December 06, 2007

12/6: Huck Haters

Conservative bloggers continue to pile on Mike Huckabee, criticizing his positions on everything from illegal immigration to Iraq. Meanwhile, the latest revelations about Huckabee's role in a serial rapist's release have created an additional headache for Huckabee in the blogosphere -- although the harshest attacks seem to be coming from the left, not the right. Ironically, Huckabee's blog outreach team is probably grateful that Mitt Romney's speech is about to become the hot topic in the conservative blogosphere and temporarily take the focus off of Huckabee.

HUCKABEE: This Story Isn't Going Away

Huckabee is taking heat from bloggers on both the left and right (but mostly the left) for his role in pushing for the early release of a convicted rapist named Wayne Dumond, who would later rape and murder another woman. Today, The Huffington Post's Murray Waas reports that Huckabee's former aide has confirmed the ex-governor's role in encouraging the Arkansas parole board to release Dumond, "directly contradicting" Huckabee's claim that he "did not ask [the board] to do anything."

NRO's Byron York: "The bottom line is that Huckabee was dreadfully wrong about Dumond."

Michelle Malkin: "Huckabee's Willie Horton is convicted rapist Wayne Dumond. Unlike the Romney case, Huckabee played a direct role in events that led to Dumond's release."

Hot Air's AllahPundit thinks this case illustrates Huckabee's philosophical contradictions: "What makes Huckabee such a fascinating character is that he so often seems to pit two traditionally conservative values against each other: Christianity on the one hand and law and order on the other. It's the same with his immigration position, where he wants (or so he says) to get control of the border while also happily encouraging illegals to immigrate with the prospect of scholarships or tuition breaks...Using Christianity as a shield for some of his more liberal positions may help in a pinch but there's a segment of the base that already has qualms about the explicitness with which he's touting his religion as a political asset. If he's pushed on Dumond and invokes the spirit of mercy as justification, is it going to spook even mainstream conservatives?"

Liberal bloggers have been even more critical of Huckabee:

AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "Huckabee basically helped secure the guy's release because the convict had raped a distant relative of Bill Clinton -- and being a distant relative of Bill Clinton, the right-wing attack machine said the woman who was raped wasn't credible (even though the guy was convicted), and they demanded that the rapist be set free because, after all, he only raped a Clinton. Well, it seems that Governor Huckabee agreed. He set the rapist free, and then the guy molested and murdered another woman. But even better? Huckabee now denies that he had anything to do with the release of the rapist/murderer. Funny, then why did Huckabee meet with the parole board on behalf of the rapist/murderer? So now we know the real Mike Huckabee."

The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "This painful, tragic story isn't exactly new; Huckabee watchers have been talking about it for years. Even this year, his critics couldn't imagine why this scandal hadn't knocked Huckabee out of contention for the Republican nomination. But he wasn't a credible candidate, and the political world didn't take the story seriously. Now that there's evidence, not only of Huckabee's awful judgment, but also of his blatant dishonesty, expect to hear the name Wayne Dumond quite a bit more. It should, if there's any justice at all, ruin Huckabee's chances."

TPM's Josh Marshall posts an email from a reader: "I've seen the Wayne Dumond affair referred to as Huckabee's 'Willie Horton' problem...But this case is only superficially like Willie Horton...Mike Huckabee championed the release of a specific convicted rapist who, once release, raped and killed a woman in Missouri. The furlough policy advocated by Mike Dukakis led to the furlough of Willie Horton, who raped a woman in Maryland and stabbed her fiancee. But Mike Dukakis had never heard of Willie Horton, whereas Mike Huckabee was well aware of the crimes and dangers posed by Wayne Dumond."

Atrios, who's been writing about this story for years, observes: "One joy of the Huckabee campaign is that it provides an opportunity for the liberal media to finally tell you the story they never bothered to during the 90s -- just how batshit insane Clinton haters were...Dumond was let go because right wing lunatics believed that Bill Clinton sent his goons to castrate an 'innocent' man because one of his 'alleged' victims was a distant relative. That this story was, you know, pretty much insane didn't stop it from getting regular play in the conservative press."

Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "Atrios and I and other bloggers tried to make this an issue when Huckabee was running for governor in 2002, but we were but wee insignificant specks and our writings about the case got read by few. Now, as Atrios notes, the best part about the Huckabee boomlet is that this story is finally getting its deserved airing."

The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "A stark reminder both of how crazy the craziness was in anti-Clinton circles and also of how influential it was. This is a giant country, so there'll always be a certain number of nutters out there. But in the 1990s, the Clinton conspiracy theorists were in the driver's seat, getting governors to release rapists and people died. Appalling stuff."

HUCKABEE II: Under Siege

Huckabee's rise to the top of the GOP field has made him a target for conservative bloggers who distrust his record and positions:

NRO's Mark Steyn: "One of my big problems with [Huckabee is] his complete philosophical incoherence. Where does Huckabee draw the line on his compassion? When he tries to draw it rhetorically, as with his answer that state scholarships for illegals are a grand idea but federal scholarships would be gilding the lily, he sounds absurd. And in practice, in Arkansas, there were no brakes on it at all: He just got dragged along by the illegal-normalization agenda like any Dem would."

AmSpec Blog's Quin Hillyer: "We now see more and more that Huck is the diametric opposite of Rudy Giuliani on every issue under the sun...Rudy is a tax cutter and a fiscal conservative; Huck is a tax hiker and a big spender. Rudy is tough on foreign policy; Huck has no clue about foreign policy but his tendency is to be Jimmy Carter-like. And of course, in the one area where conservatives may give Huck the advantage, Huck is pro-life while Rudy isn't...Somehow, I believe Rudy's assurances more about how he will be operationally pro-life because he will appoint conservative judges than I trust Huck's assurances that he won't raise taxes -- or, indeed, his assurances on anything, because for a preacher, he sure does have a tendency toward falsehoods. Anyway, the lesson is this: If you want a wooly-headed guy in the Oval Office who is inclined to be weak against criminals and weak against terrorists (close Guantanamo, etc.), then vote for Huckabee."

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "It turns out that Mike Huckabee's lame discussion of foreign policy with Don Imus was a repeat performance. Huckabee previously appeared with Imus on October 26, 2006. At that time, he embraced James Baker's recommendations for dealing with the situation in Iraq, and threw in his 'Holiday Inn Express' joke. Baker, it will be recalled, recommended large scale troop reductions, reliance on negotiations with Iran, and pushing Israel to make concessions. So, while Huckabee's jokes haven't evolved, his thinking about Iraq has. He's progressed from James Baker (have Iran bail us out) to Colin Powell (we broke it, we own it). But he's still nowhere near John McCain (let's defeat our enemies)."

NRO's Jonah Goldberg posts an email from a reader who wants to know why Goldberg and the other NRO bloggers have so much "hostility" toward Huckabee. Goldberg writes: "I think what Huckabee represents -- as I wrote here -- is compassionate conservatism on steroids. I don't know that I'd call it post-conservatism so much as paleo-progressivism (a term that pops up in my book). If carried to its logical conclusion Huckabeeism is rightwing progressivism. If I have to choose between leftwing progressivism and rightwing progressivism, I'd probably choose rightwing progressivism on most issues and leftwing progressivism on a few issues. But I don't want to have to make that choice. I don't think I will have to either."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan agrees with Goldberg, but thinks he is underestimating Huckabee's chances of winning: "Once the Bush Republicans signaled that they had stopped supporting or believing in limited government conservatism, the potential for paleo-progressivism expanded exponentially. Huckabee's charm may be one of those contingent historical wrinkles that tips the balance. I fear the consequences."

Townhall's Matt Lewis thinks the recent attacks on Huckabee have been excessive: "I've been a Mike Huckabee critic for literally years. But even I am surprised at the level of animadversion he has received in the past week from other campaigns, reporters, and bloggers. Sure, you could argue that when you're in the big leagues, as he now is, you have to be ready to hit fast balls. But much of the recent criticism seems a bit petty to me. I'm all for attacking him for being a fiscal liberal, but much of the criticism this week has not been on the issues, but rather on somewhat contrived stories."

NRO's Rich Lowry attributes Huckabee's rise to the "revenge of the evangelicals": "Remember how evangelicals had 'matured'? Remember how the war on terror had replaced social issues?...Part of what seems to be going on with the Huckabee surge is evangelicals sticking their thumbs in the eyes of the chattering class -- we're still here, we still matter, and we still care about our signature issues. Remember the lack of excitement in the Republican race, especially among dispirited social conservatives? Well, now there is some excitement, and it isn't over free market economics or the war on terror, but a candidate who doesn't speak compellingly about either of those things but instead about social issues."

Jonah Goldberg adds: "The perception that things are on a good (though by no means perfect) path in Iraq (and, if the NIE is to believed, Iran) might be giving conservative voters a sense of freedom to flirt with the other candidates. The conventional wisdom wasn't wrong that without the war on terror Rudy Giuliani's campaign is hopeless...if there were another terrorist attack it would be terrible -- politically speaking -- for Huckabee and Ron Paul and a boost for Rudy and John McCain."

ROMNEY: Today's The Big Day

In the final hours before Romney's big speech, bloggers offered their last-minute thoughts:

Beliefnet's Dan Gilgoff echoes David Brody's advice to Romney when he writes: "The big question for evangelicals: Will [Romney] own up to the distinctions between Mormonism and traditional Christianity, even as he argues that members of both traditions share many political values? Some evangelicals say that Romney's refusal to so up to this point has alienated Christian conservatives who might otherwise support him. They also say that his attempts to paper over differences between Mormons and other Christians have exacerbated his broader authenticity problem, due largely to Romney's reversal on hot button social issues."

RedState's Erick Erickson, who's currently supporting Fred Thompson, doesn't think the speech will help Romney: "[Romney]'s a manufactured candidate and it is starting to show. When he makes immigration a big issue and the Boston Globe outs his landscape team, he fired them. When Huckabee starts gaining ground with social conservatives, the group Romney tried to get, he says this campaign will not be on social issues, but flies to Texas to give a speech on faith. It's all too accumulated and transparent now...Huckabee talking about faith is working. Romney is incapable of doing it. We saw how he reacted to the Bible question in the YouTube debate."

TAPPED's Ezra Klein is disgusted by what he perceives as Romney's intentions: "What Romney's speech today seeks to do is construct a new 'us versus them.' Where Huckabee was having some success making the us equal 'Christians' and the them equal 'Mormons,' Romney is making the us equal 'believers' and the them equal 'atheists.' The bet is that voters hate 'secularists' more than they're unsettled by Mormons, and that if Romney can set himself up as the foremost opponent of atheists in public life, that will be more important than precisely which version of Jesus he believes in, or how many planets he'll be given to rule after his death. It's a speech calling for tolerance, that hinges on a public display of intolerance. It's classic Romney, and totally disgusting."

DEM FIELD: It's A Walk-Off

Two of the netroots' leading political prognosticators, Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas and Open Left's Chris Bowers, disagree on who's currently leading the Dem race. Moulitsas thinks it's HRC (barely), while Bowers thinks it's Obama (barely).

Moulitsas ranks the Dem candidates "as they would end if Iowa started today":

1.) Hillary Clinton
"...a rash of new polls showing Obama surging in Iowa are obviously critical to how this thing plays out. But the composite poll scores still favor Hillary, and with commanding leads in Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and other following states, her 2-point Iowa lead might be enough to hold off an Obama surge if the elections began today...What I can say with a certainty is that Hillary is in trouble, and her front-runner status has never been more precarious than today. Under assault from her opponents, from a hostile media, and from activists who are seizing on substantive missteps (her Iran vote the biggest amongst them) to paint the picture of an establishment Democrat who didn't just vote to give Bush his Iraq war, but hasn't learned from those mistakes even today."

2.) Barack Obama
"His surge is real, and several polls now show him in the lead in Iowa and within striking distance of New Hampshire. Better yet for him, he appears to be solidifying his position as the anti-Clinton candidate. No matter how well Hillary does in various places, she never gets a majority. If those who oppose her consolidate behind a single candidate, she's in real danger. But Obama's supporters are of the younger variety and that presents several potential dangers. One, they may not vote in sufficient numbers. But two, in Iowa, students won't be back by January 3rd, so they may not even be in the state to caucus and if they are, they might not have anywhere to stay..."

3.) John Edwards
"Edwards is only narrowly trailing the big two in Iowa, and there's much talk about him having the best field operation in Iowa. With Barack and Hillary taking aim at each other, Edwards has to be hoping he can replicate Kerry's gameplan from 2004 -- slipping into the lead after the two Iowa frontrunners (then Gephardt and Dean) nuke each other into oblivion...But even if he ekes out a narrow victory in Iowa (or a big one, for that matter), Clinton and Obama will still have more money than god to continue to fight in subsequent states while Edwards will have to husband his scarcer resources (no matter what his campaign spin team argues)."

Meanwhile, Bowers crunches the poll numbers and writes: "The five-poll average in Iowa, including only polls that started collecting data on November 26th, [is] Obama 27.2%, Clinton 25.8%, and Edwards 23.2%...I believe that a 1.4% Obama advantage in Iowa, combined with a 9.6% Clinton advantage in New Hampshire, would result in Obama sweeping the two states."

Bowers also links to Charlie Cook's latest column, in which Cook writes, "The bottom line is that Obama has to show strength beyond Iowa if he is to beat Clinton and win the Democratic nomination."

Bowers disagrees: "I feel that both [Howard] Dean and [Wesley] Clark supporters made the same claim in 2004 that early state momentum doesn't matter as much, when the opposite ended up being the case. Maybe I am just basing this on a gut feeling that momentum from early state wins will matter as much as ever, but given just how difficult momentum is to predict, perhaps a gut feeling, combined with past experience, is as good an indicator as anything else. It has been 16 years since any candidate did well after being shut out of wins in Iowa and New Hampshire."

CLINTON: The Mud Is Flying

A day after the HRC campaign accused the Obama campaign of "bullying" voters over the phone, the HRC campaign "acknowledged that an Iowa county chair volunteering for the campaign passed along the now-notorious email that smears Obama as a Muslim."

Daily Kos diarist (and Chris Dodd supporter) Justus first reported receiving the emails in her diary at Daily Kos: "Over the past week or so, I have received two of the most hateful hit pieces on Obama parroting right wing talking points. One was forwarded to me from a Clinton county chair. The other was from a person who claimed to be a former Obama supporter, but a little work with Google revealed she had been posting pro-Clinton comments for several months on websites covering the campaign. They both repeat the Obama/Osama crap, and the 'madrassa' charges. And there is the conclusion that Obama is a mole whose intention is to make a Muslim revolution in the US...it is my guess that this Rovian operation is being done with the tacit approval of the campaign, but of course, this is just a guess, as there will likely be no publicly available proof of their origin."

HRC web guru Peter Daou immediately responded on the Daily Kos thread: "There is no place in our campaign, or any campaign, for this kind of politics. A volunteer county coordinator made the mistake of forwarding an outrageous and offensive chain e-mail. This was wholly unauthorized and we were totally unaware of it. Let me be clear: No one should be engaging in this. We are asking this volunteer county coordinator to step down and are making it clear to every person involved in our campaign that this will not be tolerated."

The Nation's Christopher Hayes: "Ben Smith at the Politico has acquired a copy of the email itself and discovered that it was also sent to a Clinton campaign staffer. Which means the campaign knew that one of their country chairs was sending this around."

Daily Kos diarist AlyoshaKaramazov also wonders if higher-ups in the HRC campaign were responsible for this email: "The next thing for us to do is tie this rogue county chair to directions from campaign leaders. If it exists."

Meanwhile, in other attack-related news:

Daily Kos diarist psericks thinks HRC needs to stop criticizing Obama for encouraging college students to attend the IA caucuses: "Honestly, I thought the Clinton campaign would drop this charge quickly. Arguing that college students shouldn't be able to register to vote on campus is so obviously wrong...Instead, Clinton has now joined in personally, charging that Iowa college students shouldn't be able to register on campus...The Clinton campaign needs to drop this."

Markos Moulitsas is not a fan of the latest HRC Iowa ad, in which Wesley Clark says, "I see that Hillary's opponents have started to attack her. That's politics. What this country needs is leadership."

Moulitsas: "Of course it's 'politics'. It's called a presidential campaign. Clark's ad itself is 'politics'. Few things annoy me more in politics than politicians who decry 'politics'. I can see attacking 'politics as usual' or any related formulation thereof. But politics itself is what it is -- a necessary process by which we choose our leaders. To whine about 'politics' being used against a politician is asinine and moronic. If Clark and Clinton would prefer that 'politics' not be used against her, then she should resign from, you know, politics."

TAPPED's Sam Boyd thinks HRC is making a mistake by launching all of these attacks on Obama: "Her mixture of legitimate criticisms (his lack of experience, his health care plan, his social security mess) with illegitimate ones (the bogus leadership PAC story, the baseless ad-hominem attacks on his character) seems to me more likely to make voters ignore everything she says and it makes her look petty, mean and vindictive...There's a fine line between tough and mean, as [David] Corn points out, and I think Clinton doesn't seem to know where it is. That makes me worry not just about her attacks on Obama, but whether she's quite as politically astute as she's made out to be (with obvious implications for a general election)."

Finally, RCP Blog's Tom Bevan wants to know when HRC will unleash the real dirt on Obama: "According to Robert Novak's item a few weeks back, her campaign says it is sitting on some salacious dirt on Barack Obama. So why try to engineer an Edwards victory in Iowa to hurt Obama's chances when her shadowy surrogates could just do it right now by dumping the dirt on Obama? Unless the dirt doesn't exist."

OBAMA: Losing The Jane Hamsher Primary

While most of HRC's recent attacks on Obama have generated nothing but scorn among liberal bloggers, her latest attack -- in which she criticizes Obama for voting "present" on a series of abortion measures when he was in the IL Senate -- appears to be gaining some traction, at least with Jane Hamsher.

MyDD's Jerome Armstrong thinks this attack will be effective: "It's not surprising that NOW is going to try and help Clinton; afterall, they have endorsed Clinton. But the opening provided by Obama's 'present' votes on abortion in the State Senate of Illinois gives them substantive issues to move beyond being pro-Clinton to being anti-Obama...It's single-issue politics and not particularly helpful to a big tent strategy, but among democratic primary & caucus voters, particularly women, it seems like a pretty big opening for groups like NOW and Emily's List to go after Obama."

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher thinks Obama lacks political courage: "Obama wanted to take credit for opposing the bellicose Kyl-Lieberman bill -- a vote he ducked. He then said he ducked the MoveOn vote because it was political theatrics -- even though he showed up and voted 'yea' on the politically theatrical Barbara Boxer bill that very morning. Now he wants us to think he's pro-choice because he ducked yet again and voted 'present' on important abortion legislation, ostensibly to 'give cover' to Democrats in vulnerable districts who couldn't afford to vote 'yea' themselves. Oh please. Would this pass muster if Obama had voted 'present' on important civil rights legislation to give cover to Democrats who lived in districts with lots of bigots? Somehow I don't think so."

Pam Sutherland, President and CEO of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, tells the Chicago Sun-Times that Planned Parenthood worked with Obama on developing this strategy of voting "present": "The poor guy is getting all this heat for a strategy we, the pro-choice community, did."

Hamsher thinks this is a stupid strategy: "Illinois Planned Parenthood is standing behind this stupid 'present' strategy like it was some kind of brilliant tactical move. But then again, Planned Parenthood national told their membership to thank Joe Lieberman for his [Samuel] Alito vote. This smells a lot like NARAL endorsing the 'fetal pain' torpedo that right-to-lifers were trying to launch into the abortion debate in order to give cover to Democrats who didn't want to take a side on a potentially divisive vote. It's a chickenshit move to give cover to people who don't want to take a stand, and the fact that pro-choice organizations engage in this kind of ass-covering rather than defending the rights they're given big money by their membership to uphold is largely why people think their opinion on these things is worth squat these days."

Later, Hamsher elaborates on her critique of Obama in a Huffington Post diary entry: "Barack Obama: Profile In Courage Or Political Opportunist?...He openly rejects partisanship and wants everyone to join together in a message of hope, but that tactic seems to depend on ducking out on tough issues and letting others take the arrows one inevitably takes when standing on principle -- and then trying to re-write history when it becomes clear which way the wind has blown."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Danger Of Theological Litmus Tests

The Atlantic's Ross Douthat offers some advice to religious conservatives:

"I think it's perfectly understandable that evangelical Christians would feel more comfortable voting for Huckabee than for Romney because they share a theological bedrock with the one and not the other...But these sort of choices, however understandable on an individual level, are problematic when they start defining a political coalition: The more religious conservatives appear to be treating theological issues, rather than the political issues they inform, as crucial election-season litmus tests, the more they'll shrink their tent[,] alienate potential friends, and provide ammunition to the theocracy-shouters. If social conservatism is going to matter in American politics over the long run, then evangelicals would probably do well not to disqualify a Mormon from high office in advance, even if they choose not to vote for him when other alternatives are available."

LEST WE FORGET: Those Problem Lawmakers

The Onion reports:

"Seating Chart Revised To Put Problem Senators Up Front

After several incidents of bipartisan name-calling and disruptive filibustering, Senate president Dick Cheney announced Monday that the congressional seating chart has been revised to put problem lawmakers up front. 'I was hoping it wouldn't have to come to this, but Mr. [Sen. Dick] Durbin (D-IL) and Mr. [Sen. Jim] DeMint (R-SC), among others, have shown they're not mature enough to handle sitting in the back,' said Cheney, who reportedly made Durbin read a secret bill out loud in front of the entire assembly after he was caught passing it to Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA). 'I'm not going to let a few bad apples ruin lawmaking for the senators who are here to work.' Cheney added that, if the behavior problems persist, the whole Senate will be made to come into the Capitol Building to legislate on weekends."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at December 6, 2007 12:55 PM