Cletus a delegate from Springfield officially endorsed John McCain today.
http://worldwide-web.com/...

Perhaps it is time for 'Maverick' McCain to find himself another spiritual 'Goose'

Unless you have just been rescued from a deserted island or been recently thawed from a prolonged stay in a 'Futurama'-like cryogenic chamber, you would know that we are in the midst of a very competitive election cycle to pick our next president this coming November.  While the Democratic nomination is still technically up for grabs between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Republican race for their nominee was clinched by Arizona senator John McCain in early March.  One would think that he would be coasting along waiting for the Dems to pick his foe but the 'maverick' is experiencing some moderate 'turbulence' from someone he desperately wanted on his team--and not just for volleyball.

Well I have decided I do not like Mike after this weeks yucked it up at the NRA where the Reverend Huckabee joked about the assination of Sen Obama.

I know there is an audiance for this type of Ann Coulter shock comments. So I guess that this was the Reverends audition to get on the gravy train of right wing shock that fill the books stores and air waves.  He then followed wit a MTP appearance and boy he looks to be on his way now that he has a agent that is guiding the latest star in the industry of poluting the public discourse with hate speech and shock for shock sake.

His lame non-apology apology is so Imus transparant. Well this is what the media cannot not get enough of.. and the public has gotten enough of to the level of outrage abuse. But rest assured the media like MSNBC and MTP and FOX will be looking for the next Democracy shocker to say something outrageous and offensive to some minority group or weaker non media access bunch of people so as to give voice to the haters in our society. You know Obama had it comming to him, winning the nomination and all.

Let's come up with a response to Huckabee.  Maybe there is a better way to hit back at these guys that will have a better political result for BO.  As we all know, this is politics, and we can't be too thin skinned regarding the words the other side use.  Remember, sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.  I agree with that, but the words that have been used over the last two elections have been killing us!

Let's help Obama win some points.

From Dependent Arisings:

Where are we today in the realm of presidential politics? After a long, overdrawn nomination process, we finally have not one, but two, "Black Swan" candidates. According to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the eponymous book, a Black Swan is "large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations." In other words, we didn't--and couldn't--have possibly conceived that McCain, the erstwhile frontrunner-cum-longshot-cum-heir apparent would simultaneously benefit from Mike Huckabee's precipitous rise and fall (due as much to anathema from the social conservative establishment as National Review types), Fred Thompson's splitting Huckabee's social conservative vote in South Carolina, and Mitt Romney's grating unctuousness raising the ire of everyone in the party other than National Review types. And lest I forget to mention, in toto, Rudy Guiliani's campaign strategy?

Based on this post, I got to thinking about how those very pretty maps would translate into delegates.  How far back was Romney when he dropped out of the race?  If the Republicans had proportional delegates, would Huckabee's campaign be any less quixotic?  

The conclusion:

Assuming delegates directly proportional to the proportion of the popular vote ('cause I'm not going to go district by district), the GOP primaries would have looked like this after Super Tuesday:

McCain: 469
Romney: 460
Huckabee:  260
Paul: 79
Giuliani: 25
Thompson: 22
Hunter: 1

Romney would've been within fudging distance of the top, and Huckabee would be in a very strong position to campaign for vice.  State by state breakdown below the cut.

This year's primary season has been an interesting one to say the least.  The media narrative that the Republicans lack a strong candidate while we Democrats have an "inevitable" candidate in Senator Clinton has been turned on its head with the quick rise of Senator McCain after January and the nearly deadlocked race between Senators Obama and Clinton.

As we head into another pair of primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, I thought it would be interesting to look back, but this time at the Republican race, now that it's essentially over.  Though it was a much less exciting race for us, it still shows some interesting trends, so I've put together some maps showing the progress of the Republican race for the presidential nomination.

If you're wondering why I don't yet have something similar up for the Democratic race, don't fret!  I hope to put up something similar this Wednesday or Thursday, after we can take stock of the North Carolina and Indiana results.  I'll also offer some comparison with the Republicans then.

McCain visited Little Rock, AR yesterday.  When his plane landed at Little Rock Airport, and his party deplaned and was greeted by former Gov. Mike Huckabee, a waitress who was on break from the Flying club restaurant held a Hillary sign in view of the landing party.  Someone, perhaps Huckabee, complained to her boss and she was fired from her job.  

This year is a landmark year, either a woman, an african american, or a 71 year old will become president (How old is Ralph Nader? Only joking...) Now, I think Hillary and Barack are competent. I think McCain is an incompetent fool. But hey. But what worries me, is McCain's vice presidential choice. Not to scare people. The guy is old. And if he picks a guy (Yes, that includes Condi) he wins, what if something happens to the oldest president ever? We could be in for a ride on the huck-coaster. Yikes.

Mike Hickabee's presidential run was not aimed at electing him president.  Instead, Hickabee wanted to set himself up as the "religious right" kingmaker, replacing Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, et al.  He has taken the first step in that direction

A friend just linked me to Mike Huckabee's website, which has a countdown set to go off at 11 AM (EST) on tomorrow, April 15th. Let's speculate!

On Tuesday, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee finally gave up on his bid to win the GOP presidential nomination. Let me be among the first to say good riddance.

Huckabee’s long-shot campaign should be remembered for what it was at its core: an unprecedented and dangerous implementation of the God strategy. Again and again, Huckabee showed he willing, even eager, to use religious faith as a political weapon.

With all the scrutiny being paid to every word spoken by the two Democratic candidates, I find it annoying (not surprising, but annoying nonetheless) that the mainstream media has allowed Mike Huckabee to tell lie after lie without calling him on any of them. Specifically, I'm talking about his supposed belief in miracles and his supposed faith that God wants (or wanted) him to win the nomination. Just a few weeks ago, for example, he said, "I know people say that the math doesn't work out. Folks, I didn't major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in those too." And of course he's used some version of this line repeatedly over the past several weeks.

 Just ran across something interesting at New Scientist Short Sharp Science: Discover your secret feelings for Hillary. Actually the title is something of a misnomer.

 It's an Implicit Associations Test which attempts to uncover unconscious biases about the candidates, in this case Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee.

Devised by psychologists at the University of Washington, the University of Virginia and Harvard University, the test reveals our unconscious biases by pairing images of the candidates with "good" words ("friend", "happy", and so on) or "bad" words (such as "enemy" or "angry"). Specifically, it measures the time taken when you are asked to make associations between candidates and the positive words. Make a mistake, and you are asked to repeat the task, incurring a time penalty. Previous research (pdf) reveals that we make these associations more quickly and accurately if they correspond to our hidden inner feelings.

That would be a horrible name for a movie but considering we have the Oscars tommorow I would like to pose the question.  What would a movie based on this years primary season look like?  I'm talking Title, Director, Lead Male, Lead Female, and all the supporting Characters you would like to see.

The threads on McCain and Paxson

WAAAAAAAAAA-EEEELLLLLLLLL !

http://www.dailykos.com/...  Newsweek is reporting that McCain testified in a deposition five years ago that he personally spoke with the CEO of Paxson Communications regarding Paxson's business before the FCC.  This flatly contradicts McCain's denial yesterday that he'd had any contact with Paxson or his representatives regarding the matter.  http://www.newsweek.com/...

Stomachs of McCain supporters must be in knots !

(I am reliably informed that this is not the world's shortest diary entry.  Alas.  There goes my claim to fame.  :D)

I've been reading dogemperor's diaries for a while now, and it occurred to me:

It isn't enough for dominionist Christians that if the rest of the world is wrong, they'll suffer in Hell for all eternity.

They want us to suffer in this life, too.

God-complex, anyone?

For more information on dominionism and why some of us are deeply concerned about even a possible Huckabee VP nom (let alone presidential run), and also because I have to come up with 300 words, I recommend the following blogs:

Dogemperor's diary, Troutfishing's diary, and also the the Dark Christian Live Journal community.

Talk to Action

This is truly a fight of biblical proportions!  It’s Saint Huckabee vs. Saint McCain in a cage match.  On  one side Huckabee has the years of training to be in the business of miracles.  On the other side McCain who has years of training in an exclusive club known as the U.S. Senate.  He has learned how to change the definiation of a "flip-flopper" to being a "maverick" and a "straight shooter".  Truly a miracle!

I don’t know about all of you but I feel like the hand of God is now inserting itself...somewhere.  Is it being inserted up John McCain’s nether regions to help him keep this election, maybe make him see religion with his embrace of Reverend Falwell?  More likely it is being inserted, grabbed, or directing the current Republican primary to chaos...