The Republican field of candidates is so poor, so bad, that Huckabee won't rise to the top so much as the rest of them will sink to the bottom.
The only thing keeping the Giuliani campaign alive is the corporate press/media's determination to keep the Giuliani campaign alive.
Romney's fall will come not because he is Mormon, but because he doesn't have a sufficient history of racist posturing, opposition to abortion rights and hatred of gays to satisfy the "religious" voters who dominate the Republican primaries. Put another way, he just doesn't pronounce "God" the way they do in the Republican heartland.
It will be Huckabee v. Clinton or Huckabee v. Obama and, to be honest, I wouldn't bet against him. This is still a largely racist and sexist country.
Posted by James E. Powell at December 8, 2007 12:22 AMToday Doris Lessing has an article up at the Guardian. She still writes well and sees the world incisively, imo.
I read her lectures on war fever, "Prisons We Choose to Live Inside", the Massey Lectures of 1986, in the run up to Iraq I.
Not recommended, if you read it you get more understanding than is comfortable of a corollary of George Santayana's, "Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.", being, "Students of history are condemned to watch humanity repeat it."
I wonder which candidates have read it.
Posted by jaynicks at December 8, 2007 01:00 AMjaynicks- i can't get your links to work.
Posted by Turkana at December 8, 2007 01:08 AMDo not underestimate Huckabee's appeal to religious moderates or even liberals. His You-Tube debate answer on the Bible, was as NON-fundamentalist as you can get. (Examples: he endorsed allegorical interpretation of the Bible--a strict no-no for fundamentalists; he affirmed "love your neighbor" and "inasmuch as you did it to the least of these you did it to me" as the central take-away message of the Bible--which no fundamentalist would ever do; and he said people who think they fully understand the Bible or God from the Bible--which means fundamentalists--have small minds.) There's nothing here that even the most liberal Christian couldn't accept, so trashing Huck as a fundamentalist just won't work with the electorate at large. A serious debate on why the Republican agenda is the embodiment of "hate your neighbor" may be necessary, and would expose Huck's platform as hypocritical. And, to be sure, Huck seems sometimes quirky and disconcertingly odd--which will make moderates nervous. But we who long for a Democratic victory will dismiss Huckabee at our peril.
Posted by Wilderwood at December 8, 2007 03:02 AMI will dismiss anyone who claims his rise in the polls is a supernatural intervention.
Give this ass-clown the nuclear football to help with the rapture and it WILL be "at our peril".
Bush talks to "god", you really want another holy-ghost whisperer in the White House?
Posted by TIKI AL at December 8, 2007 06:10 AMHuckabee is the ReThugs' biggest threat to Democrats. Giuliani is the ReThugs' biggest threat to the Republic.
Posted by gay veteran at December 8, 2007 07:34 AMDo not underestimate Huckabee's appeal to religious moderates or even liberals. His You-Tube debate answer on the Bible, was as NON-fundamentalist as you can get.
Did you hear or see "the Huckster's" response to the question of evolution in the very first republi-con debate?
Except — I just have to say — did you see that three Republicans raised their hands to signify that they did not believe in evolution?... three other Republican candidates did raise their hands. (They have been identified as Sen. Sam Brownback, Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Rep. Tom Tancredo.) The mind boggles...
This means he supports teaching 'intelligent design', the world must be less than 20,000 years old and he takes the bible literally for being the word of God (as opposed to being written by humans).
Sorry Wilderwood, this will not "appeal to religious moderates or even liberals."
Posted by Seven of Six at December 8, 2007 07:43 AM
Thanks for the head's up, Turkana.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/nobelprize/story/0,,2224068,00.html
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About Massey Lectures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massey_Lectures
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Seem to work. Typekey erases link action when the URL is not quoted. Didn't know that, now I do. Sorry about that.
Posted by jaynicks at December 8, 2007 07:44 AMOh man... this is huge!
Iran has opted to stop accepting the US dollar as payment for oil.
h/t Scout Finch at DKos
Posted by Seven of Six at December 8, 2007 10:18 AMIran announced today that it will no longer accept US dollars for oil. They must really believe they are safe now!
This could be the last straw for the neocons to "drop the big one now".
Maybe McCain and Randy Newman ARE prophets.
Can oil bits drill thru glass?
Posted by TIKI AL at December 8, 2007 10:26 AM