McCain, and at least with McCain, you pretty much know where he stands, even if you don’t like it; his finger isn’t generally in the wind, as is Flip’s.

Mike Huckabee almost certainly will not win the nomination (despite my continued support for him, and this overly-optimistic assessment.) And thus it’s time for us to circle the wagons, swallow hard, and do what it takes to beat the Socialists come November.

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The handwriting would seem to be on the wall, and though I plan, on Super Tuesday, to cast my vote for Mike Huckabee, let’s be honest: this race is going to come down to John McCain and Mitt Romney. I take a lot of satisfaction in the fact that Huck went from being an unknown, 9-10 months ago when I began blogging for him, to outlasting both Rudy Giuliani (the presumptive nominee not that long ago), and Fred Thompson, who for a couple of months was the darling of the party. I’ll always wonder if Fred’s presence in the South Carolina primary cost Huck the win (I really, really believe that it did), and if winning SC would have given him more momentum heading into Florida. Still, he was beaten pretty soundly yesterday, and despite my generally optimistic bent, and the fact that a lot of Southern states are in the Super Tuesday primary, it seems clear that Huck’s accomplishments this time around will be limited to either becoming the VEEP nominee and/or positioning himself for 2012.

That leaves us Flip Flopney or John McCain. I could support either one in the general election. If I believed Flopney were everything he says he is (conservative), then he’d be a better choice, but I just don’t trust him, and more importantly, I think McCain is more electable than Flip. The remaining question is, is John McCain conservative enough to get my vote, and the answer is “yes”. I just looked up his lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, which details his voting record in the U.S. Senate. It’s 82+%. That’s not nearly perfect, but it’s not “liberal” either; it’s more conservative than a decent number of Republican senators, at least 12-14 as I recall. On many social issues, McCain is conservative, with a strong pro-life record. I trust his defense instincts (while not being thrilled with his record on the borders).

But here’s the deal: we cannot afford to have Mrs. Bill Clinton or Barack Obama in the White House. There are a variety of reasons why this is true, but for the pro-lifers among us, remember that we are one Supreme Court Justice away, likely, from the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Barring the unexpected, the next opening on the Court will almost certainly be one of the liberal members, either Justice Stevens or Justice Ginsburg or even that little clown Souter. Granted, getting a constructionist past a Democrat-controlled Senate won’t be easy, but they can’t hold out forever; you just keep nominating constructionists until the public tires of the Democrat game-playing and subterfuge, and we get, for the first time in memory, a majority of justices who actually believe the Constitution is the law of the land.

The polls (which do shift, I recognize) suggest that McCain is better positioned to beat the Dems. I’m willing to concede the (somewhat marginal, IMHO) difference between McCain and Romney for the gain of a greater likelihood of winning the general election. It’ll do no good to have a conservative nominee if that person can only manage 48% of the vote.

And that is why I can vote, albeit somewhat reluctantly, for John McCain.

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Not according to this article, which suggests the ole Flip is wiling to Jello himself into whatever position would seem to be advantageous at the moment. I just don’t really trust the guy.

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Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games

Though I make no bones about my support of Mike Huckabee for president, the “hot guy” right now, in an anybody’s-game 4-way contest for the Republican nomination is John McCain. I’ll tell you, I’ve warmed to McCain some. I don’t trust him in some respects yet, but if the ticket were McCain/Huckabee, I could pretty easily support it. I’m not sure I agree with this article totally, but it does tell a quite moving story about John McCain’s pro-life commitment:

McCain: The Best Pro-Life Choice?

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