Huckabee is taking a lot of crap because he’s still in the race. In this exchange with the execrable race-baiter Sean Hannity and his boot-lick Holmes, he talks about his campaign vs. Romney’s failed bid, and the fact that Romney dropped out so early:
HANNITY: That’s not the point. I think what a lot of people are saying here is that Senator McCain has such a big lead, that Governor Romney still has more delegates than you have at this point, and he has been out of the race for quite a period of time. And I guess what people are wondering is, you know, should the party now unite around the person — you know, mathematically when you just look at the numbers you have to win about 85 percent of the remaining delegates. Governor, that is daunting task. There is no nobody that thinks mathematically it’s possible. That’s why the question keeps coming up. So, in fairness to the media —
There’s a reason Romney, with almost twice the delegates as Huckabee, dropped out after Super Tuesday: besides the fact that he mostly won low-delegate caucus states, no Southern states (where he usually ran a distant 3rd behind Huckaboom and McCain), there is the fact that Romney had to spend enormous amounts of money to even make an appearance at being viable.
Republican campaign operatives call it the Gramm-o-meter, the money a candidate spends per delegate won, in honor of Phil Gramm, the former Texas senator who spent $25 million and won just 10 delegates, or $2.5 million per, in 1996.
By Republican strategist Alex Vogel’s calculation, Mitt Romney is giving Gramm a run for his money. The former Massachusetts governor has spent $1.16 million per delegate, a rate that would cost him $1.33 billion to win the nomination.
By contrast, Mike Huckabee’s campaign has been the height of efficiency. Delegates haven’t yet been officially apportioned, but roughly speaking, each $1 million spent by Huckabee has won him 20 delegates
Whereas, Huckabee continues to cruise along, picking up 25% of the delegates spending virtually nothing:
HANNITY: You had no money. You were going through airports by yourself on commercial airlines.
HUCKABEE: That’s right.
HANNITY: So I think you ought to be proud of where you are. I really mean that.
Why did it cost Romney so much to make the sale to so few? And why did he have to drop out? The answer to both questions is the same answer: Romney is as fake as a 3 dollar bill, and the electorate knew it.
He converted to a born-again conservative two years ago, in a cynical calculation that with Guiliani and McCain in the race, there was no room for a social liberal-moderate, what he ran as to get elected Governor of arguably the most liberal state in the Union. This resulted in Romney garnering plenty of well-deserved scorn as “Flip-flop Mitt”, as he had to repudiate nearly all his stands as MA. Gov and the issues on which he ran trying to unseat Teddy Kennedy.
His toxic blend of xenophobic race-baiting against Mexican immigrants didn’t fly well either.
Finally, there was the issue that he and his “conservative” allies branded off-limits, but that voters did not: his hate-filled cult, with its racist, sexist and intolerant teachings. Ironically, McCain is taking grief for the support of John Hagee, who espouses a truly sickening theology indeed, which McCain should repudiate:
COLMES: Just yesterday, John Hagee endorsed John McCain. I understand you were disappointed by that. You have preached at his church. Yet, he has come under fire by Bill Donahue of the Catholic League for what he is claiming are anti-catholic statements, calling his religion the great whore, an apostate church, the anti-Christ, and a false cult system. Bill Donahue of the Catholic League and other Catholics are quite upset by that and says John McCain should renounce that endorsement. Where do you stand on that?
HUCKABEE: I have a lot of support from Catholics. In fact, my campaign manager, campaign chairman, policy director, about half my senior staff are members of the Catholic Church. So nobody can even think for a moment — plus, I have extraordinary support from Catholics, because I’m the only true pro-life candidate in this race. So I do get, I think, exceptional support. I’m not going to get into the issue of Reverend Hagee and Senator McCain. I was disappointed that he didn’t support me. I think he should have. But those are his decisions.
However, Mormons teach a nearly identical theology concerning Catholics, and other Protestant religions as well, yet you heard nary a peep about it during Romney’s time in the sun:
From the Book of Mormon:
# The Jews were wicked, performed abominations, and killed prophets. 1:19# Nephi sees the “great and abominable church” who has taken away the plain and most precious parts of the gospel. 13:26
# The “great and abominable church” has taken away the plain and most precious things from the book. 13:28
# The plain and most precious things in the book have been taken away. 13:29
# The plain and most precious parts of the gospel have been removed by that abominable church. 13:32
# The “great and abominable church” was “founded by the devil” to lead souls to hell. 14:3
# The “great and abominable church, … the mother of abominations, whose founder is the devil.” 14:9
# There are only two churches: the church of the Lamb of God, and the church of the devil.You either belong to the good chuch or the bad church (the mother of abominations, the whore of all the earth). 14:10
# “The whore of all the earth sat upon many waters.” 14:11
# The church of the Lamb of God had few members “because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters.” 14:12
# The “great mother of abominations” recruits people from all over the earth to fight against the Lamb of God. 14:13
# “The wrath of God was poured out on the great and abominable church.” 14:15
# “The wrath of God is upon the mother of harlots.” 14:16
# “The wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church … whose founder is the devil.” 14:17
Well, Romney’s calculation that the hard right was the “base” of the Republicans turned out to be false: the base is pretty moderate, it turns out, and most of them reject whole-heartedly Romney’s cult’s hate-teaching. McCain should repudiate Hagee quickly and forcefully. Romney was in the position of having to repudiate his own church, of which he, his father and his grandfather were part of a dynastic family of LDS elders who were instrumental in molding Mormon theology and practices.
This doesn’t even touch on Romney’s hypocrisy in bragging about his father “marching with MLK” when for 15 years after that, blacks were not admitted to the temple, nor could they be ordained, and Romney and his father sat on high councils that dictated this policy and continued it.
The double standard here is pretty hilarious. The difference is, the loony right was willing to continence this hate because it hated McCain so furiously. Now they are exposed as the hypocritical sons a bitches they are. The Republican Party should reject the hard right xenophobes, whose main bitch about McCain was that he didn’t hate dirty fucking Mexicans, just as the late William F. Buckley was instrumental in disavowing the John Birchers.