My problem with Mitt Romney: it's not that he's a MORMON - it's that he's a MORonic MAN

A complete salesman. He will say anything to get a vote

Huckabee gets criticized for using the "C" word

I thought that more people would appreciate a political ad that neither touted a laundry list of the candidate's claimed successes and virtues or attacked everything their nearest competitor had ever done (in other words, Romney ads). Huckabee sent a message to voters in the early states saying Merry Christmas, and made reference to the fact that the purpose Christmas holiday is to commemorate the birth of Christ. And our secular friends seem to be outraged, with some of them talking about the separation of church and state.

I respect the rights of athiests and people of other faiths to believe whatever they want - or to believe nothing at all. But, doesn't Mike Huckabee, even as he's running for the high office, have the right to mention the word Christ? A separation of church and state implies that the government does not tell the citizens what to believe or how to worship. It does not, however, imply that individuals who run the government are not entitled to have religious beliefs and to express them - otherwise this in itself would be an instance of the government telling people what to believe and what to say.

I think many of Huckabee's Republican critics are in such a tiff because they didn't think of it first. But this is one thing that Huckabee brings to the race that all the highly paid consultants and the bulk airtime in the world can't give Mitt Romney - originality.

The Republican "conservative" pundits are doing the work of the Democrats

Not only did they spend months lushing after an outright liberal (Giuliani) and now are fawning over a liberal-pretending-to-be-a-conservative (Romney), but they are amping up the religious attacks. Some leading conservative pundits have questioned whether or not the "religious right" should have as large a role in Republican Party politics. I thought it was the Democrats who attacked religious people on the basis of their religion and who promoted and elevated east coast social liberals. Now it's the Republicans - thanks to those whose party affiliation is more important to them than any type of principles or value systems.

Mitt Romney remembers the day black folks were allowed in his church

Mitt Romney nearly tearfully told Tim Russert this morning (sniff):

“I can remember when I heard about the change being made. I was driving home from — I think it was law school, but I was driving home — going through the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I heard it on the radio and I pulled over and literally wept.

(Mitt conjures up some emotion - maybe thinking of the time his dog died)
“Even to this day, it’s emotional,” Romney added.

How many people remember where you were - exactly - and what you were doing when you got news of some racial divide collapsing? I sort of rememer rthe first time I met some white brothers who were members of a historically black fraternity - but it really wasn't a big deal. They were great guys and I didn't care what color they were. I didn't cry and I don't know where I was. I remember in just about every predominately black church I've ever attended that there were white brothers in sisters who were also members. I don't remember the first time, where I was - exactly - and what I was doing, blah blah blah.

I don't believe that Romney was happy to have blacks in his church - even his comments today don't make it clear what "emotional" meant - and it certainly didn't read that way in the news story in the earlier link (no one else who read that, of any race, thought that Romney was crying because he was touched or happy). Romney just needs to be honest and say how he feels and, if he feels differently, when he started feeling differently.

Mitt Romney and his tears over blacks being admitted to the mormon church

Romney this morning probably pre-empted a question by the ever-sharp moderator Tim Russert when he said that he was so touched by the fact that the Mormon church finally allowed blacks full membership in 1978 that he cried. Here's what he said today - with his typical bad-actor lack of sincerity:

“I can remember when I heard about the change being made. I was driving home from — I think it was law school, but I was driving home — going through the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I heard it on the radio and I pulled over and literally wept.

“Even to this day, it’s emotional,” Romney added.

What was so funny about the second line is that Romney seemed to almost be forcing himself to feel some type of painful emotion that he hoped would be conveyed in his voice.

Revisiting an article posted on CBS News in November (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/15/the_skinny/main3505361.shtml), I get an entirely different opinion of how Romney at first described his feelings on the issue.

Back in the U.S. at Brigham Young, when boycotts and violent protests over the university's virtually all-white sports teams broke out at away games, he stayed on the sidelines.

At the time, the Mormon Church excluded blacks from full membership, considering them spiritually unfit as the result of a biblical curse on the descendants of Noah's son Ham.

A handful of students and prominent Mormons called for an end to the doctrine, but Romney wasn't one of them. When he heard over a car radio in 1978 that the church would offer blacks full membership, he said, he pulled over and cried.

Does the article make this sound to be tears of joy?? I don't think so and neither does anyone else who has read this.

People are entitled to change their opinions and sentiments - many people have changed in the past twenty five years (and some tend to change every election cycle) - so this isn't bashing Romney for what he might have felt back in 1978. But, I want to know does he really still feel the same way today?

He also didn't indidate what "emotional" means? Was he "emotional" because he didn't want blacks sitting next to him in church? Or was he "emotional" because he did - and if this is the case, why was it that he wasn't one of the people who called for an end to the exclusion of blacks?

If Huckabee's attacks on Bush are "anti-Republican," were Reagan's attacks on Ford "anti-Republican" also?

Huckabee has made some critical remarks about President Bush. Mitt Romney, quick to jump on any opportunity to appeal to the GOP base at a moment's notice, called his remarks anti-Republican. The problem with that argument is that if this is true, it is also true that Reagan, the standard of every modern-day Republican, both attacked a sitting GOP President and dared to oppose his re-nomination. In fact, wouldn't it have been even worse to impede a Republican President's attempt for re-election (in contrast to saying something negative about a second term Republican President who can't run again) - in the middle of the Cold War? Yet, would any of Huckabee's critics apply the same standards to Reagan and call him a non-loyalist? Of couse not. But, this is just another unfair argument used to try to tear apart the Huckabee nomination (another one is that he has no foreign policy experience; neither did Reagan, whose only political experience before taking over the high office at the peak of the Cold War was an eight-year run as Governor of California).

Here's what Reagan had done (from The American President by Kathryn Moore, 2007, pages 550-551):

• Reagan attacked Ford for allowing the military to decline. Ford soon awarded a large Air Force contract to Florida-based Martin Marieta. Afterward, Reagan stated "I understand Mr. Ford has arrived in the state. If he comes here with the same set of goodies as he did in Florida, the band won't know whether to play 'Hail to the Chief' or 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town'"
• Reagan in 1975 also briefly considered creating a third party.
• He grew "increasingly disdainful toward anyone who urged him to drop out of the campaign for 'the good of the party'"

Huckabee says things that many people think - even many Republicans - but few people have both the honesty and guts to actually say. Reagan had those same qualities - guts and integrity. If anyone wants to make the case that Reagan was being anti-Republican by his behavior in 1975 and 1976, they can feel free to hang themselves with the rope of that argument. Huckabee is not being anti-Republican - he is being a leader and trying to bring the party out of its current state (which no one is happy with) into a model of true world leadership and compassionate conservatism.

How can conservatives criticize Huckabee on taxes?

Huckabee wants to eliminate the IRS, eliminate the Personal Income Tax and the Corporate Income Tax. He is the only supporter of the Fair Tax running, to my knowledge.

But, the "conservative" pundits say they don't like Huckabee on taxes.

Huh??

Help me to understand the logic of this, anybody. So called "growth" Republicans are mad that as Governor, he raised sales taxes by a penny, even though he wants to get rid of the income tax in general - giving every fiscal conservative everything they've ever longed for - but they don't like it???

What does the Liberal Left and the Republican Establishment have in common? They FEAR Mike Huckabee!!

During an election year, a lifelong Republican candidate has the distinction of having more years of executive experience than any other candidate from either party. He has impeccable Christian Conservative credentials and has been married to the same woman for more than three decades with no David Vitter or Bill Clinton tendencies to speak of. He wants to eliminate both the Income Tax and the Corporate Income Tax and replace both with a consumption-side tax, a national sales tax. And to top it all off, even black voters like him - a chance to take away part of a voting block that the Democrats absolutely need to even think about winning nationally. Sounds great, right? He' got to be "the one." People are geeked about his campaign and a grass-roots movement is carrying him further with less than any other candidate.

But, no, say the Republican Power Brokers. They have decided that it shall not be so. They've issued directives through their puppet masters in the "conservative" news media that this guy doesn't fit the party mold. (Why? Because they say so. Isn't that good enough?) They argue that he raised taxes, ignoring completely the fact that he's the only candidate who wants to eliminate the income tax when elected. The argue that he pardoned too many people, including a man who ended up committing murder, while ignoring the facts that he also executed more than a dozen people and that other candidates who have governed have made mistakes that have led to loss of life (one candidate is blamed by many for a role in the deaths of hundreds of firemen - but that's not been mentioned by party insiders as a reason to not vote for him).

The real reasons for the GOP-oriented media backlash is that Governor Huckabee breaks from the molds in some ways that cause some discomfort. He does care that some people are poor in this country and publicly acknowledges that it's not all of their fault. He isn't willing to be status quo about the GOP and race relations - he even had the audacity to say that he was embarrassed by the party's history here. Also, because he has no money, that also testifies to the fact that nobody owns him yet. Not big oil. Not defense contractors. Not those who have pledged a lifelong adherence to the party line and who value spouting the company line over personal honesty and integrity.

The Democrats are actually afraid of Huckabee because they tremble at the reality that not only can he actually win, but that he actually wants to change things (the typical politician is relatively indifferent to the things that they advocate compared to their desire to win and keep power). He doesn't fit the mold of the hard-hearted, culturally clueless, stiff, boring person whom they characture as the typical Christian. He thinks on his feet and is even better at avoiding the usage of the same old cliches over and over again than Barack Obama. He's a pro-life, income tax-eliminating, pro second amendment version of Obama merged with a funnier, less pompous smidge of Joe Biden, and without any of the baggage of any other candidate running - and with considerable political experience. He represents the best that the opposition has to offer with the exact opposite views on many of the key issues. And he actually knows how to run a government. The Dems are thinking - "oh, crap! This guy could actually become President. He actually wants to end abortion. He actually wants to end the income tax. We can't attack him in the same way that we attack other candidates. We have to stop him. Wait! I know. Let's use reverse psychology and pretend that we want him to be the candidate."

Romney "cried" when blacks were allowed to join the Morman Church??

Where is the media when you need them?

In the CBS News Story "Mitt Romney as Mormon Missionary" (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/15/the_skinny/main3505361.shtml), we learn something about Romney's past feelings about blacks. Here is the entire article, with the most telling section shown below and highlighted below in bold:

Back in the U.S. at Brigham Young, when boycotts and violent protests over the university's virtually all-white sports teams broke out at away games, he stayed on the sidelines.

At the time, the Mormon Church excluded blacks from full membership, considering them spiritually unfit as the result of a biblical curse on the descendants of Noah's son Ham.

A handful of students and prominent Mormons called for an end to the doctrine, but Romney wasn't one of them. When he heard over a car radio in 1978 that the church would offer blacks full membership, he said, he pulled over and cried.

So, the man who wants to be the 44th President of all of America "cried" when black people were admitted to his church?? When did his feelings toward blacks change, assuming that they have changed? Why is it that no one in the media has asked Mitt (who reminds me a lot of "Joe Isuzu from the 80's commercials) about this?