Spokane, Washington, public schools, in an effort to be inclusive, left out the holiday that is essentially the reason for the holiday season: Christmas. What was included? Well, Hanukkah, Human Rights Day, winter break, Eid al-Adha (the Islamic holy day), Kwanzaa, and the first day of winter. But no Christmas.
Just as a side note:
Huckabee is supposedly "booming." Well, let's look at Real Clear Politics:
Iowa: The average has Huckabee up only .2 points. Three out of five polls have Romney leading, with two out of five with Huckabee ahead.
New Hampshire: The average has Romney up by nearly 15 points. Huckabee is fourth, with one poll showing him in third and two polls showing him in fifth place. Romney leads in every poll.
Florida: Huckabee and his team are saying that he is now second in Florida. However, the average has Giuliani up just over 14 points. Huckabee is only in second according to one out of three polls, while Romney is in second in two. Giuliani leads in every poll.
Democrats run away from a Fox News hosted debate because of "bias" but Republicans participate in a CNN You-Debate hosted by none other than Anderson Cooper in which proponents of Hillary, Barack and John Edwards are chosen to ask questions of the Republicans. Does this sound right to you? Why aren't republican voters chosen as question-askers? It is the republican primary the candidates are campaigning for after all.
Oh, and then you have Anderson Cooper and CNN not doing the slightest bit of research on the questioners... Major Garrett reported on Fox this morning that a simple Google search tells you that the democratic questioners are supporting the respective candidates. Hmm.
And then there's the fist-fight that almost broke out.
Did anyone else notice that when Huckabee wanted to respond to Romney's accusations and ask Romney to allow him a chance to respond, Romney let him. But when it Romney's turn to respond, Huckabee wouldn't let him finish. Interesting.
And as for those of you who think Romney just says what will get him elected or that he doesn't answer the questions... let me remind you of this:
1. Huckabee constantly refers to his Christianity 2. Rudy's answers always come back to: "George Will said I ran the most conservative government" (too bad the American Conservative Union endorsed Romney) "I cut taxes 23 times" "crime went down" and "9/11." 3. Fred Thompson's wife is really the one running 4. Duncan Hunter only talks about the fence he built 5. Tom Tancredo focuses on immigration 6. McCain relies on his military service 7. Ron Paul is all about pulling the troops out of Iraq
Oh, and when Romney responded to the ad by Thompson, Romney at least gave a humble answer: "I was wrong." And he expanded to say that when it came time to make executive decisions about matters of life, that was when he sided with life. Not when he decided to run for president.
Anyway, the candidates have to say what they want to say during the short amount of time they have to say it because there are too many people running. Half of the candidates on the stage (Thompson, Hunter, Tancredo, McCain) shouldn't be wasting our time. If there were less people participating in the debates, there would be more time for substantive answers to the question at hand.
Oh, and why were Giuliani and Thompson placed in the middle? Does CNN not know that Huckabee, Giuliani and Romney are the 3 leaders?
As I've been saying for a good while now, if any other Republican candidate was leading in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and doing well in South Carolina, he would be considered the frontrunner. However, because it is Mitt Romney who is in this position, the GOP nomination is considered "wide open," or narrowed down to Rudy, Romney and Huckabee.
Why?
Because Mitt Romney hasn't polled well in national polls and he has very little name recognition especially when compared to Rudy.
But...
National polls don't mean anything. They don't take into account the electoral college... they disregard the fact that a candidate can win the presidency without winning the popular vote. In the primary the early states are incredibly important, which is why the candidates focus their time and money campaigning in them.
Anyway, the Talking Points Memo has an article on an "epiphany" the writer had about how well Romney is doing.
Face it, Rudy is really only doing well in Florida, Thompson is wasting his time campaigning in states where the primary isn't so important and McCain, well, there's been a lot of talk about his resurgence but he had his time as the frontrunner (way back when before the presidential campaigns really got started).
Oh, and Huckabee? The TPM says, "We've given a lot of editorial attention to Huckabee's surge in Iowa and the consequences it could have for Romney. I still believe that. But the graph makes pretty clear that the issue is Huckabee's surge, not any drop off in Romney's support. He's still rising, albeit at a slower pace. And that may simply be due to the fact that in a large field it gets harder to keep up the rate of increase in support as you near 30% of the total."
The italicized sentence is really important and something that no one has touched upon when talking about Huckabee's performance in Iowa.
On the Democratic side in Iowa, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich believes Obama is going to prevail. My question: why do we even care what Gingrich says? He was the Speaker during the 1994 Republican "revolution" and he's written a few books, but his place is in policy-making, not in election-predicting.
1. Push polling? on religion nonetheless? Despicable. However, I think this shows that Romney is the Republican candidate to beat in the primaries despite the nonsense floating about the media that the R primary is "wide open." If it was anyone else leading by the margins Romney is in the key states of Iowa and New Hampshire as well as topping the polls in Michigan and Nevada, they would be deemed the frontrunner. But, because Giuliani is leading in national polls (which, by the way, mean NOTHING), and Mike Huckabee is "gaining momentum," which he really isn't, it's been decided there is no frontrunner. Any what's the real reason behind this? Conservatives are so concerned with beating Hillary (the perceived Dem frontrunner), they'll sell out their values and throw support behind the winnable candidate. Well, this can only hurt the Republican party in the long run. Maybe we should focus on spreading the message of conservatism and its benefits instead of attacking the Democrats. I'm disappointed.
2. On a lighter note, Dave reported on "Swiftkids for Truth" videos. They're actually pretty entertaining, even though they are also part of what makes people aversive of politics. Here's the video on Hillary:
3. Speaking of Hillary, Liz reported on the female McCain supporter who referred to Hillary in a very derogatory way. While I agree that elected officials should be respected, a least a little, I think Joy Behar on The View was a little ridiculous about this occurrence. Okay, she likes Hillary. Well the McCain supporter didn't. Joy doesn't like President Bush- the PRESIDENT! But it's okay for Joy to talk in an insanely defamatory way about the PRESIDENT on national television would be but it's not okay for a citizen to express her point of view? Where's all the freedom of speech talk? Amazing. And again, what should McCain do? He didn't say anything. Do the producers of The View have to apologize for Joy's comments? No. Not even when so attacks religion by saying that prayer is a distraction. Seriously...
4. Media Matters for America got all upset because the Politico and CNN's Costello reported that the Democratic leadership in Congress is 0 for 40 when it comes to doing something policy-wise on the Iraq war. Okay, so they were able to pass legislation, just for it to be vetoed. They probably knew it would be vetoed- and this is just another part of their political game in which they strive to show that President Bush, and therefore Republicans in general, are awful and shouldn't be elected in 2008. Seriously- part of being a good leader, and especially a good legislature, is to be able to get things accomplished. Not just passing legislation for it to not come to fruition. You may say the this is just rhetoric for me to say that it's the Democrats playing politics. Well- they are. Not only are they recessing early, they've been wasting time trying to reignite the Fairness Doctrine and impeach Dick Cheney and hold votes of no confidence regarding Bush administration officials. Well, there are more important things, such as MAKING SURE AMERICANS DON'T DIE IN ANOTHER TERRORIST ATTACK. But no, they'd rather waste time and blame everything on Pres. Bush and Republicans. Secretary Gates has said he will have to layoff people in the Army and Marines and cease operations at Army bases. DURING A WAR? This is a huge weakness - thanks to Democrats who won't just suck it up and provide the troops the money they need without the pork programs. They claim the surge isn't working - a lot of reports have come out about this being the deadliest year. Well, in case you forgot/didn't know, after the surge we had a HUGE decrease in deaths. Oh, but let's leave that part out and then claim that conservatives refuse to put things in context. Okay. And then, let's use this to not pass funding for the war so that Osama Bin Laden, who isn't a real threat anyway, will see this as a big weakness and plan more attacks on us. Oh but wait, we shouldn't err on the side of caution- this isn't a serious threat. We don't know terrorists and Islamofascists are out to get us. Seriously?!!! The democrats want so badly to win the presidency in '08 that they are willing to put us in danger and then blame it on President Bush. They've already said that they are going to make the '08 election about Pres. Bush's presidency.
What did he ever do to any of you who despise him so much?
Basically, I'm so tired of all the partisan politics and political games on both sides. However, the Dems, with their majority in Congress, are putting us in danger. And this is NOT okay.
And, of course, I have to report that only one Democrat running for President showed up to Florida's Democratic Convention.
Reuter's reports: "The Democratic Party's convention in Florida during the weekend was like a rock concert performed solely by warm-up bands."
"This would be the least exciting (convention) in 30 years, the least encouraging," said a noticeably deflated, long-time Democratic conventioneer Alice Long Owens of St. Augustine, Florida.
This convention didn't get nearly as many posts on the Tampa Bay Buzz Blog as Florida's Republican "Presidency IV," which was, by the way, amazing.
Oh well. I'm sure that the huge and nationally representative populations of Iowa and New Hampshire will make up for the Dems blowing off Florida. Oh wait...
1. DO NOT fly Southwest Airlines. 2. Congratulations, Governor Jindal, the first Indian-American governor! 3. Sen. Clinton continues her unethical fundraising antics. 4. I was right about Sen. Fred Thompson; he's even more boring in person than on TV. 5. I was wrong about Mayor Rudy Giuliani; he is very engaging and inspiring. 6. Gov. Mitt Romney is still my favorite candidate for president. 7. DAVID was interviewed on Hannity & Colmes! Sorry, no video :( 8. The RNC is following the DNC by punishing states for earlier primaries (including NH); however, Florida has only lost half of its delegates to the RNC and the Republican candidates won't be boycotting my state. 9. Thank you to Rep. Stark for apologizing for his outlandish remarks. 10.Favorite quotes from Presidency IV:
"Where will the Canadians go for healthcare?" -Mayor Giuliani on America adopting socialized healthcare
"11% - that's paid staffers and blood relatives." -Sen. John McCain on Congress' approval rating
"When those old hippies find out they get free drugs, see what happens." -Gov. Mike Huckabee on Medicare
"I wasn’t there, I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time." -Sen. McCain referring to his time as a POW during Woodstock.
p.s. If you are going to comment on my blogposts, please read the blog first. Thanks.
