Huckabee headed for Leno’s couch
Fresh from his farcical press conference renouncing negative campaigning by showing reporters his negative Romney attack ad, Mike Huckabee will be flying to Los Angeles on the eve of the Iowa caucus to yuk it up with Jay Leno. Weird:
On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee will trade jokes with Jay Leno on NBC’s “Tonight Show.”
While his rivals will be making a final appeal to the state’s voters, Huckabee will be flying to Los Angeles to tape the show with Leno, who returns to the air Wednesday without striking writers.
A similar late-night appearance backfired on rival Fred Thompson, who irked voters in New Hampshire by skipping a Republican debate last fall at the University of New Hampshire to announce his candidacy on Leno’s show.
The unconventional move is somewhat fitting for Huckabee who broke with tradition on Monday, eschewing campaigning to go for a run and get a shave and haircut in front of his media entourage. He also held an odd news conference in which he announced he had decided against going negative with a critical TV ad against Republican Mitt Romney — and then played the ad for the media.
Huckabee and Romney are in a close race in Iowa.Huckabee was back out campaigning Tuesday, flying early on New Year’s Day to Sergeant Bluff, where he urged about 200 people at the Pizza Ranch restaurant to turn out for the caucuses on Thursday.
“I want you to go with a commitment, in essence a fervent spirit, that says I will not only go no matter what the weather, I will take people with me to vote for Mike Huckabee,” he said.He said he hopes the decision not to air his negative ad was the right one.
“We’ll find out,” Huckabee said. “I know a lot of people are cynical and think we pulled a stunt yesterday. I just decided if that’s what it takes to get elected, that’s a lousy way to run a country.
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Categories: 2008 campaign,Mike Huckabee
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Huckabee needs to head for a couch alright…a psychiatric one and get some good analysis. He needs to stop pretending he’s a conservative.
This actually makes a lot of sense. Huckabee knows he’ll be brutally attacked in the final debate and it will be tough to avoid answering the pointed questions with jokes, especially with a smaller number of participants.
Instead, he’ll have complete control over his message. In doing the Leno show, he’ll be able to avoid being attacked and can continue fooling the mindless zombies in Iowa who don’t bother to do any research on his history.
The Huskster is still a featherweight. If the segment lasts longer than a minute and a half, he’ll trip.
Huckabee seems to me as a very “real” man who is guided by principle, not expedience. I think he is despised by the Republican machine because of his “outsider” status.
What really makes Huckabee attractive is that he is a “regular person.” Sure, he makes mistakes and isn’t a slicked-up-spin-meister-used-car-salesman type like we’re accustomed to seeing in American politics.
Huckabee is the one candidate that can kic Demofascist butt and lead our nation out of the tailspin that currently threatens to destroy it.
In the mean time we get to have an estimated 85000 Republican people in Iowa decide what the whole country should do. We get more Republican absentee ballots filed in my county than that.
Oh and I am sure it is not a surprise that none of the candidates have visited my county and none probably ever will. If I want to see one of the in the flesh I have to drive about 100 miles or so. But live on a farm in Iowa and they will almost pay a personal visit to that country store in town where all 500 Republicans in that country have the chance, but only 25 or 30 will show up.
Has the Doctor been eating the paint chips? The Huckster is a lame joke of a candidate. Leno can have him!
If Iowa goes for Huckabee, I will have no respect for the people there ever again. Huckabee is clueless on foreign policy and liberal on crime and punishment, illegal immigration, and fiscal policy. It blows my mind that any conservative would even consider voting for this guy.
I don’t agree with Hitchens on some things but, he has a point here.
January 1, 2008: Hitch on Huck (and undemocratic Iowa)
So, once you subtract the breathless rhetoric about “surge” and “momentum” and (oh, Lord) “electability,” it’s finally admitted that the rest of the United States is a passive spectator while about half of 45 percent of 85,000 or so Republican caucus voters promote a provincial ignoramus and anti-Darwinian to the coveted status of “front-runner” or at least “contender.”
No. He is despised because he is a Jimmy Carter lookalike mentally in so many ways. He wants to raise taxes, he is soft on crime, soft on illegal immigrants and his foreign affairs views are pathetic and lame.
Do ya think maybe Huckfinn’ished will wear a red nose and juggle?
Some BIG news
The FairTax Organization Has just sent out an email. They have pulled back on their support for Huckabee.
This was really the only reason he started at all in Iowa. Watch for some big slippage in his numbers.
On January 1st, 2008 at 3:34 pm, ajmontana said:
Do ya think maybe Huckfinn’ished will wear a red nose and juggle?
No, he’s going to do hi ventriloquist act with McCain sitting on his lap.
No, he’s going to do his ventriloquist act with McCain sitting on his lap.
I admit to having some respect the Huckster — as a campaigner only. He has shown remarkable energy in his campaign, willing to bend or break all kinds of rules and when he falls flats on his face, as he frequently does, he picks himself up and runs forward. I like that. Fred Thompson, the soon to be lamented and forgotten Fred Thompson (which like many people I had high hopes for) could have learned a lot from Mike’s “Huckyou” style of politics.
That being said, as I am sure I have irritated just about everyone by now, Mr. Huckabee would be disaster for the party as a nominee and even worse for the country as a president. Following Shakespeare, I think we can agree that the good that might have come from Huckabee’s campaign will soon be interred. The bad will live on for a long time.
Leno will be a SECOND stunt. Huck is a sideshow to this campaign.
Can you confirm this somehow? Post the email? Post a link to the story?
I wish I could. Unintentional delete of email. Looked all over the FairTax site. Didn’t find anything. But all the info that was there was dated September. Can’t confirm. I can’t be the only one to receive it if it was real. Will keep looking.
Letterman goes back with writers and has as his first guest Robin Williams. Jay goes back without writers and has I Hucked -Up as his first quest. Is Leno using the other campaign staffs as quest writers? If so Huck-a-bye baby.
Yes he is, the principles of raising taxes, allowing illegals free access to our country, setting criminals free, and being a Jimmy Carta wannabe.
As a Southern Baptist, I can say that Southern Baptists do not make good presidents. See Jimmy Carta and Bubba for proof.
It’s getting harder and harder to take Mike Huckabee seriously. I’m surprised he picked Jay Leno over his other admirer, Stephen Colbert.
If it was a secret ballot Fred Thompson would look better but in the Iowa game you have to stand up in public and no one wants to look foolish when they’ve been told someone isn’t really available. Maybe if it was a cumulative system (who is your 3 pointer, who is your two pointer and who is your 1 pointer) Fred would accumulate the most points as everyone’s public second choice, since he might be most folks secret first pick.
Many alternatives would sound better than the silly system of selecting candidates and then a President we have now. Personally I Like the Electoral College and wish we really used it.
I think Huckabee Hucked the shark.
Being a Christian is not necessarily a qualifier to be president. Indeed, look at Jimmy Carter. A Christian brother, but his failings as president are legendary. No, we need a businessman, one who has fiscal experience running corporations successfully. No, Romney’s not perfect, no candidate is. I tend to lean towards the fiscal conservative with that kind of a track record. Mr. Huckabee has too many glitches as governor. He’s too soft on immigration and the protection of America’s sovereignty. No, not Huckabee. Not this time. Romney has the managerial experience. I prefer to let the “distillation process” work like it’s supposed to. We’ll know who’s the one as time goes along. The process works IF people THINK with their heads and not their emotions.
The primaries need to be looked at as possibly being outdated. If the Iowa caucus was more of a poling booth vote than show of hands at a meeting it might attract more voters. And it would give a better picture of voters preferences. With information getting out so quickly about candidates positions it would be better for Iowa and N.H. joining “super Tuesday”. The primaries should be for the voters of the parties not for the candidates to build a false momentum.
Is Huckabee still Leno’s only guest for Wednesday night?
http://www.fairtax.org/site/News2?news_iv_ctrl=1521&page=NewsArticle&id=8971
Mike Huckabee’s Fair Tax Friends Out Of Cash After Huge Spending Blitz
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
FoxNews
WASHINGTON — A key ally of Mike Huckabee that “went for broke” in the presidential primary campaign has ended up nearly there. But Americans for Fair Taxation says not to count it out just yet.
“We’ve had some slim times in the past, but we keep at it,” said AFFT spokesman Ken Hoagland. He said the organization is in the midst of “regrouping” after massive spending campaigns in Iowa and South Carolina, and has cut its central Houston staff from 25 to 10.
“We went for broke and just about achieved it in Iowa leading up to the (August) straw poll” in Ames, Hoagland told FOXNews.com in an telephone interview on Wednesday. “We’ve laid off some staff and we’re recovering right now.”
AFFT is a prime mover of the “fair tax,” which would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service and the federal income tax and establish a flat sales tax of 23 percent. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor currently running second in polling ahead of Iowa’s Republican presidential primary caucuses on Jan. 3, is a big promoter of the tax plan and as such has received an enthusiastic response and turnout from AFFT supporters at his events, moreso than any other GOP candidate.
Huckabee’s rise in Iowa has been credited in part to AFFT’s efforts. The group has been a staple at many of the Republican candidate’s campaign appearances and took an active role in getting voters to the Ames GOP straw poll that catapulted Huckabee into the spotlight.
Hoagland said recent money problems do not spell the end of the fair tax crusaders. Started in 1995 by a handful of wealthy Houston businessmen, the organization is awaiting some key funding and is already planning to roll out its once ubiquitous fair tax bus from its present place in Tennessee ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
It will continue to barrage campaign events on a grassroots level and use the media and Internet to get its fair tax message out, Hoagland said, pointing out that the group had done 560 radio interviews in the last 12 months.
AFFT’s role has also given rise to reports that the Federal Election Commission is looking into claims the group violated campaign finance rules by bussing in 500 voting Iowans and 1,000 other supporters to the straw poll. AFFT’s non-profit and non-partisan designation means it cannot legally endorse or contribute to any candidate.
Hoagland said the group’s efforts in Iowa, including a ferris wheel, huge tent and a country western band, were aimed at promoting the fair tax among the Republican candidates and voters, not push a particular candidate.
The group offered rides to caucus-goers but with no intent on boosting Huckabee’s numbers, he said, adding that AFFT as been “very careful” to enforce the line between issue advocacy and politicking.
“(Huckabee) endorsed us, we didn’t endorse him,” Hoagland said.
Nevertheless, AFFT’s Chief Operating Officer David Polyansky has left AFFT to work on the Huckabee campaign and supporters remain enthusiastic for the former Arkansas governor.
The AFFT website, FairTax.org, boasts a candidate scorecard, at the top of which is Huckabee. Every Republican in the presidential mix except former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani supports the fair tax proposal.
That was the latest info I could find. It does state they don’t endorese Huckabee.
Congress will NEVER give up their power to pull money from American tax payer’s pockets no matter if it’s controlled by a majority of one party or the other. The best we can hope for is continued tax cuts and getting rid of the death tax to keep the economy going. All of them talk about it but, only one or two have DONE it.
Another reason not to stay up and watch late night TV (at least for tonight LOL). I’m still trying to figure out why Chuck Norris is supporting this snake oil salesman.
katieanne:
Please refrain from republishing entire articles in the comments.
No more than 200 word excerpt in the future please.
Lifeofthemind:
The GOP caucuses are different. Voting is by secret ballot.
Sorry. Won’t happen again. I didn’t know.
Liberals Sing ‘Huckelujah’
Ann Coulter’s article on huckleberry.
“I’m not going to say anything bad about my opponent, but if I WAS going to say something bad it would be. . . .”
What a putz.
Bullseye!
Wow – Dr. Lead-based-paint, please switch to a low VOC acrylic…
Huckabee looked good on Leno. He was warm and very personable.
Dr. Lead Based Paint said:
Real? Are we watching the same Huckster? Ever ask yourself who is on his support team? Dick Morris, the born-again-GOPer helped to get him elected to governor. My bet is that he doesn’t mention his team because they’re all former Clintonistas! Ever notice he acts like he’s acting totally on his own? Trust me, he’s not! Take another look, Doc!
On January 1st, 2008 at 3:28 pm, davenp35 said: #7
The same folks who supported Jimmy Carter are probably the same ones supporting the Huckster. He’s the GOP’s version of same!