Huckabee, Obama, Continue To Come On Strong

More polls, with more good news for Huckabee and Obama, and bad news for Thompson, Giuliani, Romney and Clinton.

Republicans--More Huckabee!

First, SC, where two new polls have nearly identical numbers, both with Huckabee leading for the first time. Rasmussen has Huckabee at 25%, followed by Romney and Thompson at 18%; Insider Advantage has the Huckster at 23%, followed by Thompson and Giuliani at 17% and Romney at 14%.

It was just a few weeks ago that we marvelled at how Romney had seized the lead in SC--a lead, that had it held up with victories in Iowa and New Hampshire could easily have propelled the Mittster to the nomination. Now Huckabee has the lead, and he'll probably keep it unless he gets derailed by Arkansas parole flap. Thompson is second in both polls, but barely. If he doesn't outright win SC, his campaign is done.

In Iowa, Strategic Vision is the latest poll, and it confirms that Huckabee is on top with four weeks to go. Romney trails close behind, so his big religious speech, combined with fallout to Huckabee from the Arkansas parole controversy, could put him back on top.

In New Hampshire, Romney is maintaining a comfortable lead and Huckabee has moved less than just about anywhere else. We don't see Romney losing the Granite State.

But in Florida, where Giuliani has staked his campaign, Huckabee is coming on strong, rising to second place in the recent Survey USA poll, with 18% to Rudy's 32%. The problem for Giuliani is that if Thompson melts down--we think he could be gone by SC--Huckabee stands to gain further and could do quite well in Florida. We've said all along that Giuliani's strategy is flawed, and we stand by our claim. If Giuliani comes in third, or worse, in the first five contests--Iowa, NH, Michigan, Nevada and SC--as is quite possible, his support in Florida will dwindle too and he could be in big trouble.

One other word on Huckabee. Some pundits are now positing that the Baptist preacher from Arkansas could be, in one's words, the Democrats' "worst nightmare" (that would be from Chris Cilizza in the Washington Post). We're not prepared yet to worry about Huckabee in the general election. Granted, he would do well in the Deep South, where Dems have little chance; and, he'd be eaten alive in the industrial Northeast and on the Left Coast, which remain true blue. How would he do in the battleground states? We think his lack of foreign policy experience, his overt religiosity, his very right-wing social views and some of his whackier proposals, like his crazy "voluntary" flat tax plan (we call it the Alternative Maximum Tax) would do him in.

The Democrats--More Obama

Obama's surge continues unabated, with Hillary's leads in states following Iowa starting to slip. We won't go into all the data--suffice it to say that Hillary has dropped in NH and SC (but not Florida, yet).

The question is what will happen when this becomes a two-candidate race? Will Democrats across the country embrace Obama, or will they be risk-averse and stick with Hillary. Still hard to say. Would it still be possible, after the recent nastiness, to have a Hillary/Obama ticket? Many Democrats would like that one quite a bit.

In a separate post, we will address shortly what many view as the key "difference" between Hillary and Obama--her tendency to polarize versus his claim to be able to bring on an era of new politics.

Lawyer In Scruggs Bribery Case Pleads Guilty, Will Cooperate In Probe

A couple days ago we posted on the Dickie Scruggs bribery case down in Mississippi, wondering if the superlawyer's history of shady tactics hadn't finally caught up with him. See "Have Greed And Egomania Finally Caught Up To Dickie Scruggs?"

Today we learn that Scruggs' co-defendant, lawyer David Balducci, has entered a guilty plea in the case and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors by testifying against Scruggs. See "Lawyer Will Cooperate In Bribe Probe" in today's Washington Post.

For more in-depth, and snarky, coverage of the Scruggs saga, check out Overlawyered and Y'all Politics, both of which nicely picked up on the Curmudgeon's post on the case.

Curmudgeon Kids Register Disappointment Over Failure To Cancel School

Yesterday brought a December surprise to the Washington region, as one of those little "clipper" storms that never bring us any snow managed to squeak out four inches of the fluffy stuff over here in Arlington.

The Curmudgeon kids confidently declared at bedtime that there'd be no school today (although, in typically curmudgeonly fashion, dad predicted there'd only be a delay).

Imagine their shock, their disappointment, ney, even their anger, to learn that the poobahs in the Arlington school system had declared that school must go on, albeit two hours late.

They'll get over it.

Photos From Jim Webb's Recent Iraq Tour

We thought we'd share these photos from Senator Jim Webb's recent trip to Iraq, which were contained in a recent mass email from Webb's office.

Photo Credit: Gordon Peterson (Nov. 29, 2007)
Senator Jim Webb (center) and Senator Jon Tester (center left), escorted by Col. John Charlton (left), commander of the U.S. Army's 1st Brigade Combat Team, tour "Hurricane Point" in Ramadi, Iraq, during a visit to Anbar Province.

Photo Credit: Gordon Peterson (Nov. 29, 2007)
During a visit to Ramadi in Iraq's al-Anbar Province Nov. 29, 2007, Senator Jim Webb gained a richer appreciation for his son's combat tour there with the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment in 2006 and 2007. Webb is pictured here at "Hurricane Point" in Ramadi, a site along the Euphrates River close to his son's former battalion command post.

Photo Credit: Gordon Peterson (Nov. 29, 2007)
Senator Jim Webb confers with Sgt. Major Scott D. Reeves, USMC, of Petersburg, VA (center), and Capt. Daniel Gaskell, USMC, of Stafford, VA (right), during a Nov. 29, 2007, visit to a joint U.S.-Iraqi security station in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's al-Anbar province. Marines from the battalion jointly man the security station and patrol the city with Iraqi police. Reeves is the command sergeant major of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, and Gaskell commands Foxtrot Company in the battalion.
Photo Credit: Gordon Peterson (Nov. 30, 2007)
Senator Jim Webb confers with Brig. Gen. Edward Cardon (center right), deputy commanding general (support) of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, following a Nov. 30, 2007, visit with soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division stationed in Iskandariyah, Iraq. Located 30 miles south of Baghdad near the Euphrates River, the city is largely populated by Shia Muslims. Also pictured are Thomas Timberman (center left), director of an Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iskandariyah, and Lt. Col. Michael Getchell (back to camera), commander of the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division.

Photo Credit: Gordon Peterson (Nov. 29, 2007)
Senator Jim Webb receives a briefing on the security situation in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's al-Anbar province, from Lt. Col. Jay M. Bargeron, commander of the 2nd Battalion, Eighth Marine Regiment, during a visit Nov. 29, 2007, to a U.S.-Iraqi joint security station in Ramadi. U.S. Marines from the battalion man the security station and patrol the city with Iraqi police.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Park (Nov. 29, 2007)
Senator Jim Webb and Senator Jon Tester speak with General Petraeus, Commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq on the security situation in Iraq.

Photo Credit: Gordon Peterson (Nov. 30, 2007) Senator Jon Tester and Senator Jim Webb confer with Dr. Barham Salih, Iraq's deputy prime minister, during a meeting in Baghdad Nov. 30, 2007. Senators Webb and Tester visited several U.S. military units in Kuwait and Iraq during a two-day visit to the region.

Photo Credit: Sgt. David Begley (Nov. 30, 2007)
Senator Webb with the Virginia Army National Guard 3rd battalion, 116th brigade at Kuwait Naval Base.

Photo Credit: Sgt. David Begley (Nov. 30, 2007)
Senator Webb with Virginia Army National Guard 3rd battalion, 116th brigade at Kuwait Naval Base.

Could Dems Pick Up Lott's Mississippi Senate Seat?

Some interesting political maneuvering going on in Mississippi.

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott has said he'll resign his seat before the end of this year, apparently so he can wait only one year, instead of two as required by a new law taking effect Jan. 1, to begin a lucrative lobbying career.

Yet, the timing of Lott's resignation may have a big impact on who his successor is. Under Mississippi law, if a Senate seat becomes vacant in a year of state or congressional elections, the Governor appoints a temporary successor until the next general election. So, if Lott were to resign Jan. 1, the temporary appointee would be in office until the November '08 general election, at which the state's Republicans are likely to turn out for the presidential contest.

But, if the vacancy occurs in an off-election year, the special election to fill the vacant seat must occur 90 days after the vacancy. If Lott resigns on December 31--to take advantage of the shorter lobbying hiatus--a question arises as to whether the special election to fill his seat must be 90 days later, i.e., at the end of March.

The answer is not crystal clear. There were statewide elections in Mississippi this year, but they are over. Our sources tell us that Mississippi's Attorney General, Jim Hood--a Democrat--is prepared to issue an opinion stating if Lott resigns in 2007, the special election must be 90 days later. Mississippi Democrats think that would help their candidate. Ultimately, the issue might have to be decided in the state's Supreme Court, however.

That said, the only really viable Democratic candidate for Lott's seat would be former state Attorney General Mike Moore, who made a national name for himself going after tobacco companies in the 1990's. (That's him, pictured above.)

Now it gets really interesting--stay with us. Yesterday we discussed the legal troubles of Mississippi trial lawyer extraordinaire Dickie Scruggs. Scruggs is the brother-in-law of Trent Lott (their wives are sisters). Scruggs was also the lawyer who prosecuted Mike Moore's tobacco case in Mississippi. And, Scruggs has been involved with the current AG--Hood--in Katrina litigation. There have been a number of ethical charges made against Scruggs in connection with both--apart from the bribery indictment that may ultimately fell Scruggs.

So Scruggs' legal problems may cast a shadow on any Mike Moore campaign, or on Hood's efforts to get an early special election.

One other thing about Moore's potential candidacy: quite a few of the state AG's who vigorously pursued tobacco litigation have sought to use the attendant publicity to propel them to higher office, with a notable LACK of success. In Minnesota, AG Skip Humphrey ran for governor and lost. His chief outside trial lawyer, Mike Ciresi, ran for Senate in Minnesota and lost. He's running again, and we hope he loses in the primary to Al Franken.

In Massachusetts, AG Scott Harshbarger ran for governor and lost. And in Washington state, former AG Christine Gregoire ran in an overwhelmingly blue state during an election year in which Democrats trounced Republicans, yet she won by the tiniest of margins in a cliffhanger recount.

We have a theory on why these tobacco AG's and their allies have fared so poorly: while core Democrats love them, smokers--that's about 25% of the population--don't. Smokers don't make a lot of noise as a political group; they tend to be more blue collar than the general population and probably turn out to vote in somewhat lower numbers, but they do vote. We think most smokers viewed these AG's as political opportunists, who succeeded only in raising the cost of cigarettes without in any way benefitting or helping the smokers who were the supposed object of their crusade.

States have not spent the hundreds of billions of dollars they earned in the global tobacco settlements to help smokers quit, or compensate them for disease. Instead, they've generally put the money into their general funds, to build roads, sewers, etc.

Call smokers the silent smoking minority, but we think they have quietly influenced--in a negative way--the political aspirations of those tobacco AG's. We wonder whether Moore, who does remain a popular political figure in Mississippi, will suffer a similar fate if he decides to run.

Willie Hortonization of Mike Huckabee

When you become the frontrunner, the media plants a big 'ol fat juicy target on you.

So Mike Huckabee is learning.

The story isn't new, but with Huckabee now taking center stage in the GOP nominating contest, he's suddenly fair game for whatever crap his political opponents can dredge up.

In this case, it didn't take too much dredging: the story was one of the biggest in Arkansas while Huckabee was governor. It's a Willie Horton type of thing. This time, the criminal is a man named Wayne Dumond. He kidnapped and raped a 17-year-old high school cheerleader in 1984. While awaiting trial--he was free on bond--two masked men tied him up and castrated him. He was later convicted and sentenced to life plus 20 years.

During the Clinton governorship of Arkansas, the Democratic Lt. Governor reduced Dumond's sentence enough so he could qualify for parole. Then, during Huckabee's governorship, the parole board released Dumond, evidently with Huckabee's blessing.

You can guess the rest: Dumond moved to Missouri, where he subsequently sexually assaulted and murdered a 39-year-old woman. (These facts come from a Byron York column in the National Review, where they love to Willie Horton their own.)

Now the story is hitting the mainstream media--see, e.g., CNN's "Huckabee Faces Scrutiny For Involvement In Rapist Parole."

We wonder what other skeletons the Huckster has in his closet.

Neoconservatives React To Iran NIE

Yesterday we predicted (an easy forecast, we admitted) that neocons would quickly attack the National Intelligence Estimate saying that Iran has stopped its development of nuclear weapons, at least for the time being.

So here we have Norman Podhoretz, a leading advocate for taking military action against Iran, voicing his "Dark Suspicions About The NIE". Podhoretz says how can you believe this NIE when the last NIE on Iran, in 2005, said with "high confidence" that Iran was going full bore on its weapons program.

Then, just to add to the laugh factor, Podhoretz throws in the 2002 NIE that said Iraq had and was expanding its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. So, he says, how can you believe these guys.

Here's how: in the past NIE's, the intelligence community was manipulated by Cheney and a bunch of Podhoretz's neo-con friends in the administration. Now, the neo-cons are out and we're getting unvarnished intelligence.

We also have President Bush, out there saying, well, Iran is still dangerous. As we said yesterday, yes, Iran is still a problem. But Iran can be engaged diplomatically. Try it.

Have Greed And Egomania Finally Caught Up To Dickie Scruggs?

Richard ("Dickie") Scruggs is a Mississippi trial lawyer, one who's made tens of millions of dollars (or more!) litigating asbestos, tobacco and other product liability claims. (Here he is next to his private jet.)

Scruggs doesn't necessarily follow the same rules as other lawyers. In the tobacco litigation, he helped a former paralegal for a Kentucky law firm representing Brown & Williamson to publicize documents the paralegal had stolen while working for the firm. Despite a court order requiring return of the documents, they turned up--anonymously--on Capitol Hill and in some news outlets. The paralegal then ended up in a house Scruggs' law firm purchased in Pascagoula, Mississippi, got a "job" at the Scruggs law firm, and had a couple auto loans co-signed by the law firm.

If that sounds to you like Scruggs--who proceeded to make a huge fortune off tobacco litigation--paid the fellow off, well, you're entitled to your opinion. Scruggs would say there's no connection and he did nothing illegal or unethical. The house and the cars--why those were just "loans."

Then, in later litigation involving victims of Hurricane Katrina, Scruggs tried to turn them into victims of insurers. Despite the fact Scruggs' clients hadn't purchased expensive flood insurance, Scruggs argued, among other things, that the insurers should nonetheless reimburse them for flood damage because it was really all caused by wind blowing the water into their homes, and they were insured against wind damage. Arguments like that, of course, are why most people dislike trial lawyers.

Along the way in the Katrina litigation, some ladies who worked for State Farm took some of State Farm's documents and, again, despite court orders to the contrary, those documents made there way to the public. Scruggs' fingerprints were all over the revelation, and a federal judge recommended he be prosecuted for criminal contempt.

For his part, Scruggs would probably tell you he's a hero. He stands up to "the man" for the "little guy" and he fights hard to represent people who other lawyers would simply ignore.

Most heroes, however, don't earn millions, tens of millions or even hundreds of millions from their heroics. One might well argue that Scruggs is motivated primarily by greed, with a pretty good dose of megolamania thrown in. And, some lawyers would argue, his success has depended heavily on his willingness to break the rules, or to play outside the rules.

Now, however, Scruggs is facing a new challenge: he's been indicted on serious charges--bribery of a state court judge in Mississippi. The indictment charges that another Mississippi lawyer, Timothy Balducci, gave a $40,000 bribe to Judge Henry Lackey, who brought the scheme to the attention of federal investigators. The bribe money was allegedly reimbursed to Balducci by Scruggs, with fake documentation created to make it look ok. The purpose of the bribe was to get Judge Lackey to rule favorably on disbursement of around $25 million in legal fees related to the Katrina litigation.

One of Scruggs' friends, novelist John Grisham, some of whose wild characters resemble Mr. Scruggs, says he doesn't believe Scruggs did it because "you could not believe he would be involved in such a boneheaded bribery scam that is not in the least bit sophisticated." (According to today's WSJ.) Isn't it great having friends like John Grisham? In other words, if it had been a SOPHISTICATED bribery scheme, then, yeah, sure, he could see Dickie doing that. But not a boneheaded scam.

But then maybe Scruggs has been getting away with breaking the rules for so long that he didn't really think it was a problem, or didn't realize it was so unsophisticated. Maybe he'd done this kind of thing before and gotten away with it.

(At least Scruggs didn't buy the Baltimore Orioles and run them into the ground like fellow megalomaniacal asbestos/tobacco lawyer Peter Angelos. That's a sin of a higher order of magnitude.)

Whether Scruggs will be convicted, only time will tell. But somehow, we think his antics may finally have caught up with him.

NATIONAL GOP Poll Puts Huckabee In Second, Close Behind Giuliani

Republicans gone mad?

Rasmussen has a daily tracking poll, which shows that since the GOP U-tube debate Huckabee has moved into second place in their NATIONAL poll, trailing Giuliani by just three points (in what is still a pretty tight race). It's Giuliani 20%, Huckabee 17%, Thompson 14%, McCain 13%, Romney 11% and Paul 7%.

Here's the link.

Peaking Too Soon?

It's official: Obama and Huckabee are Iowa leaders according to the media consensus. And their opponents appear to concede the point: Hillary is attacking Obama broadly now, while Romney, in desperation, prepares to give a major speech on his faith.

The problem is that once the media pack come to agreement like this, it's time to reconsider. Remember when Howard Dean had Iowa locked up, only to lose to Kerry, who had been written off?

Or McCain nailing Bush in New Hampshire, only to have Bush mug him in South Carolina. And so on.

The question of the day: have Huckabee and Obama peaked too soon? Or maybe we should first ask if they have peaked yet.

Let's start with whether they've peaked. Huckabee has surged from the single digits to the upper 20's percentage-wise in Iowa. We doubt any Republican in this crowed field can do better than 35 percent, and that will be a stretch. Huckabee's probably about near his peak in Iowa, although he's still rising in the rest of the country.

Obama probably hasn't peaked yet in the smaller Democratic field. Most Democrats actually like Obama, Hillary, Edwards and the rest of the field. They're more focused on who can win and govern effectively, and they're torn. It will be a tough general election, and Hillary is battle-tested. But she is polarizing and may not play as well to independents. Many Dems are giving Obama a fresh look from the standpoint of "change" and "something new." We think Obama can climb a bit higher in Iowa, but he will have to be tough--Hillary ain't going to take this lying down.

Now, have they peaked too early?

The guy who peaked too soon is Romney. He was looking good as little as two weeks ago, but now he's in trouble. Huckabee looks pretty solid in Iowa: he has the highest percentage in polls who say they've completely made up their minds, and he has the highest percentage of supporters who have previously attended a caucus. If the Huckster can maintain his sense of humor and charm for four more weeks without a gaffe--not that easy, mind you--he'll win.

The other thing Huckabee has going for him in a five-way contest is the old issue of "who do I want to play in the play-offs?" Giuliani, it appears, would rather use Huckabee to eliminate Romney, then deal with the Arkansan. McCain also stands to benefit in New Hampshire if Huckabee wins Iowa, having a better chance to steal votes from an imploding Romney.

What of Obama? No question, this is going to be a bare-knuckle fight. Clinton doesn't have to win Iowa, but she can't afford to come in third or lose by a wide margin. Furthermore, there's the expectations game: if the media says Obama is going to win, and he doesn't, he's in trouble. Indeed, if Hillary can come back in the next month and, through organizational strength and ad money, win Iowa, she should easily be propelled to the nomination.

Our fearless forecast: Huckabee wins Iowa by 5-10 percentage points over Romney, who barely fends off Giuliani. Obama edges out Hillary, but by less than the pundits had forecast, resulting in a tactical victory for Clinton. And yes, we reserve the right to change our forecast, as early as tomorrow!

The good news for Huckabee--his supporters seem more firmly entrenched for him, and they are more experienced caucus-goers, so he has a good chance of retaining his support.

No A-Bomb for Iran After All

An interesting twist, for sure, that will cause the right wing military-industrial commentariat to go ballistic: it turns out Iran isn't building nuclear weapons after all.

That's the conclusion of the most recent National Intelligence Estimate, a document compiled jointly by our leading intelligence agencies.

What this tells us is that after six years of letting politicians--especially Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld--dictate what the intelligence agencies would find, we're now finally in an era when the President, having had most of his political cronies run out of town, is allowing the intelligence agencies to do their work.

Just imagine if this is how it had gone in the run-up to the Iraq war--we would have saved thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and a trillion dollars.

Now, a prediction (an easy one, at that): look for a slew of op-ed pieces from the right wing attacking this NIE, cherry-picking data just like they did on Iraq, and continuing their sword-rattling for a preemptive strike against Iran.

P.S.--Don't get us wrong: we think Iran is still up to some serious mischief, both in Iraq, and perhaps more malevolently, in Lebanon.

Seriously, though--we need to engage Iran, not demonize it. For example, it's hard to see how the U.S. can justify intervening in Iraq for strategic reasons, but then denounce Iran for having an interest in what's going on along it's border. Iraq fought a long, costly and deadly war against Iran not that long ago, and the Iranians have some pretty good reasons to dislike Iraqi Sunni muslims. That doesn't necessarily justify what they're doing, but it does suggest getting a dialogue going.

Prez. Contest--More Polls With Huckabee, Obama On The Move

As we write this, some crazed jackass has taken a couple hostages in Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign office. We hope this ends with one guy--who turns out to be just a crazy--in jail and no one else hurt.

In today's political news, more polls, of course. What to make of them?

Interpreting small changes from poll to poll is dangerous, since there is a lot of data "noise" in these polls. More important are trends. A consistent gain or loss by one candidate over a series of polls is probably real. Likewise, a big move between two polls taken by the same organization may mean something--at least we know the methodology is the same between those polls.

[Methodology is more important in some places than others. In Iowa, for example, methodology matters a lot, because a pollster is trying to measure preferences amongst those who will actually turn out on caucus day, which is a very small minority of voters. Just asking every recipient of a telephone call in Iowa who they prefer won't be very accurate in projecting caucus results. The various polling organizations all use somewhat different approaches to identifying those most likely to attend their caucuses.]

With those caveats, here's what we see in a round of new polls from Iowa, NH and SC (by the way, if you want the best place to get up to date polling info, go to Realclearpolitics.com):

First, Obama may now be in the lead in Iowa. Probably better to call it a tie, but his recent strength in Iowa polls has been consistent. And Edwards isn't far behind. However, Obama's strength in Iowa hasn't translated into surge elsewhere, at least not yet: in both NH and SC Hillary still has a comfortable lead that hasn't changed much.

In SC, a Clemson University poll had Obama only two points back, trailing Hillary's 19% with 17%. But three other polls by professional pollsters--two before Clemson and one after--all consistently have Hillary in the 43-47% range with Obama in the 21-33% range. We have to view the Clemson poll as an outlier, although it may show that among the hardest core voters who have really made up their minds, Obama is closer to Hillary. (There were a lot of undecided voters in the Clemson poll.)

In New Hampshire, the last seven polls are remarkably consistent. Hillary ranges from 34-38% while Obama ranges from 21-26%, a comfortable lead for Hillary that hasn't budged over the past month.

Still, what we've seen before is a delay between moves in Iowa and those elsewhere. If Obama starts to move in New Hampshire, then watch out!

On the Republican side, the story continues to be Huckabee. He's a good example of the Iowa delay factor. After a steady rise in Iowa that didn't appear to be translating to other states, Huckabee is now getting a momentum effect, helped by not only Iowa, but tons of media attention, his debate performances and his good humored deflection of attacks on him.

Bear in mind, no one had ever heard of Jimmy Carter before Iowa in 1976, and he went on to win the whole thing. We might have to start thinking about how Huckabee would play in a general election. But not yet.

Here's what the most recent polling data shows: in Iowa, an ARG poll--the most recent--has Huckabee one point behind Romney. Consistent with other recent polls, this means the two men are tied. But Huckabee has an edge--in the ARG poll, 89% of Huck's voters say their support is "definite" compared to 56% for Romney. And, in other polls, the Huckmeister's support is greater amongst previous caucus goers--considered the most reliably likely to attend again. In short, we think Huckabee will be able to get his supporters to the caucus rooms, and if so, he will best Romney by a small margin.

In New Hampshire, Huckabee is moving up fast. In the Rasmussen and ARG polls, Huckabee is at 13% and 14%, up from 10% and 7% at the beginning of the month. His support is not coming at Romney's expense, however--the Mittster has remained consistently in the mid-30's all month.

How's this for a scenario: Huckabee wins Iowa and comes in second in NH? Then he'd be for real, for sure.

Finally, in SC, a new ARG poll has Huckabee at 18%, up from just 1% in an ARG poll a month earlier. Now that's movement! His support came from Romney, Thompson and and McCain.

If the overall ARG results for SC are accurate, then Thompson clearly has to worry. SC is make or break for the Thompson campaign, yet he's running in FOURTH place, barely ahead of McCain. That said, other recent polls had the Fredster as high as second place, but Thompson really needs to move to SC for the duration if he's going to have any shot.

Huckabee also leapt into second place in a recent Florida poll, behind Giuliani, which is consistent with his trend around the country.

What we don't have is any particularly recent--or robust--data from the two states that will vote between NH and SC: Nevada (caucus) and Michigan (primary). No one's really campaigning much in those states, so why worry.

So, with five weeks to go before the real voting starts, Huckabee's the story of the moment, along with Obama. Iowa is going to be tight all the way around. And the media's going to have something better to write about than holiday traffic, gloomy Christmas retail sales and whether we'll have a white X-mas.

Fear And Loathing In The Virginia GOP: Loyalty Oath Required

We just love it. Having just gotten spanked in the recent Virginia general election, the state's Republicans have announced that they will require a "loyalty pledge" of all voters in their presidential primary election on February 12. See "Virginia GOP Gets Strict On Voting" in the Washington Post. [At right--Hitler's SS men take their loyalty oath.]

The people who run the Virginia GOP should hire a good, independent marketing consultant to help them understand how they are perceived by folks who aren't hardcore Republicans.

What they'd find is that part of the perception is that the party consists of overwhelmingly white, narrow-minded people who tend to be paranoid and exclusionist.

Nothing like a loyalty oath to boost that perception!

You won't see Democrats insisting on a loyalty pledge--i.e., a signed card stating that the voter will support the party's nominee in the general election, no matter who it is. Dems don't worry about these things.

Republicans, however, worry that independents, or mischievous Democrats, will bother to crash their party and create mayhem at the primary box--as if the GOP race isn't wild enough already. Why do they think this? Probably because it's the kind of thing they'd do to the Democrats (not your average Republican--just those consultants who sit around thinking up loyalty oaths--and dirty tricks).

If the Virginia GOP really worries about this it should either (a) support party registration, like many states have--although that would be pretty unpopular with most voters, or (b) hold caucuses, where they can control who attends (after all, that was their solution to assure that Gilmore would get the Senate nomination over Tom Davis).

From our vantage, however, we're happy to see the paranoia on display. Come to think of it, maybe we'll vote in the GOP primary after all--just to show how worthless those pledges are.

GOP Debate Helps Huckabee

The clear winner of last night's GOP debate was Mike Huckabee. (That's him, at right, working on his winning--and slimming--form.)We're not basing that on the debate itself--are you kiddding, do you really think the Curmudgeon would waste two hours sitting through one of the Republican debates?

[We can barely stand the Democratic ones--we were delighted to see the one with CBS's Katie Couric get cancelled. There's just too many.]




Instead, we're basing it on the post-debate commentary on the right. Here's what we found:


"Yepsen: Huckabee Shows He Belongs In Top Tier" from the Des Moines Register. Iowa's leading newspaper political analyst compliments Huckabee and says "[a]fter Wednesday night, don't be surprised if Huckabee starts opening more of a lead in Iowa."





Then there's "Big Night For Huckabee" from MSNBC's Chuck Todd. We also liked the first comment on this article, from someone else who must've not watched, because he said "most conservatives are saying Romney won" [we couldn't find ANYBODY outside the Romney campaign saying that] and repeating the silly claim that Huckabee is a "liberal." These folks are giving us liberals a bad name!





And how 'bout "Huckabee Is For Real," from Real Clear Politics' John McIntyre, who says "It is not about Iowa only any more. Mike Huckabee has a real shot to be the Republican nominee."





Time Magazine's Mark Halperin, graded Huckabee highest, with a B+--tied with McCain--in his evaluation of the debate.





Even the Weakly Standard's Fred Barnes, who mostly railed that the debate format was "humiliating," backhandedly labelled Huckabee the winner: "The other candidates, with the exception of Mike Huckabee, were losers. They came off as a bunch of squabbling cousins.
Huckabee, though, knows how to conduct himself in TV debates. He's genial, funny, extremely likable, and not very substantive. He seems to understand that a CNN-You Tube debate is not a serious forum at which serious people discuss serious issues. So he doesn't get worked up, and this posture works."





Clearly, Huckabee will continue to be a major character in the Republican storyboard as the race gets focused in the next five weeks.

For Your Political Reading Pleasure

As the political season heats up, the number of good commentaries on the presidential race is growing. We here at the Curmudgeon aim to make life easier for our readers by passing along only those that are worth your time. So herewith our first of an occasional series of interesting columns, op-eds and other analyses of the '08 election.

We start with "Clinton Could Lose Iowa, New Hampshire and Nomination," by Morton Kondracke in Roll Call. Despite the title, this commentary also analyzes the GOP race. Kondracke makes the same point we did today, which is that for the Democrats it appears to be a two candidate race, between Hillary and Obama, and that the outcome is far from foregone.

He does have an interesting twist under which Edwards could dramatically win Iowa: under Iowa caucus rules, voters whose candidate gets less than 15% at an individual caucus--that would be those supporting Dodd, Biden, probably Richardson in many places, Kucinich, Gravel, etc.--have the opportunity to switch their votes. A lot of these Democrats list Edwards as their second choice.

We still see no scenario for Edwards to win the whole thing, however. He's not likely to do well in New Hampshire and he just doesn't inspire many Dems.

On the Republican side, Kondracke sees the race as between Giuliani and Romney. We certainly agree with his observation that Thompson "seems to be catching fire nowhere."

We disagree a bit with Kondracke's contention that "it's hard to see how Huckabee could capitalize on an Iowa victory." True, the Huckster won't do well in New Hampshire. But with an Iowa victory, he could wipe out Thompson in SC and Florida and turn it into a three man race between himself, Giuliani and either Romney or Giuliani.

Second up is a piece from Howard Fineman on MSNBC's website, "The Republican Party's three difficult pieces: GOP will lose next fall unless it can reunite the Reagan-Bush coalition."

Fineman must've read our blog post yesterday about the fractured Republican Party in response to Bob Novak's hatchet job on Huckabee, calling him a "liberal." Fineman says the Republicans need to unite their three wings--the evangelical Christians, the libertarians and what he calls the "hawks." This is, he claims, the Reagan-Bush coalition.

We're with Fineman on the first two groups, the libertarians being pretty small however. The hawks, however, include a lot of evangelicals. The group he is leaving out is the traditional "Rockefeller Republican"--low tax, small government fiscal conservatives.

Still, it's an interesting analysis and largely accurate. What he doesn't mention is the significant danger posed if a major candidate appealing to one or more these factions, i.e., evangelicals (Huckabee?), libertarians (Paul) or super-hawks (Tancredo) should go third-party this fall and attract enough votes to lose a few key swing states.

Finally, we'll pass along "Huckabee Is A Fiscal Conservative" from political operative Dick Morris, a rebuttal of Novak's charge (and that of the Club for Growth) that Huckabee is some kind of tax and spend liberal.

Presidential Campaign: Time To Get Serious!

A spate of new polls from Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida shows that voters are getting more serious and the races are tightening.

On the Democratic side, one Iowa poll has Hillary and Obama tied, while a New Hamsphire poll has Obama significantly closing the gap on Hillary. In SC it's close too. Indeed, if you look at the RCP average (this is an average of recent polls in each state, compiled by the website Realclearpolitics.com) for the first six Democratic contests (Iowa, NH, Mich., Nevada, SC, Florida), it is Hillary in first and Obama in second in each state. (Contrast that with the GOP, below.)

This is no big surprise. For some Democrats the choice is Hillary or anyone else. For those Democrats (and we don't think it's a huge percentage) it's becoming increasingly clear that the anti-Hillary choice is Obama, so the Barack-meister is starting to consolidate his position. Edwards has shown little movement, Richardson doesn't appear viable and the other candidates are a waste of a vote.

We fully expect the Democratic race to come down to a contest between Hillary and Obama. And, absent a couple big victories by Obama in the early rounds, we think Hillary's money and organization will do the trick once we get down to the mega-primaries of early February.

Don't count Obama out yet, however. Support could coalesce around him and lead him to victory.

On the Republican side, the polls show a tightening, but in a race that could go any which way. Take a look at the RCP averages in the first six nominating contests and you see that, compared to the consistency of the Democratic polls, the GOP is all over the place. All five leading GOP contenders are in at least the top three in at least one state:

Iowa: Romney Huckabee Giuliani Thompson McCain

NH: Romney Giuliani McCain Paul Huckabee

Michigan: Giuliani Romney Thompson McCain Huckabee

Nevada: Giuliani Romney Thompson McCain Paul

SC: Romney Giuliani Thompson McCain Huckabee

Florida: Giuliani Romney Thompson McCain Huckabee

A few caveats on these averages. The polls have been most frequent in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and so the data from those states is more robust. The data from Michigan and Nevada is a couple weeks old and probably doesn't reflect some increased support for Huckabee.

You could also be fooled into thinking, based on this chart, that Romney is in first, Giuliani in a close second, Thompson in third, McCain fourth and Huckabee fifth. But the first two contests--Iowa and New Hampshire--get so much press that they then alter whats going on in the latter states.

The odd man out in Iowa and New Hampshire is Thompson, running fourth in Iowa and not even on the chart for New Hampshire. That puts him way, way behind by the time you get to the next few contests, especially given that polling data shows support for all these candidates to be very soft.

The other caveat is that the one man on the move is Huckabee, whose numbers are beginning to rise across the board in reaction to his rise in Iowa. The most recent Iowa poll, from Rasmussen, for the first time has Huckabee in the lead there, by three percentage points. Not statistically significant, but consistent with his upward trend in the Hawkeye State.

A Huckabee win in Iowa will be a huge story, and we're starting to believe it may well happen, especially since his support is particularly strong among past caucus goers, who are the most likely to attend again.

On the other hand, all the campaigns are now launching ads and spending money like crazy--those poor Iowans won't get a moment's peace over the holidays! And Huckabee's not got as much money as the others, although Giuliani and McCain are probably going to focus more on New Hampshire, while Thompson camps out in South Carolina.

We expect the GOP race will only get tighter as the undecideds make up their minds. This is anybody's ballgame.

Miami Herald Calls Out The Hurricane Forecasters For Bad Predictions

Here's a perfect story from the Miami Herald, "Hurricane Predictions Miss The Mark," noting that all the hurricane experts have utterly blown it in their annual storm predictions at the beginning of each hurricane season.

The Washington Post regularly carries those forecasts--and we regularly scoff at them, helpfully alerting readers that these same storm seers have a worse record than than your typical Redskins, Wizards, Caps or Nats (i.e., pretty bad).

Perhaps WaPo would like to print the follow-up--kind of like a correction. A good headline would be "Oops. They Missed It. Again."

Sleazemeisters Get Their Big Chance In SC

Politics may be dirty everywhere, but political operatives in South Carolina have long elevated sleaziness to an art form when it comes to Palmetto State campaigns.

As this article in the New York Post notes, with five Republican candidates duking it out in a very close contest in the state, the masters of slime are in full heat. Expect the worst.

Republican Knives Come Out

Just today you could feel the palpable chill in the Iowa and New Hampshire air as the Republican presidential nomination candidates--and their surrogates--began brandishing their knives in earnest.

Where to start? There was Fred Thompson, unveiling HIS flat rate tax plan, yet getting derailed as he griped about Fox News trying to "take down" his campaign. As if Fred's own staff hadn't done enough damage already in terms of taking down the Thompson ship.

We'll get back to Fred's tax plan in a minute.

Then, there was Bob Novak in a column headlined (at least in WaPo) "The False Conservative," eviscerating former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as a liberal in conservative's clothing. Novak minced no words: "Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans [of course, Novak is one of those!] know that he is a high-tax, protectionist advocate of big government and a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans."

More on the Novak column and just what it means to be a "conservative" or a "Republican" (or a "serious Republican") in yet another minute.

Finally, we have, "Romney and Giuliani Turn Negative in N.H." as reported in WaPo, making note that Giuliani has finally woken up and realized he can't let Romney win all the initial contests. Giuliani apparently intends to throw the gauntlet down in NH, and by golly that will mean going negative. [This, by the way, should be delightful news to McCain, who stands to benefit handsomely if Romney and Giuliani go at it barefisted in the Granite State.]

Well, it's about time. Expect the negativity to become the norm as the five man GOP field dukes it out in the coming weeks. (As it gets negative--on both sides, as Dems are headed that way too--we'll see all the more reason why it is an abomination to hold Presidential nomination contests at the beginning of January, forcing all that negativity into a season that should be about nativity.)

Now, what about that Thompson tax plan. Pretty silly really: he would have a "voluntary" flat tax. Call it the alternative maximum tax. Obviously, you'd pay your accountant to figure out which tax plan was cheaper--the "flat" tax, with no deductions, or the traditional tax, with deductions--and then pick the best one.

In a bit of understatement, the WSJ news story on Thompson's plan wryly states "Mr. Thompson's plan is missing a few key numbers, most notably a projection about how much it might cost the treasury in lost revenue." Ah, but say Thompson's advisors--don't worry, we've got it under control. They'll wring savings out of unspecified changes to social security and Medicare, not to mention all the "growth" his "plan" will cause. Oops. Bye, bye Florida--did you say social security and Medicare?

Thompson's plan is like those from most of the Republican candidates, including the one George W. Bush got through Congress: it promises something--big ol' tax cuts--for nothing: vague promises about reducing spending and all that extra growth. It will certainly sell to the Curmudgeon's former law partners, a bunch of multi-millionaires who, collectively, were about the biggest whiners you could imagine about their taxes, always crying--while driving their luxury cars, or lounging in their 10,000 square foot cribs, or vacationing in their exclusive resorts--about oh how much they have to pay in taxes. (Right next to complaining about oh how hard they work.) Anyway, good plan Fred--you can pander with the best of them. But don't suggest you're going to pay for it with cuts to the nation's senior citizens. Better to stick it to the immigrants.

And finally, we have Novak's hit piece on Huckabee. Who's Novak fronting for? McCain, maybe? But Novak's column--which parrots attacks on Huckabee from the "Club for Growth" crowd--raises some real questions about a growing schism in the Republican party.

Just what is a "conservative" these days, and is it the same as a "serious Republican?" It turns out that there are different types of conservatives. There are "fiscal conservatives"--those who believe in low taxes and small government. When the Republicans took over Congress, we learned that pretty much no one is a fiscal conservative anymore. You're either tax and spend (Democrats) or borrow and spend (Republicans). Everyone loves spending. But McCain and Giuliani at least appear to be fiscally conservative.

Then there are the social conservatives. Their litmus tests are abortion, gays, illegal immigrants, stem cells and "family values"--a buzz word for "Christian values." They don't worry so much about fiscal conservatism--indeed, that's one reason the Republican Congress turned out not to be very fiscally responsible. Huckabee's definitely after this crowd, along with the reincarnation of Romney and what's left of Thompson.

And don't forget libertarians. There's very few true libertarians around. Most people want the liberty to do what they like and ban you from doing what they don't like. But there are some libertarians left, and they're rallying around Ron Paul. It's hard to see how the social conservatives can even be in the same party as the libertarians: social conservatism is all about government telling people what they can't do--can't be gay, can't choose on abortions, can't do drugs, can't have sex before marriage, etc.

These distinctions have been around for a long time. It's interesting to see Novak try to label Huckabee--a true social conservative--as a "false" conservative, and, gasp, even a (dare we say it here) a "liberal." (Sorry Mr. Novak, but we liberals don't want him.)

Well now, all you Values Voters, the great Mr. Novak has spoken: you aren't even in the realm of "serious Republicans" nor are you "true conservatives."

If this keeps up, we can fully expect to see some serious third-party candidates by Spring.

Presidential Election: Where Are We Now?

The passing of Thanksgiving this year kind of puts us where we'd normally be after Labor Day in a general election: at the beginning of the final sprint, when everyone should finally be getting seriously focused.

So, the Curmudgeon thought it would be useful to take a snapshot of where we are at this critical juncture.

First, how are we doing on the prediction front? In May, we made some fearless prognostications. So far, we're doing ok. We predicted that Gore would not run on the Democratic side and that Thompson would run on the GOP side. But we also said Gingrich would run (and we bet he's wishing he had at this point).

The rest of our crystal ball gazing will have to await future events before we can declare ourselves a political seer. However, we can say this: we're not ready to change any of our remaining predictions, including that Rudy Giuliani won't be the Republican nominee.

Now, where do we stand at this point in time?

Democrats

The Democratic race really hasn't changed much over the past six months. Hillary continues to be the odds-on favorite to get the nomination. She leads in just about every poll in every state, although her lead in Iowa is precariously slim. But then, Hillary has NEVER has a large lead in Iowa--indeed, throughout most of the year she has trailed.

The only candidate who can stop Hillary at this point is Obama. And he is a credible threat. Barack continues to be impressive and to have the aura of something new.

Forget Edwards. He hasn't moved anywhere but sideways or down over the past six months, and now he's sounding shrill. As we've noted many times--and we admired Edwards in '04--there's just no authenticity in the man when he talks about "two Americas" and poverty and all that. The real question is where Edwards' supporters will go--will they gravitate to Obama, simply drop out, or embrace Hillary. All of the above, we think, with somewhat more going to Obama, but too late to help him.

Richardson, who we endorsed early on, has been a disappointment. He climbed into double digits in Iowa and New Hampshire on the strength of his experience, but his debate performances have been inconsistent and his tendency to pander has hurt him. Still, Richardson could be a spoiler, siphoning off just enough Obama/Edwards votes to let Hillary run in the clear. The other, very longshot, scenario for Big Bill is that Barack does well enough in Iowa to blunt Hillary's inevitability, leading to a long campaign of trench warfare in which voters in the later states latch on to Richardson as an alternative. Don't count on it, though.

Bottom line: Hillary gets the nomination, with Obama having a shot. Clinton/Obama as the ticket? For many Dems that would be terrific.

Republicans

The Republican race continues to be more interesting--fascinating really. The very real possibility exists of Republicans getting to their national convention in early September without a nominee--a blogger's dream!

Right now we'd give a slight edge to Mitt Romney, if only because he controls his own destiny--kind of like a college football team at the top of the polls. But then, we've seen how well the #1 football team in the polls has done this year, so expect an "upset."

Here's why we say Romney controls his destiny: at present, he leads in Iowa, although that lead is shrinking. And he leads in New Hampshire, and in South Carolina. Sweep those three, do ok in Florida and probably win Michigan and Romney will be unstoppable.

The chances of Romney pulling off that run, however, are slim, if only because four other guys are doing everything they can to prevent it.

In second place, we'd put Huckabee right now. But he's kind of like an undefeated team with a weak schedule. Now he's in the big leagues--can he still win? If Huckabee can successfully consolidate the Christian right, evangelical Republican base in his corner--as he has done now in Iowa--he will do very well, and at a minimum knock Romney off his game. If Huckabee wins in Iowa, it's a whole new ball game.

In third place, we put Giuliani and McCain in a tie. A TIE you say? "C'mon," you say, "how can you say McCain is anywhere near the Rudester?" As we've been saying, Giuliani's strategy is deeply flawed and his lead in the national poles will evaporate like an arctic iceberg in global warming once he comes in third or worse on both Iowa and New Hampshire. McCain, on the other hand, is on the rebound, and we think a lot of those middle of the road, more traditional, Republicans are going to look at him with a new eye after Giuliani implodes.

So that leaves Fred Thompson in fifth place, unles, of course, he gets passed by Ron Paul, which could happen. Thompson must win SC, but we don't think he realizes that. He has no strategy. Gone in 60 seconds could be the Thompson campaign motto--he'll be gone before February 1.

That's our snapshot, but beware: everyone in this picture is moving around. Any of these GOP candidates, except for Thompson, could come out on top. Or none of them. Perhaps the Republicans will pick Gingrich to break a deadlock at their convention--then he'll look very smart, indeed.

Independents/Third Parties

We won't say much for now. Clearly, Bloomberg is interested. He's just waiting to see how the dust settles. And we still look for a credible right winger (or two) to run under third party labels as the fractured Republican party tries to pull itself together.