The inevitable becomes apparent

Mike Huckabee puts down his bass and drops out of the race - but not before giving a long-winded baseball metaphor.

If John McCain loses in November, expect to hear from Huckabee again in 2012.

Meanwhile, McCain, your official Republican nominee for 2008, is probably working on his own red phone ad right now.

Indeed, I'm expecting the resurgent SNL - a cultural touchstone, according nerdy political pundits - to have a skit Saturday with all three remaining candidates falling over themselves trying to answer that 3 a.m. phone call.

Who will be on the other end? God? Allah? Rove? Land shark?

Authentically disingenuous

Mike Huckabee whomped John McCain in Kansas in Saturday's Republican primary.

From the New York Times: Mr. Huckabee won 60 percent of the vote, Mr. McCain 24 percent and Representative Ron Paul of Texas 11 percent. The A.P. reported that Mr. Huckabee picked up all 36 Kansas delegates.

Is that 60 percent a protest vote? If so, McCain has a long way to go to convince voters of what the party leaders have already declared: that the conservative base will rally around the nominee no matter who he is.

The question for McCain is whether this is a last fit thrown by conservatives unhappy with but resigned to his nomination? Or a signal from the base that he better veer rightward if he wants them to back him come November?

Mitt out

Mitt "The Mormon" Romney has suspended his run for president, but not before he again invoked the name of Ronald Reagan by comparing his decision to stand down to Reagan's loss in 1976. Thus, he promises a comeback after the Democrats trounce John McCain and make a bungle of a hostage rescue attempt.

I won't hold my breath.

I'll miss Romney, though I'm surprised he lasted this long. In many ways, he was the most genuine of all the candidates, bending to the will of voters at every opportunity, pandering without shame.

Now old-man McCain must climb that steep conservative mountain all alone - unless, of course, his old friend Huck finds a way to tag along (or McCain has a myocardial infarction). But Huck forgot that he needed Romney to stick around just as badly as McCain needed Huck to split the conservative vote. Now Huck's superfluous.

Barack Obama, who continues to revolutionize politics dollar-by-fund-raising-dollar, should be glad at all of this. The wind is at his back and Hillary Clinton has little room to go negative right now, and not a lot of cash on hand. Her only hope is that the writers' strike ends soon and all of Obama's young supporters get locked into the next season of Grey's Anatomy.

The Results Are In

Very few surprises tonight in the presidential primary. The thing to watch now is how Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton spin their respective wins. Obama did better in the South and in more conservative states. He also won Missouri. I think this gives him an argument to build upon for the upcoming primaries, which are largely in conservative-leaning states such as Texas and Ohio.

Clinton, on the other hand, has big wins in big states, but her map looks something like John Kerry's in 2004. She's the traditional liberal, winning mostly states that a Democrat would be expected to win in a general election. Certainly her delegate count and high-profile victories make for a nice storyline but she lacks a forward-looking narrative.

Saying that, Obama has a long way to go to win the nomination. In other words, today he met his expectations but didn't exceed them. Nothing audacious about that.

And on the Republican side, John McCain beat the shit out of Mitt Romney just about everywhere. He'll drop out soon, I predict.

Today is the day they call Tsunami Tuesday

CNN has posted its first exit poll info, showing that people who are self-described conservatives supported Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Is that even news?

More interesting, Democrats who decided who they wanted to vote for in the last three days picked Obama 47% and Clinton 46%. That's not great news for Obama, who needed those late voters to break his way. That explains the lowered expectations coming out from his campaign.

Political karate chop

As a child, I thought Chuck Norris was something special. I remember the legendary "fight" between him and Bruce Lee - I think Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was in the same movie, the name of which I've forgotten (and refuse to look up).

Now Norris (aka, Walker, Texas Ranger) stumps for a man who thinks he can be elected president by promising to abolish the IRS.

Well, here's some backlash for Norris.

Old people still vote

McCain and Clinton rack up second wins today, providing both with real momentum at a time when voters are getting antsy for clarity.

I'd guess Edwards and Thompson will be shown the door. Romney will keep on fighting, having taken a win in Nevada. Giuliani looks like a long shot and Obama and Huckabee are on the ropes.

The AARP generation is asserting its will.

Two states down... and how many to go?

We've already had two state primaries and we still don't know who the nominees are? Jesus. I mean, seriously, what the fuck!?

Somehow a protracted (meaning more than one week) campaign has everyone all twitchy. Be thankful. Easy choices are usually bad ones. Let's give it an American Idol lifespan.

That being said, I think we can write off Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson on the right. Fred Thompson makes the Crypt Keeper look young, and Huckabee's embrace of a flat tax proves his politics are more on the fringe than I'd suspected.

John Edwards is probably finished, too; but he has some things to prove yet before he goes away. Too bad, I'd like for him to have made a bigger impact.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Dems then, and Mitt "the Mormon" Romney and John "I can't believe I'm still alive" McCain for the Reps. I'm taking odds, but only a fool would bet big at this point.

The Dem bench is deeper and more attractive, I believe. Republicans I've talked to would be willing to vote for Obama, but no one voting for Obama is going to seriously consider voting for a Republican.

Clinton might be hated, but I still think she's more viable than McCain.

And I guess there's still a Rudy Giuliani bid out there. Like a vampire, he's waiting for the right time to strike. I think his strategy is as crazy as he is.

I'll try to post more regularly but I work for a living now.

What the Huckabee?!

No surprises except for the surprises.

Looks like passion beat out "electability" in Iowa tonight. Mike Huckabee, the bass playing, slack-jawed yokel, beat out Mitt "the Mormon" Romney in what could be Romney's death knell.

And over on the Democratic side, Barack Obama figured out how to whip up the turnout machine to beat Hillary Clinton and John Edwards (no funny nicknames for the Dems, unfortunately).

An Obama win probably means Edwards will be looking to become VP again. He's the new Al Gore.

The much-maligned DMR poll has been vindicated.

Enough really is enough

The Washington Post has Mike Huckabee taking the stage to play "Blue Suede Shoes" (although the accompanying video has him playing along to "Sweet Home Chicago").

Arkansas politicians are such goobers.

Romney or bust

Mitt Romney makes a final push to take down surging Mike Huckabee before Thursday's Iowa caucuses.

I have to ask, are these really the issues the issues conservatives care about?: Romney's new Iowa ad accuses Huckabee of being at the helm of a big-spending government in Arkansas, providing college benefits to the children of illegal immigrants and issuing more than 1,000 pardons and commutations as governor. The ad also quotes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying Huckabee's criticisms of President Bush's foreign policy were "ludicrous."

Big spending in Arkansas?! The too-compassionate conservative?

George W. Huckabee*

Remember when George W. Bush couldn't name the the leaders of several key foreign nations, including a certain general who had recently taken control of Pakistan? It seemed like the kind of gaffe that would throw Bush out of contention for the Republican nomination. It didn't.

Comes now Mike Huckabee, who seems to know just as little about the world around him as Bush did, and is just as confident about asserting major policy proposals based in ignorance.

Indeed, Huckabee's reaction to yesterday's assassination of Benazir Bhutto was to propose building a fence along the Mexican border. Why? Because of all the angry Pakistanis coming into our country via Mexico. How many you ask? According to Huckabee, 660 were caught "last year." Where'd he get that number? First he said from the CIA. Then he said from a story in the Denver Post.

According to the Post, 660 illegal Pakistanis were caught between 2002 and 2005.

I'm sure if he can find a vice-presidential nominee with strong foreign policy credentials that everything will go swimmingly.

*From Politico.com: On Friday morning, Huckabee listed former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as someone with whom he either has “spoken or will continue to speak.”

See, nothing to worry about.