Why do you store your scotch in the fridge?

...and frankly, I don't care. End result doesn't matter, as it'll be cold enough poured over ice anyways.

"No matter how much lipstick you put on the taxation pig, it's still a pig... and it's currently snout-down in your wallet." - Michael Fisk

.

Ice, water, coke. Doesn't matter. Good Scotch doesn't need it...

"Guns don't kill people...
"...But they sure help!"
-Paul Giamatti, Shoot 'Em Up

And I like to consider myself a pretty well versed scotch drinker. No mixers, no ice ever, but some malts need water to loosen up a little (heck, they use boatloads of the stuff over in Scotland). But hey, to each his own :P

Really good single-malts need a bit of cold water (not ice water), as long as the water is filtered and doesn't have an extraneous taste of its own.

If you can drink Talisker or a Skye single-malt neat, you're a better man than I am. ;-)

I mean, if you drink it that way, the more applicable epithet is "Ouch."

;)

n/t

No way at all that Huck will be the nominee. One-trick ponies in a field of more rounded candidates, no way.

Stare decisis is fo' suckas -- Feddie

They have tried, but the children will not listen. AKA Rush, etc.

See my post below. Here's a perfect example of the condescension I'm talking about.

You took it too literal. It was a play on words. Sacrasim. It wasn't meant as acondescension remark. If you took it that way, I am sorry.

So we'll see what they say.

The trouble with the Iowa caucus is that it's unlike a regular primary. Which may be fun in Iowa on a cold winter night, but it's an outlier.

YESTERDAY!

:>)

At any time, my friend, as long as there is attribution ;).

Hopefully you're right. But this is supposed to be the kung-fu fighting thread, so I said what I said.

I wish we had a primary instead. It was a cold one last night.

"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his."
-General George S. Patton

I'm sort of getting tired of this. I'm not supporting the guy. But the vitriol from Republicans (I expect it from Dems, Media, etc.) about Huckabee's faith/religiosity causes me to have some sympathy for him and ALMOST begin to consider rooting for him. And I have a feeling that is a big part of why last night happened.

Look, SoCons spent months listening to Giuliani supporters tell us to suck it up and deal with his inevitable candidacy because he was the only one who could win. After all that condescension (and it was there and still is. Read a few of the articles/blog posts from beltway types today) from fellow Republicans, the SoCons got sick of it, Huckabee capitalized, and here we are.

Again, I'm not supporting Huckabee. He's well down my list. But I'm really sick of the anger, bitterness, and incredible condescension of the "educated" and "intelligent" non-SoCons at the "country bumpkin" and "fundamentalist" (always the meaningless catch-all scare word to use when one is trying to indicate "religious in some serious way") SoCons.

To win in November we're going to need both the SoCons and the DefCons & FinCons. Expressing dissatisfaction with a candidate is one thing, appearing to wish the jettisoning of an entire chunk of the base because of one's disgust at them is another thing.

Inhale deeply.

The thing is that I'm equal parts SoCon and DefCon and FinCon. On virtually every issue under those three umbrellas, I score very highly on any of the metrics someone would use to rank me.

But because of that I believe that we need *all three* united under a *strong candidate* to win. I'm not trying to offend Baptists, but the problem is that Huckabee is wearing his religion on his sleeve (which Romney has *never* done) and he's also using it to pull in and lock in voters on that one, narrow issue.

In many ways Huckabee has put his religion and denomination front-and-center in this election and it's going to be very divisive and destructive that he has.

"Expressing dissatisfaction with a candidate is one thing, appearing to wish the jettisoning of an entire chunk of the base because of one's disgust at them is another thing."

That is one of the best statements I have seen in the aftermath of Iowa. But I urge you to find the diary titled SoCons exact revenge(or some such) by Alexham, and consider who it is trying to jettison or tell the other factions to back off. One of the points from that post was basically this: You other portions of Conservatism better deal with us or else. I find it hard to believe that A) we haven't dealt with SoCons and B) that they can win without us and still deal with the Democrats because that is who they will be dealing with if the Conservative movement is not unified.

Standing athwart history yelling stop!!!! http://nationalwhig.blogspot.com

First, criticism of Huckabee & religion coming from the right has been about how he has used it, not that he has it. This has been endlessly repeated, but it's still a sore spot. I guess that's to be expected, because religion and politics are both sensitive topics, so when they mix...watch out. And Huckabee has mixed them heavily. Not by importing values from religion and applying them to politics, but importing identity.

Huckabee loves your reaction. This was a set up since the "floating cross" ad at least. He repeats that any question of how he has abused religion is an attack not on him, but on all evangelicals (tightening the identity net).

Of course, if people were too scared to point out his identity politics tactics (for fear of offending evangelicals), he would be perfectly happy with that, too.

The one thing Huckabee does not want is for people to call him on his identity politics and yet for evangelicals to not be offended, but rather to understand that this is about Huckabee and how he is degrading their identity and faith.

>>>criticism of Huckabee & religion coming from the right has been about how he has used it, not that he has it.

Precisely. While there is the occasional anti-Christian bigot that pops up here and there, the vast majority are simply criticizing his use of Christianity as a campaign tool. I don't have an issue with him explaining his positions on culture/moral issues, but stuff like his "Christian leader" comment is unnecessary.

I am a ultra-conservative Presbyterian (PCA) and have been a member of the SBC and E-Free churches in the past, so I am well familiar with the evangelical community. Someone earlier today made reference to Rick Warren (pastor of Saddleback Church and author of "The Purpose Driven Life") in another thread. If someone wanted to learn more about today's evangelical mentality, they'd do well to look at some of the books, etc. coming from the Warren types. (Note: I do not endorse Warren's book - personally, I detested it, but a very large percentage of the evangelical community ate it up.)

Hence, the result yesterday.

said it better myself. Bravo.

Rudy '08

but this is not a decision of the adults in the Republican Party, whoever they are.

Huckabee is what he is. If the Evangelicals show up in sufficient numbers, .... well, you know how it works.

The problem is that posts like this are particularly galling to Evangelicals. They are tired of being called yokels, ignorant gap-toothed inbred...again, you know how this works. It makes the problem much worse, and really, I understand how they feel.

Attacking Huckabee for being a Baptist Preacher tends to hide the liberal issues that would defeat him.

Disclaimer: I support Fred. I am also a Southern Baptist Evangelical gap-toothed, anti-abortion Socon.

Maybe I shouldn't say "adults." Maybe I should say: "Republicans interested in preserving (becuase it's been very good to this party historically) the Reagan Coalition."

Because that Coalition has been religiously nondenominational. It's been moderate on that score. It has welcomed FinCons and SoCons and DefCons, not alienated them. In fact I don't think (or at least I can't recall) religion trumping Founding Principles under Ronald Reagan. It is the founding principles of the Republic that we need to rediscover. And one of those is religious freedom and tolerance. But the religion of the President should be, as nearly as possible, a very minimal concern. This is *not* a Theocracy.

Let's do a partial differential equation over each of the candidates. Hold (or better yet, eliminate) the variable of religion for each of the candidates and see what you have left after you do the integration:

If you take religion away from Huckabee's equation, what do you have left? Not much. That's why he's using it.

Haha. Or perhaps Fourier analysis could be used to measure the frequency at which some candidates flip flop on issues.

Listen, people make mistakes. When it's a big issue like abortion those mistakes have big repercussions if you're running for President.

But I'm not worried about reverse flip-flops. I am personally convinced that Romney is going to stay where he is and expand upon those themes, given the chance.

I can't be cynical about it. How could I look myself in the mirror?

I would be offended by a priest running for President as a "Christian Leader" while campaigning on his priesthood as one of his main qualifications for POTUS, making clear he was going to be a sort of national chaplain. It's not that I don't like Catholics, I am a practicing one. And when non-Catholics were offended by the campaigning I wouldn't take it as anti-Catholicism. I'd share their feelings.

"Honor is self-esteem made visible in action." - Ayn Rand, West Point, 1974

I agree, but then I'm one of those secular fiscal conservatives. I don't understand why the whole redstate community is so against Huckabee. I thought this site was more or less dominated by evangelical christian conservatives. Isn't Huckabee the ideal candidate for that community?

...on everything but social policy.

I thought this site was more or less dominated by evangelical christian conservatives

Dominated by Conservatives yes,

Domninated by Populist (Socialist) No.

Huckabee is practicing identity politics. The fact is that 30 of his 34 percentage points from last night came from Evangelicals with a 60% Evangelical turnout. You can't get that in the general. Under a normally high 40% Evangelical turnout Romney would have won. Evangelicals can win a caucus but they can't win a general without help and Huckabee isn't strong enough on issues to pull that off.

If 30-34% of Huck's support came from evangelicals, then 70-66% of Huck's support came from non-evangelicals. Looking objectively at the numbers, I don't think that most of Huck's support, last night, came from evangelicals--or even half of his support for that matter. I am a Huck supporter, and I am a moderate to conservative Democrat as of now--I plan on becoming an independent, or even a Republican, in the future. Therefore, my point is that you are greatly underestimating Huck--and by the way, giving him a HUGE advantage--if you keep insisting that his message only appeals to evangelicals.

On a side note, I don't know how the primaries may play out from here. I wish everyone and their candidates luck. All the candidates are good men and I think that we will all be fine--no matter how the chips fall.

Huck got only 14% of the non-evangelical vote. Mitt led that category with 33%.

60% multipled by 50% is 30%

30% of 34% is 88%

88% of Hucks support is Evangelical. The other 12% were friends that the Evangelicals drag out with them.

This is the definition of idendity politics and what Rush has been talking about for the past month.

I thought that you wrote 30-34% of his votes came from evangelicals. You were saying 30 out 34 total percentage points came from evangelicals. I get it. :-)

Of parts of Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) when the Dems roll out the buses and truck everyone down to the voting booth, identify politics in action.

"Honor is self-esteem made visible in action." - Ayn Rand, West Point, 1974

Jim Tomasik

(Caveat: this is all predicated on belief in accurate exit polling, and my numbers are from late last night and may not be the most current...)

From what I've read here, 60% of the GOP caucus goers were self-identified evengelicals and 50% of them voted for Huckabee. That means evangelicals voting for Huckabee comprised 30% of all Iowa caucus goers. Huckabee got 34% total. This means that among non-self-identified evangelicals that made up the remaining 40% of the GOP caucus-attendees, only 10% of them (or 4% of the total) supported Huckabee.

Bottom line - using these numbers, better than 88% of Huckabee's support last night came from self-identified evangelicals.

-------------
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.

Caveat: I'm using CNN's exit poll - so take the precise numbers for what it's worth...

60% of Iowa GOP caucus goers were self-identified born-again or evangelical Christians
46% of them voted for Mike Huckabee (the next closest was Romney at 19%)
46% of 60% is 27.6%

Therefore, evangelicals voting for Huckabee represented 27.6% of all GOP caucus-goers. And Huckabee's total among all caucus-goers was 34% (with 5% of the vote still not yet in, for some reason).

27.6% is 81.2% of 34% - therefore, 81.2% of Huckabee's support last night came from self-identified born-again or evangelical Christians.

Nothing like putting that Masters' in Mathematics to practical use, eh?

-------------
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.

So, even though the polls from last night say that a majority of Huck's support was from evangelicals, I definitely think that he's trying to expand his message to non-evangelicals. Last night, after Huck's victory, I saw him interviewed by Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews--I'll go out on a limb and say that I don't think that they have a large Evangelical audience. He made them both smile. I've also managed to catch Huck on Hardball, Bill Maher, John Stewart, and Stephen Colbert (after his Iowa straw poll win). I could be wrong, but I don't think that any of these guys are raking in the Evangelical viewers either.

By the way, I think that Huck is doing the right thing by trying to spread his message to non-Evangelical and independent voters. I, also, agree with Trevino in that Huck needs to reach out to fiscons and defcons.

On a side note, could it be more accurate to ask how many of the people voted for Huckabee because he is an Evangelical--not just looking at the total number of Evangelicals who voted for him? I could be wrong--I don't have a master's degree in math, like docj does. However, I do remember Norah Odonnell going over the breakdown of why people voted for Huckabee. Only 33% (I think) said that they were voting for him because he shared their religious beliefs. It is possible that someone could be an Evangelical, but could vote for Huckabee for entirely different reasons. I have to go unpack, study, and take down my fire hazard/Christmas tree. Y'all have a good day.

On a side note, could it be more accurate to ask how many of the people voted for Huckabee because he is an Evangelical--not just looking at the total number of Evangelicals who voted for him?

The CNN results to which Docj linked provide the following answer: Of those who voted for Huckabee 56% said the religion of the candidate was greatly important and 30% said it was somewhat important. So 86% of those who voted for him said his religion was somewhat to greatly important to them.

Changing topics:

I definitely think that he's trying to expand his message to non-evangelicals. Last night, after Huck's victory, I saw him interviewed by Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews...

I've also managed to catch Huck on Hardball, Bill Maher, John Stewart, and Stephen Colbert...

I'm not sure those are the best people for Huckabee to be meeting with if he wants to expand his message to conservatives. If he's looking to reach out to liberals, they're great.

It looks like Huck beat Romney in more groups than just Evangelicals. In fact, Huck beat Romney in women, people under 30, people under 44, people who think Iraq is most important, people who think terrorism is most important, people who think the economy is most important, people who think immigration is most important, people who are dissatisfied with the Bush Administration, people who make under $35,000 a year, and people who make under $100,000 a year. Huckabee even got the majority of voters who said that they decided who to vote for that day--dare I say, his Tonight Show appearance could have had an effect? The only groups that Romney beat Huck in were moderates, people who make over $100,000 a year, and independents; however, with regard to independents, Romney only beat Huck by two points. If anyone cares, Ron Paul actually won independents.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21228177/

I'm not going to pretend that Evangelicals weren't the fuel that propelled Huckabee to victory. However, in all fairness, it appears that Huck won almost every distinct voter group. So, in conclusion, I don't think that we can be completely certain why a particular voter voted for Huck. For example, let's say that someone who voted for Huck is an Evangelical female--did Huck appeal to her because he appeals to Evangelicals, or did he appeal to her because he appeals to women, or both? Y'all have a good night.

Among the poll respondents, what percentage of ...

women
people under 30
people under 44
people who think Iraq is most important
people who think terrorism is most important
people who think the economy is most important
people who think immigration is most important
people who are dissatisfied with the Bush Administration
people who make under $35,000 a year
people who make under $100,000 a year
voters who said that they decided who to vote for that day

... were also self-identified evangelical or born-again Christians?

-------------
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.

I don't know. Which is exactly my point. We can't KNOW for sure why any of these people voted for Huck. Did some vote for him strictly for religious reasons? I'd be willing to bet yes. However, did some voters--who happen to be Evangelical--vote for him because they liked what he said about immigration, terrorism, education, health care, or the economy? On that, I'd also be willing to bet yes. It would take a statistician or mathematician--like yourself--to really dissect these polls, and maybe even ask these voters follow up questions. It's been way too long since I took statistics and it gave me a headache. Have a good night. :-)

... but I don't have the raw data and statistics really isn't my bag (I swing more between classical field theories and computational mechanics - stats always seemed like "voodoo" to me).

Someone knows the answer to this though - but I doubt we'll ever hear about it.

Cheers -

-------------
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.

If evangelicals are randomly represented in each of the groups Huckabee won which seems reasonable for women, people under 30, people under 44, people making under $30k, and people making under $100k then each of those groups would be roughly comprised of 60% evangelicals. My gut tells me being in one of those groups doesn't make you more or less likely to be an evangelical, but the others I'm not so sure on.

As for those that identify themselves as independents, moderates, or make more than $100k a year, I can see them skewing away from evangelicals and explaining a shift towards Romney as evangelicals bled off, substantiating the evangelical attribute as the driving factor in support for Huckabee.

But has you said, statistics feels like "voo-doo", sort of like the medieval Holland observation of increased babies in buildings with larger numbers of storks on the roof tops. The more storks on the roof tops the more babies in the building, but it obviously had something to do with some other attribute; babies correlating to food in the area or something else.

"Honor is self-esteem made visible in action." - Ayn Rand, West Point, 1974

He governs as a left-wing liberal, and he keeps changing his mind on issues. What we need is someone who is an adult and a consistent conservativce, and that is Fred Thompson!

Our cousins in the party have had their man for 8 years. Let us hope the next Republican President and VP do not include a clone of Cheney and his happy family.

Lets hope that's Huckabee'sn next move. I would vote for Cheney as president in a heart beat.

* PRIESTCRAFT is thus defined: “The stratagem and frauds of priests; fraud or imposition in religious concerns. Management of selfish and ambitious priests to gain wealth and power, or to impose upon the credulity of others.”

Although I'm sure Dick would love to have a White House wedding as President. But goodness knows ol' Dick can fight the "war on terror", what a splendid job he and Rummy did. I'm for Huckabee or Thompson, but am not one of those who say I wouldn't vote for Romney, Guiliani or McCain. But, without a doubt, I would vote for any Democrat over Dick Cheney. He is a disaster for the Republican party and his family is an embarassment.

Stare decisis is fo' suckas -- Feddie

Stare decisis is fo' suckas -- Feddie

your laptop" day?

Hey Frank, the embarassment to the Party is you. Go post elsewhere.
____
CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

Texas Proud and Texas Loud

It's one thing to be against gay marriage but you're just a bigot. Cheney's not embarrassed about his daughter and he shouldn't be.

Funny how you, a Huckabee supporter, has made a comment so similar to John Edwards in the VP debate. Maybe Huck is more like John Edwards than I realized.

Oh, and I think you underestimate how popular Cheney remains to the base. Please encourage Huck to attack Cheney.

* PRIESTCRAFT is thus defined: “The stratagem and frauds of priests; fraud or imposition in religious concerns. Management of selfish and ambitious priests to gain wealth and power, or to impose upon the credulity of others.”

[hell freezing over...] Frank, I'm not sure what you are saying, or what your issue with Cheney is. As a dedicated SoCon myself (with healthy doses of FisCon and MilCon as well),

I HEART DICK CHENEY

He is THE BOMB. The ORIGINAL JOHN WAYNE before that Marrion Morris guy took the name. I hope like crazy that the Huck starts dissing Cheney.

Stare decisis is fo' suckas -- Feddie

Just as Huck bashing tastes like bile, so does Cheney bashing. I'm a Huckabee supporter, but Cheney would have been at the top on my list from day one if he chose to run. I have no question that he would fight vigorously to defend my right to worship against the ACLU, my rights to raise my children according to the religious beliefs I want to raise them under, and my right to earn money to spend on the charities I want to rather than having it taxed to subsidize abortion, sex "education," and whatever else Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and MoveOn.org have in mind. The attacks against Huckabee and his supporters such as myself sicken me, but you Frank are lower than them!

A number of Romneybots are conspicuously absent this morning.

We're alive and well. Second place isn't that bad. ;-)

"Politics is the business of trying to convince fools to do the right thing."
-Braden Pace

Well, I hope you retain that mindset when/if McCain wins in NH. ;o)

Jim Tomasik

I won't predict either way. But let's just say that I hope that old amnesty/anti-growth/anti-tax moderate Republican McCain gets destroyed and humiliated in New Hampshire.

"Politics is the business of trying to convince fools to do the right thing."
-Braden Pace

it was a bit overpriced though ;-)

Yes, I'm gloating and no hard feelings intended on my part.

Seriously. I don't begrudge any of y'all a little end-zone dance today.

The only upside for us RomneyBots is that outside of RedState the only thing anyone seems to be talking about is that St. Hillary may just be on the ropes - hardly much to hang on but any port in a storm!

-------------
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.

Hucks getting some bucks so that makes up for the Hillary thing a little. We'll settle for that, I guess.

The goal for midnight tonight was 200k online, he's at 350+k at 2;30 pm. Not to shabby... prolly get 400k at least by the time I get home this evening.

Jim Tomasik

"As for Huckabee, it's not his religiosity I have a problem with - it's his downright liberal economic policies, plus I lost a ton of respect for him when he openly attacked Romney's Mormonism, which was flat-out un-American."

I think that both his liberal positions, and anti-Mormon rep. will hurt Huck in the Mountain West region in both the primaries, and the general elections.

...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...

---Thomas Paine---

every member of the Reagan coalition?

Yeah, a shiv to the kidney for SoCons, a knife in the back for FisCons, and a sharp stick to the eye of DefCons. </end snark>

Sorry, I just couldn't resist. But John "Maverick" McCain HAS been just a wee bit unreliable as an ally the last 7 years, no?

McCain may have stabbed us all in the back at some point, but with the culture of life being my biggest issue, the difference between Rudy and McCain is the difference between not voting for a President (or voting third party, if an option presents itself) versus enthusiastically voting R over any Dem in the field.

I may not be able to trust McCain, but that's much better than Rudy's promise to kick me in the face *almost* as hard as hilary.

Thompson will likely finish at or near the bottom in NH and how the rest of the field shakes out will have virtually no effect on him. The only way NH matters to Thompson is if -- pigs putting on party dresses and taking to the skies -- he places in the top three.

He will participate -- read "excel" -- in the debates and then head to SC without looking back.

Save the "knockout" kool aid for Politico.

------------
"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it." - A. Lincoln

The only way NH matters to Thompson is if -- pigs putting on party dresses and taking to the skies -- he places in the top three.

If he does, every one else may as well go home, because he would have it wrapped up and the story coming out of NH is that he has no organization there, but pulls 3rd in a primary (where everyone that is registered can vote, instead of a caucus, where only a few can participate), he will be the story of NH.

I forget to hit reply, see remarks below.

I'd like to have some of what you are smoking.

Seriously.

Let's pretend for a moment that the IA caucus is *that* influential on the rest of the process (it matters, but not to the weight that most people seem to think it does).

Fred cam in third in the caucus. Narrowly ahead of McCain, but still ahead. And that is after an unending cascade of (incorrect) hit pieces and smear jobs by the MSM, Fox News, and those loveable, ornery hacks at the Politico.

If you think that no less viable at this very early point in the race, you have another think coming.

Fred Thompson: Hands Down, the ONLY Consistently Conservative candidate.

is the way to win over the Huck supporters! You didn't even have to use words like "humbly".

Reason, respect, and good arguments go a long ways compared to flaming evangelicals as a whole.

Rudy '08 (or Fred if he can come to life)

You do realize that most of the time, those that win in Iowa do not get the nomination, and there has only been two people that won Iowa that went onto be President, and that was Carter and Bush43. And I can tell you this, Huckabee is not Bush, but he may be Carter

I've told this story so many times. I've always liked Mike. He spoke at the Hugh O'Brien Youth Leadership Conference in Washington D.C. in 2004 and I was impressed then at, I believe the tender age of 15. I was excited when he declared for POTUS but I wrote him off as having no chance. Now with the Huckaboom I've come home.

My path has been this:

Huck
Brownback
Newt
Rudy
John Cox
Newt
Fred
Huck
McCain (if Huck lost Iowa)
Huck

Yeah I flip candidates more than Mitt Romney flips positions...maybe.

Or be honest...you're a youngin' in college who is politically ambitious and you think this was a candidate you could see ridng somewhere with.

The sad fact is... you live in Pennsylvania and besides you and maybe one of Huck's cousins, you'll be the only one in Pennsylvania voting for Huckabee.

Something tells me that if Huckabee flames out, you'll jump ship and schill for whoever you think can move a future political career.

If you hitch your political future on Mike Huckabee and stay in Pennsylvania... we should just call you Mr. Santorum, Jr (without ever winning office of course).

Looking at your list of people you've supported...maybe you should just wait until there's a nominee. Otherwise you just look like an opportunist.

I don't agree with his Huck choice, but you don't really have a right to flame the kid.

1) It's always good to see young Republicans. We can use all the help we can get.

2) This kid is giving money to politics. And you want to piss him off and show him that politics is a nasty business.

3) I'm glad to see someone being honest about how they are navigating a particularly difficult election season.

Don't you remember what it's like to be young and not set in your ways?

I'm pretty settled on Fred, but if he drops out, you can bet I'll "schill" for whoever I then think is the best candidate.

I hope that this is widely circulated and widely read!

That letter needs to be read by a whole lot of my fellow evangelicals.

Lol, Romney is going to have to hire Hugh Hewitt after this whole thing is over. Of course judgeing from Hugh's support for Romney, he already has.

And the fact that Hugh Hewitt possesses the letter, means it should be taken with a grain of salt. Hugh posting it is no different than if the Romney campaign themselves posted it.

And dismiss Huckabee's responses to the items contained in that letter? Or do you only practice ad homs in only one direction?

I've been saying for a long time, that the average voter asks themselves 2 questions when deciding on a candidate.

1) Do I like him/her?
2) Do I trust him/her?

I think this is why both Obama and Huckabee won Iowa. I am a Fred supporter, and I worry b/c he doesn't have the charisma, although I think he would have the trust of most voters -- he's just not a likable as Huckabee.

Hillary is hard to like and I think even a lot of Dems don't totally trust her. Barack does well in both the likability and trustworthiness categories.

Because of these 2 questions, I'd prefer Hillary get the nomination. It would also unite the very fragmented Republican coalition.

Nope. He's too green and makes too many gaffes. I wouldn't count Clinton out yet either, let alone the Republicans.

There's entirely too much doom and gloom flying around. Let's get back in the fight and win it.

perhaps they figure that Huckabee will be clueless about foreign affairs and therefore let military people run it the way they see fit.

remember that the president is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. He makes the final decisions. We don't want a dummy for our boss.

is they want a player's coach, someone who says, "I don't know, you tell me and that's what we'll go with. Are you guys happy?" He's still the boss, just one of those bosses that let's that part of the organization run things their way since he doesn't know any different.

I've been in the military for over 20 years and have found many are populists and not conservatives, which leads to the confusion of why military people support certain candidates. My guess is they Os you know fall along the populist lines, which is what Huckabee is.

"Honor is self-esteem made visible in action." - Ayn Rand, West Point, 1974

There were several posts that crunched the numbers from last night and demonstrated that over 80% of Huckabee's votes came from evangelicals. Now those evangelicals may have been "senior military officers" and others from all walks of life - but they were self-proclaimed "evangelicals." That percentage does not jive with the overall percentage of the GOP electorate. Therefore, one can surmise that Huckabee may have a rougher go of it ahead.

They were wedding gifts from the registry, house warming presents.

"Honor is self-esteem made visible in action." - Ayn Rand, West Point, 1974