What Is Goin’ On?

I woke up to Mike Huckabee this morning. He is all over the place. Polls have him ahead in Iowa, and behind in New Hampshire. He was being accused of letting rapists out of prison to murder innocent people. I thought that was another Mike (Dukakis)! Apparently, some of his boost in the polls is the result of the recent “CNN/YouTube Debate” in which Huckabee correctly answered the most important political question of this campaign: “Do you believe this book?”

So, I called Erick Erickson to find out what the heck is going on with Republicans! The interesting thing is that Erick interpreted the question as being a challenge by a non-believer asking if the candidates were dumb enough to believe the Bible. Curiously, I had exactly the opposite impression: a believer challenging the candidates to state, without qualification, that they believed every word of the Bible. The difference in interpretation is fascinating to me. I wonder who heard it right.

But it really doesn’t matter. The question was one of those that is meaningless in the political arena. I wouldn’t believe a politician that gave the “religiously correct” answer. It was a set-up question, and the issue Erick and I discuss is how did we get to the point that such questions pass for political debate? I get the impression from Erick that a lot of the campaigns were not particularly happy with a lot of the questions. In fact, Erick indicates he is trying to organize another debate with the Republican candidates since the CNN/YouTube debate was such a farce.

Erick thinks CNN picked the wrong questions, wondering why questions were asked on religion, abortion and immigration. According to Erick, these are not the issues that Republicans want to know about. I am glad to hear that, but if this is true, it means two things: (1) some people, maybe a lot of them, don’t know what Republicans want, because I think these are issues a lot of Republicans here in Georgia are interested in, and (2) the evangelical branch of the Republican party is not nearly as influential as it was in previous campaigns.

The point of this discussion was simply that what is passed off as “debates” in this election cycle is pretty much nothing more than entertainment. It seems to me that a lot of the questions that get presented by these “people” moderators, are intentionally selected to make the candidates squirm and hopefully give the sound bite of the night.

Did Huckebee’s answer about religion spur his rise in the polls? Erick points out that Huckabee has a 10 member campaign staff (that’s nationwide, by the way) and in Iowa, Huckabee has spent only about $300,000, compared with Romney’s $7 million. He thinks Huckabee’s popularity is due to the fact that people are tired of insiders. That’s the reason Obama is doing well against Hillary. People want a change.

Erick sees Fred Thompson and John McCain as the only two Republican candidates who have a chance of bridging the diverse interests of the Republican Party, rather than dividing it. Rudy isn’t liked by the social conservatives, Romney isn’t trusted by the evangelicals and Huckabee is running into problems with the fiscal conservatives. Erick doesn’t think Ron Paul has a chance. So, if by the end of Super Tuesday, the nomination is not locked in, McCain or Thompson may be the go to guys for party unity. Interesting, very interesting.

Erick thinks Huckabee’s current rise will be short-lived and he sees it as Rudy-Romney contest. He also thinks people are beginning to realize that were it not for 9-11, Rudy would be just another big-city mayor.

Erick refers to Huckabee as the “passive voice.” I am not entirely sure I understand the meaning, but he gave several examples where Huckabee would make a statement about some problem (CEO compensation, for example), and yet, when asked what he would do about the issue, he seems to back off and say he didn’t mean to imply that government needed to do anything about it.

He also referred to Huckabee as a slick preacher. As for the pardon of the rapist in Arkansas, Erick points out that Huckabee, as Governor, did not have the power to pardon the felon, that was done by the Pardons and Parole Board. The issue is the extent to which Huckabee pushed the Board to take action and pardon the guy. He points out that there was apparently a lot of sympathy generated for the rapist because before he was convicted he was forcibly abducted and castrated by a vigilante group.

As for the Democrats, Erick still thinks Hillary will be the nominee. I am not so sure.

One last point about the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that indicates Iran gave up its nuclear program several years ago. Last year it reported the opposite: Iran was increasing its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. So what is going on? As Erick points out, neither he, nor anyone else trusts the intelligence community any more. That’s a sad state of affairs, but more troubling is the idea that we went to war in Iraq as a result, at least in part, of flawed intelligence and a few weeks ago, it looked like we were going to war with Iran, again based on flawed intelligence. This is not the way to run a country!

Erick thinks heads will roll, but probably not publically I just wish the President would respond in a manner that indicates he consistently reads the newspapers, even if it is the comic page.

At the end of the interview, I spend a few minutes talking with Lisa Chesser, who won election to the Vidalia City Council on Tuesday. CONGRATULATIONS Lisa!!