For the past couple of days, Rush Limbaugh has been reporting on the “Uncivil War’ in the Democrat party. This is between the Mrs. Clinton hit machine and Barack Obama. All of the attacks have come from the Mrs. Clinton hit machine, but she is the one calling for the cease fire.

The one thing that is interesting about the uncivil war is that all the attacks have come from one side. That side claims the other side is attacking and they are responding. Yet, nobody can find anywhere that the Obama camp has made any remarks about Mrs. Clinton being female or that Barack is black.

The fallout from the attacks has been remarkable. The Clinton attack machine has been shown to be exactly that, an attack machine. They are willing to chew up any thing or any one that gets in their way. They do have a pattern in their attacks; they always phrase their attacks as if they are responding to someone else’s attack. In this case, they have been made to look foolish and their candidate looks foolish as a result. Nothing could be sweeter!

The one thing to remember about cease fire’s, is that the one calling for a cease fire is just calling for it so they can regroup. They are losing and have to find a way to stop the bleeding. The fastest way to stop the bleeding is to stop the shooting. They fully intend to start the shooting again when they are fully stocked and ready to go with a new strategy.

The other thing to remember about the Democrat party is that they have always been about race. Before the Civil War, they were the party that owned slaves and the party that condoned the owning of slaves. During the Civil War, they were the party that wanted to divide the country into slave and free. After the Civil War, they were against giving civil rights to blacks. The “Jim Crow” laws in the South were passed through Democrat controlled legislatures and enforced by Democrat county executives. When the Civil Rights bill was passed over their objection, they figured out that if they promised equality blacks would flock to the Democrat banner. They were right. Up until the Civil Rights bill was passed, more blacks voted with the Republicans than with the Democrats. The Democrats promised them a seat at the table and a chance at obtaining power.

Now it is time for the Democrat party to pay up. Barack Obama is knocking at the door and saying I demand that I get equal treatment. The Democrat party establishment is saying that we are lily white and intend to stay that way. No blacks will ever be allowed into the real power circle until they are forced to put them there. Look at where Democrat politicians appoint blacks to their cabinets; at the lower power positions. The top positions are always given to white politicians. Look at where Republican politicians put blacks in their cabinets; they used to also put them at the back, now they are in real leadership positions. It is my opinion, but, I believe that a black will be elected President from the Republican Party before one is elected from the Democrat party. The same goes for females. I could be wrong on that one, but I do not think so.

My hope is that blacks will see how the leadership of the Democrat party treats a black candidate for President of the United States. When they see that Democrats are not serious about giving a black person a chance to be President, more will move to the Republican ranks. The Republicans have more in common with what the blacks say they want than the Democrats do any way. That would mean a big power shift if even 10% of the blacks left the Democrat Party and moved to the Republicans.

There is a tempest in a teapot going on in the Democrat Party. They have their knickers in a knot over a comment by Bill Clinton. He called the Obama campaign a “fairy tale”. Of course, the race lords had to have a field day with that one. They were outraged. Bill Clinton has been back pedaling on that one since he made the comment last week.

To try and deflect some of the criticism that is coming their way, the Clinton machine is trying to blame the Obama campaign. The Clinton team is trying to portray Mrs. Clinton as the victim and Obama as the cruel attacker. In the Democrat party, it is better to be the victim than the aggressor. Democrats hate aggression. They are afraid of anyone that shows aggression. They will try to appease the aggressor, unless they can make the aggressor feel small. Within the Democrat party, that is what they do.

What we have in this situation is the Clinton’s playing the race card. They are saying that Obama is black and because he is black, he cannot be elected President. The Clinton’s also play the gender card by bringing up Mrs. Clinton being female every time they bring up Obama’s being black. They portray her being female as a plus and being black as a minus. That way they can deflect any gender criticism that Obama may happen to throw their way.

In all this, Obama has been remarkably silent. He has let the race baiters, Sharpton and Jackson, do all the heavy lifting. It puts him above the fray and makes him look Presidential. Mrs. Clinton is not looking too good by being in the middle of this ridiculous spat. Mrs. Clinton is the one saying she will not bring up race and gender and then in the next sentence or two, bringing up race and gender.

On the Republican side, many of the candidates are running short of campaign cash. Rudy Giuliani’s top campaign staff has decided not to take any salaries this month to help him win Florida. That way he will have more campaign cash to purchase ads in Florida. The other campaigns are low also. Commercials are short for all the campaigns, except for Romney. Romney has decided to put all of his eggs in Michigan. He wants to win Michigan in the worst way. He has the campaign cash to compete in all the states, but has decided to concentrate on Michigan until tomorrow. After tomorrow, I expect him to start advertising in Florida and other states again. He is the only one who can financially compete with the Democrats.

The Michigan primary is tomorrow. The latest poll I saw had Romney leading McCain by 5%. I expect Mitt Romney to win in Michigan tomorrow. McCain has said things that will not help him in Michigan this past week. Romney has said all the right things in Michigan. I expect him to win by 8-9% over McCain. The Democrat primary is just a beauty contest as there are no delegates at stake. Mrs. Clinton will win. The only thing is by how much. Some people are asking that people vote non-committed. If they do in large enough numbers, that would be embarrassing for Mrs. Clinton. She needs to take over 60% of the vote to look good. Anything short of 60% and it will almost be considered a loss for her.

The Republicans held another debate in South Carolina last night. There were three winners, two losers and one that does not matter.  The winners were: Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. The losers were: John McCain and Mike Huckabee. The one that does not matter is Ron Paul.

Ron Paul does not matter because he will never get more than 10% of any vote. He will never be the nominee. The reason is that he is not serious about the war against Islamo-Fascism.  On social issues and the Constitution, Ron Paul is more correct than everyone else in the Republican field. BUT, the most important issue is the war. On the war, he is ignorant or ill informed. I do not believe that he is ill informed. There is a lot of information out there and he has heard it all since 9/11/2001. Therefore, he chooses to ignore the warnings. That would mean a disaster if he were selected as our next President.

The losers were John McCain and Mike Huckabee. John McCain showed why he should not be the front runner. He does not understand that everyone except him understand that the McCain-Kennedy Amnesty bill was just that – Amnesty. He insists that it provided all sorts of things it did not provide. He is trying to make us all believe that he is for securing our borders when we all know he is not. That only reminds us why we should not select him as our next nominee.

Mike Huckabee again showed a complete lack of understanding of economic principles. When he was asked about why taxes were higher in Arkansas when he left office than when he started, he went on and on about what they spent the money on. He is talking to a Republican audience that believes in lower taxes and growing the private sector and starving government. To praise big government was a tactical error. He compounded his error by saying that at least bridges in Arkansas did not fall down. That was an insult to Minnesota. Minnesota is one of the Midwest states that the Republican Party has targeted to turn from blue to red in the next election. If he became the nominee, he can kiss that state off the list.

Fred Thompson won because he showed a good grasp of the issues. He stood out because he challenged Mike Huckabee and showed Huckabee to be the big government loving person that he is. This may have helped him overtake Huckabee in South Carolina.

Rudy Giuliani won because he is strong on defense and that was highlighted in the debate. This debate questioning gave the candidates chances to talk about important issues. Talking about the war always helps Rudy Giuliani look well.

Mitt Romney had a big job to do in the debate. He had to show that the second place showings in Iowa and New Hampshire were flukes. He came out firing on all cylinders this night. He really appealed to Michigan voters by talking about ways to grow the Michigan economy. Any person who is serious about growing Michigan out of their depression would have to be impressed by Romney’s grasp of economic issues. A Romney win would do wonders for the Michigan economy.

The other event yesterday that is troubling is the fact that Romney pulled ads in South Carolina and Florida. I can see pulling the ads in South Carolina. That would have been a long shot win. Huckabee and Thompson are more likely going to win those states. Florida is baffling. That is a state where he is polling at or near the lead. He has Jeb Bush behind him and things look good. Pulling the ads might just be temporary, until Michigan is over. At least, I hope that is the case.

Predictions: Michigan – Romney; South Carolina – Thompson. Florida follows shortly after South Carolina and I believe that it will be close between Romney and Giuliani. I believe that if Romney wins Michigan, he will win Florida. If Romney loses Michigan, he will lose Florida. I have not done so well on predictions, but I hope I improve. I think that if my predictions hold true, Huckabee and McCain will return to their second class status where they belong.

The campaign lost one participant yesterday, Bill Richardson from New Mexico. He made almost no impact on the campaign, so his leaving will not make any impact at all.

Mike Huckabee is going on all the late night shows. There is nothing wrong with going on the shows. He is just leaving the campaign in the middle and going to show up on the show. There is something unseemly about the appearances. He also showed up on the Colbert show. That is a comedy show and he made a long series of one liners with the show host. In listening to the one liners this morning, I was put off by how juvenile they sounded. He is supposed to be a candidate for President of the United States. He sounded like someone auditioning for a job as a comedian at a show in town. The one that got me going was where he said that if he was not running for President, he would be flipping hamburgers. That was tacky at best. He should be dealing with serious stuff, not trying to out do a comedian on how funny they can be.

Speaking of Mike Huckabee, he is going to make one Michigan campaign appearance on Friday to speak about economics. Mike Huckabee comes from the more government is good philosophy. He will almost positively suggest some government program to get Michigan’s economy going again. Michigan is in a one state depression. Why are they in a one state depression? The state government is entirely controlled by Democrats. They are trying to tax their way out of a recession by raising taxes. Michigan has the highest taxes of any state in the US. Companies that can are leaving in droves. The way to get their economy moving again is to reduce the tax burden.

Mike Huckabee is putting all his eggs in the South Carolina basket. He has to win South Carolina to be viable. He also has to win big to vault back to the top of the hill in the Republican contest. Mitt Romney needs a victory badly. He has an excellent shot in Michigan. The problem with requiring a Romney victory in Michigan is the fact that Democrats do not have a contest. They also can vote in the Republican contest, if they so choose. That could muddle up the Republican field somewhat.

On the Democrat side, Mrs. Clinton is almost assured of winning in Michigan. She is the only name on the ballot. If Obama makes it close with a write-in campaign, she would be in trouble. Edwards is basically finished. He only has a shot to win in North Carolina and South Carolina. One is where he lives and the other where he was born. Outside of those two states, Edwards has no shot at winning at all. He probably will not even win in those two states given the state of his campaign.

Officially the Democrat contest is between three candidates. In reality, it is between two people. That will benefit Barack Obama. At least half of the Democrats do not like Mrs. Clinton. If Barack can increase the number to at least 51%, he will be the nominee. That number will not be difficult to obtain, as it already is over 40% and probably approaches 45%.

The Republican contest is between John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. I know there are others still in the race, but only those four have any chance at winning. Huckabee and McCain really cannot win. Huckabee appeals only to Evangelicals. That means he can only win in states that are heavily Evangelical. McCain can only win in states that allow Independents to vote in the primaries. As a result, McCain or Huckabee will win only one or two more states each. Romney and Giuliani will win the rest of the states. My hope is that Romney wins the majority of the rest of the states. I believe that he can. Conservatives will want to stop a Giuliani candidacy. They will have to unite behind one candidate. The only candidate that offers them everything they want is Romney. That is why I believe Romney will ultimately win the Republican nomination.

The New Hampshire primary is over and the winners are known. Mrs. Bill Clinton won a close vote on the Democrat side. John McCain won big on the Republican side.

That Mrs. Bill Clinton won the primary was a big surprise. As late as last evening, people were predicting that she would lose by over 10%. Her own campaign was hoping for a loss of less than 8%. Why they chose 8% is beyond me, but they chose the number, not me.

John McCain was predicted to be in a dead heat with Mitt Romney and pulled off a big win. That is a stunner as Romney was predicted to have picked up 4% in the last couple of days and be in a dead heat.

One writer last night thought that what happened was this: Independent voters that went to the polls thought that Obama was going to win big. That would mean that they did not need to vote for Obama. They could vote for McCain and give him a big win, too. Enough of them made that decision that both races turned out different than everyone expected.

For the Democrats, it puts Mrs. Bill Clinton back in the driver’s seat for the nomination. She will be almost impossible to knock from that perch. Obama would have to win the next state to have any chance at defeating Mrs. Clinton for the nomination. Since that state is Michigan, and he is not on the ballot, that is nearly impossible. He would have to have a write-in campaign that defeats Mrs. Clinton. That will happen when we get snow in July in Phoenix, AZ. In other words, it ain’t going to happen.

For the Republicans, is John McCain the new front runner? No, he may have won New Hampshire and may even win Michigan (possible, but doubtful).  For the long haul, he has little or no chance on winning the nomination. He is disliked by the Republican base. He has stabbed us in the back so many times on so many different issues that the feelings of dislike go very deep. With Romney taking second in both major contests and winning in Wyoming, he would have to be considered the front runner right now. He has an excellent shot at winning in Michigan.

The Michigan primary will be all messed up this year. The Democrat primary has only one person on the ballot. That means a lot of Democrats will take Republican ballots and vote for the weakest Republican on the list. That will scramble the results in Michigan quite a lot. It will make it difficult for anyone to accurately predict what will happen. It might even mean a win by Ron Paul. Ron Paul would have to be considered the weakest of all the Republican candidates. If I was a Democrat, I would vote for the weakest Republican candidate.  If Obama gets a write-in campaign going, that would keep Democrats voting Democrat and make the Republican primary more representative.

What about the other candidates? John Edwards is probably finished. He finished a distant third in New Hampshire. He may stick around until South Carolina, but I think his campaign is finished. Fred Thompson is basically finished on the Republican side. He also will stick around until South Carolina.  Rudy Giuliani finished way back in New Hampshire. He actually campaigned there and is from a nearby state. That will hurt his chances. He is also failing in Florida. He is in for the long haul. But he is severely wounded. He was helped by the Mrs. Clinton victory in New Hampshire. Ron Paul is also finished as a real candidate. He has some money so will stay in. Duncan Hunter also did poorly. He will probably drop out of the race in the next day or two.

My original predictions were that Mitt Romney and Mrs. Clinton would be the nominees. I still think that will be the case.

Dennis Prager had an interesting column last night. He discussed Barak Obama’s primary point of “Unity”. What does Barak Obama mean by Unity? Does he want all of us to follow him? Or is he going to embrace American values? Those are legitimate questions to ask about his meaning.

As Mr. Prager says, there are some fundamental differences in some positions. If I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and you believe that any two people can be married, that is a fundamental difference. There is no unity position to take. It is an either/or position. There is no point where compromise is possible.

There are other fundamental positions that people take. You have to allow people to take fundamentally different positions. We can have a unity of purpose, like defeating communism. But, we can never be completely unified without some people giving up their core values.

Taking a unity position sounds great. You sound like you are a uniter, not a divider. In reality, you are someone who is naive. Your position is unrealistic. Everyone will either have to change their positions to follow you, or you will have to change to follow them. It is highly unlikely that the person touting the unity line will mean that they will change; the obvious intent is for the other people to follow them. They will not change their values one bit. Everyone else must change their values to match the person that is suggesting the unity position. That is an unrealistic position to take.

A more realistic position to take would be to get people to agree on a mission for the country. Everyone could agree that we need to defeat communism. Their values would remain the same; just having a goal of defeating communism would tend to reduce the impact of the differences in their values. Trying to achieve unity would be impossible in the United States. In a totalitarian form of government, it would be easy to achieve. You just tell everyone what their values are and enforce it with the gun. That would never work in the US.

In Obama’s case, when you look at what he is proposing to back his “Unity” idea, you get pure socialism. We do not need socialism in the US. The US is a country built on individualism. Individualism and socialism do not mix. If you introduce socialism to the overall society, you will destroy the American spirit. We have introduced so much socialism in this country now; that the American sprit is in danger of death anyway. There is a point at which socialism will destroy the will of the people to resist destruction by enemies. We have socialism in many aspects of our lives thanks to Democrats, but we still have the will to survive. I fear the election of a Democrat because of the dramatic increase in the advance of socialism. Then we will be in danger of being destroyed by our enemies. We will have lost our will to survive and all that goes with it.

The New Hampshire Primary is tomorrow. Last week, the leaders for the prize were Mrs. Bill Clinton and John McCain. Over the weekend, the numbers were trending away from those two to Barak Obama and Mitt Romney.

Last week, Barak Obama was down 10% to Mrs. Bill Clinton in New Hampshire. Then, he won the Iowa Caucus. Now, after only 5 days, he is leading Mrs. Bill Clinton by about 10%. Some of that change is Democrats looking at the two and deciding that he is the more electable candidate. Some of that change is Independents looking at the prospects of voting for John McCain an older candidate or Barak Obama a new fresh candidate and deciding on the newer, fresher candidate.

The positive change for Barak Obama has had a negative change for John McCain. He was counting on the Independent voters to vote for him in the primary. That would counter weight the Republican voters voting for Mitt Romney. If John McCain does not win in New Hampshire, he is basically finished as a candidate. He may hang on for a primary or two, but he would be finished. He is already having trouble raising money. Losing in his best state would be a disaster for his fund raising.

Mitt Romney did win the Wyoming Caucus on Saturday. That win did not get much press. Wyoming is not a very big state and therefore does not command the press respect that Iowa and New Hampshire do. But, Wyoming is a victory in the 50 states that are holding Presidential delegate selection contests.

If Mitt Romney pulls out New Hampshire after being so out of it after Iowa, he will get a big bounce. It may be enough to pull him even in South Carolina, but probably not. A week ago, Mitt Romney was losing to John McCain by 11% in the polls. Some polls over the weekend show him winning by 1-3%, others show him 1-3% behind McCain. The polls were taken prior to the debates on Saturday and Sunday. In both debates, Mitt Romney did extremely well. John McCain looked like an angry old man on Saturday and may have really hurt his chances. McCain did much better on Sunday he dropped the angry old man routine.

Mike Huckabee sounded like a McCain supporter on Saturday in the debate. That cannot help him in New Hampshire. Huckabee will probably end up with about 5-6% of the vote. He will be a non-factor in the race. That will not damage him to his supporters as they do not see the candidate, they see the Preacher.  He will do well in South Carolina regardless of what happens in New Hampshire. If Mitt Romney wins New Hampshire, the vote in South Carolina will be close. If Mitt Romney loses New Hampshire, South Carolina is Huckabee’s in a walk-away.

My predictions for New Hampshire are as follows: Barak Obama wins by about 10-12%, a clear convincing win; Mitt Romney pulls out a squeaker 35-30% over McCain.

The Iowa Caucus is over. Barak Obama won on the Democrat side. Mike Huckabee won on the Republican side. That makes my predictions one out of two.

Last I heard on the Democrat side, Barak Obama won the Caucus and there was a fight for second between Edwards and Clinton. Edwards held a slight lead over Clinton for second place 30% to 29%. Obama took 38% of the Caucus vote. That is a major blow to the Clinton machine. She came in as the inevitable nominee and favorite to win all campaign contests. The results just blew a big hole in the middle of her inevitability.

The big question is whether Obama will be able to use this win to also win in New Hampshire. By winning in Iowa, he hurts McCain’s chances in New Hampshire. They both appeal to the Independent voters and now the Independent voters have to choose whether to vote for Obama and making history or McCain and repeating the past. My guess is that Obama and making history will win most of their support. It is not often that you get a chance to make history. The past is always nice because it is familiar, but making history is exciting.

On the Republican side, Huckabee got 34% and Romney got 25%. Thompson came in third with 13% and McCain also came in with just under 13% of the vote. The big surprise was that Ron Paul got 10% of the vote. Rudy Giuliani did not factor into this race at all. That will come to haunt Rudy as the campaign goes along. He did campaign in Iowa in the closing days of the campaign.

Mike Huckabee has not campaigned anywhere except for Iowa. That puts him behind the 8 ball in all the other states. He will not win another state. He may be competitive in South Carolina or another southern state, but will not win again. John McCain will be competitive in New Hampshire. Obama’s win in Iowa will take some of the wind out of his sails. That will allow Mitt Romney to catch and pass McCain for the New Hampshire victory. Thompson will also pull votes away from McCain. He will be in the race at least through New Hampshire and appeals to similar voters. Giuliani also appeals to the same Independent voters that will vote for McCain. That effectively splits those votes and should allow Mitt Romney to pull out a victory.

If Mitt Romney does not win either Iowa or New Hampshire, he will not pull out of the race. He will have taken second to two different people. In each case the person he lost to will not be able to replicate the victory. The problem it gives him is that it enables Rudy Giuliani to claim the mantle of winner. If Romney had won Iowa and New Hampshire, it would have severely damaged Rudy Giuliani. Now it will be a fight to the finish. We may not know the nominee even going into the convention. That would really be something. We have not seen a brokered convention since before I was born. I can remember conventions having multiple ballots to select a nominee. That may happen again this year. What that will mean is an increased interest in the Republican nominee. With no knockout punch people will watch the convention and want to know who the nominee will be.

Next week New Hampshire will vote. That will give us a clearer picture of who the nominees will be. Already two Democrats have dropped out of the race. They were not going to win anyway. I think some Republicans may drop out after New Hampshire. Some more Democrats may feel the need to call it quits as well.

Today is the day of the Iowa Caucus. All of the campaigning in Iowa will be finished by this evening. Then we all wait to see what the citizens of Iowa think of all of the candidates.

Today on the way in to work, I listened to Bill Bennett. He still thinks that Mike Huckabee might be the winner of the Iowa Caucus. When he made a scenario for McCain, he put Huckabee in the lead. That to me is incorrect. Huckabee has been falling for two weeks. He was leading by about 11 percent two weeks ago. His lead is supposed to be almost zero today. That is from polls taken before his bizarre press conference on Monday and his showing of the commercial he said he would not run. He is showing that he cannot control his own campaign in one state. How can he lead a country?

The more likely scenario is that Mitt Romney will win Iowa tonight. He has a vast support network set up. He has volunteers on the ground and a plan for them to execute. On Tuesday and Wednesday his volunteers made over 50,000 telephone calls to Iowa voters urging them to the Caucus sites to support Mitt Romney. That kind of support will show up in the Caucus results. Huckabee does not have any volunteers that have a plan for tonight. Huckabee is relying on people coming out of pure support for him. Romney is relying on people coming out to help execute a plan. When there is a plan, the people will try to execute it. That means Romney will win Iowa by probably at least 5%.

The real question is who comes in third. The third place in Iowa means they still have credibility in the future primaries. Thompson and McCain are the names bandied about for third. My hope is that Thompson takes third in Iowa. Thompson, Giuliani and McCain are generally pulling from the same crop of voters. If that crop is split between three candidates, it makes it easier for my candidate (Mitt Romney) to win it all.

Giuliani remains viable until Feb. 5, when there are a lot of primaries. That is because of his name recognition. He will be hurt if he comes in below Ron Paul in Iowa. That is a real possibility. Ron Paul has campaigned in Iowa and just might pull out a victory over Rudy Giuliani in Iowa. That would really hurt Giuliani’s credibility nationally. Giuliani is hoping for a third place showing in New Hampshire to propel him to victory in Florida and the other Feb. 5 states. He could easily come in lower than third in New Hampshire and be in real trouble come Feb. 5. That is especially true if Mitt Romney pulls out victories in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

On the Democrat side, it is not looking good for team Clinton. She polls in first place. Pundits and those that know Iowa politics put her prospects in the Caucus as little better than third. Obama is generally considered the front runner. If his people show up, he should have no trouble defeating Mrs. Clinton. That would severely damage her hopes for the nomination. She is one who everyone thinks will be the nominee. If she stumbles, it opens up the possibility that someone else could be the nominee. The more that idea that she can be defeated sinks in, the less likely it is that she will actually win the nomination.

The interesting state is Michigan. Early on, Michigan was declared off limits to campaigning because they moved their date up. Obama and Edwards withdrew from the Michigan primary to honor that decision by the Democrat party. The decision was reversed recently. That means that Mrs. Clinton is the only name on the ballot in Michigan. She will win by default, unless the other two can convince Michigan voters to write their names in. Michigan also has more delegates than Iowa and New Hampshire put together. That would give Mrs. Clinton more delegates than Obama, even though she lost two states and only won once.

We shall see tonight. I predict: Mitt Romney and Barak Obama will win. Mike Huckabee and John Edwards will take second. Fred Thompson and Mrs. Bill Clinton will take third.

Welcome to a New Year, it will be a time of great change for the US. We will be selecting our next President and a new Congress. The process starts tomorrow night in Iowa. The stop after Iowa is New Hampshire.

The Huckabee phenomena took him from a virtual unknown to front runner in Iowa. Then when the full light of day was shown on his positions, he started taking on water. When the negative positions started to come to light, he tried to cry foul. Without any money to craft his own image, he left it to his opponents to craft it for him, and he did not like it. Then, Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan and his lack of foreign policy experience rose up and bit him. He sounded like a Democrat instead of a Republican. When Romney started running ads showing what Huckabee had done as Governor and what Romney had done as Governor, he had no response. He made a negative ad and showed it to reporters and said he was not going to show it. He put on a great show of piety in doing so. He was hoping that they would report the negative things and say that Huckabee was not going to go negative. It backfired on him big time. The reporters laughed at him. That is a disaster for any candidate.

Tomorrow night in Iowa, Huckabee will still poll fairly well. He will probably not win Iowa. Romney will be the winner with Huckabee coming in second. The real race is to see who can come in third. If Rudy Giuliani comes in near the bottom, he is in real trouble. Thompson needs to come in third to remain viable. The polls say it will be Romney, Huckabee and McCain.

On the Democrat side the race is close between the big three of Obama, Edwards and Clinton. If Clinton ends up third, she is in real trouble. If she wins, the race is over.

New Hampshire is another test for the candidates. John McCain is putting all his apples into New Hampshire. He did very well in 2000. He actually defeated President Bush in the primary. He did it by winning the Independent vote. This time there is competition for the Independent vote from the Democrats. If Clinton wins the Iowa Caucus, the completion is over and McCain will be an easy winner. If Obama wins the Democrat Iowa Caucus, the competition is on and McCain probably takes second.  Romney will take first or second depending on what McCain does.  Again, the competition is for third place. There are no real sure markers on who is in third place in New Hampshire. The polls all have different people in third place.

I still stand by my prediction for the Republican nomination. I predicted way back at the beginning of 2007 that Mitt Romney would be the nominee for the Republican Party. I have not seen much that would make me change my mind. I also predicted that Mrs. Bill Clinton would be the Democrat nominee. That is still the probable outcome. There are signs that Democrats are coming to their senses and thinking about selecting Barak Obama. Tomorrow will be the key to that decision. If Obama wins, then Mrs. Clinton will have a hard time winning.  If she wins, then the nomination is all over.

In the past couple of weeks, I have watched supposedly good teams in professional football show that they are really bush league teams, not professional teams. The two teams are the San Diego Chargers and the New England Patriots. There is one bad team that has been bush league for the past 30+ years, the Oakland (Los Angeles) Raiders.

Last Monday, during the game with the Denver Broncos, near the end of the game, Phillip Rivers and a couple of other players started taunting Jay Cutler of the Broncos. The Chargers were winning the game and were most likely going to win. They had no reason to taunt another player. They kept it up for quite some time on the sidelines. I could not hear what they said, but baby was part of what they said. Some players are calling what the Chargers did poor sportsmanship. Poor sportsmanship is bush league.

Football players are paid to be professional and should act the part at all times. I can understand some pushing and shoving. Football is a contact sport. Players hit each other on every play. Some pushing and shoving for perceived late hits or bad hits is understandable. That is tempers flaring and can be understood. Taunting is completely out of bounds. There is no justification for that action that I can think of. If someone is down, it could be you. Just because they are down now, they will not always be down. Just because you are on top today does not mean you will be on top tomorrow. You should have respect for your fellow football players.

The second bush team is the New England Patriots. They have acted like a bush league team all year. The year started with the Patriots being caught filming the New York Jets coaches on the sidelines with sound. That way they would know what the signals are that the Jets use to send in plays. The Patriots contend that they never used the information to signal Tom Brady. That sounds ridiculous. If they know what the other team is going to do, they will tell the Quarterback. The Patriots tried to act like this was a one time act. I have a feeling that this is something they did on a regular basis for years.

The Patriots also act bush league during games. During the game with the New York Giants on Saturday, one defensive player tried to poke the Giants running back in the eyes after a play. Of course the referees did not see that take place, but the cameras did. If you watch replays of the main plays in the game, you see Patriot players regularly holding and tripping the other team. The refs do not call the Patriots on it because the Patriots are supposed to be good. The good teams do not get called for fouls that the bad teams get called for in the NFL.

The Raiders have been bush league for as long as I have been watching professional football. They have relished the moniker as a dirty team. They have regularly played dirty and mean since Al Davis became associated with the team. They are famous for stepping on players and kicking them when they are down. They have this bush league thing down to a science. They are almost always the most penalized team in football. Every now and then they goof and someone else wins the crown. But they average more penalties than any other team on a yearly basis for at least the last years.

What does this mean? I have respect for all NFL players and coaches that play the game straight. When they resort to bush league tactics I lose respect and actively root against them. Probably that is what they want to happen. In the case of the Raiders that is their image. They want other teams to hate them because they like the image of the tough guy. I think a tough guy is someone who plays tough within the rules. The Raiders are not tough, just cheaters.

The Patriots are approaching the category of the Raiders. They are becoming known as cheaters. They may have the best record in football this year, but I do not think they deserve the record they have. They cheated their way to victory too many times to suit me this year. I do not think any Patriots deserve any post-season awards this year. That does include Tom Brady. Brady has rewritten the record book this year, but he did it with cheaters at wide receiver and on the offensive line.

The Chargers are just acting like spoiled brats. They deserve to have someone humble them a bit with a blow out defeat. Then they should be asked if they still want to taunt the opposing team’s quarterback. That might knock some sense into their heads. They will be blown out some week. It does happen to every team in the NFL at some point. They should know that.

Some people and candidates, the more you hear about them, the more you like them. In the case of Mike Huckabee, the more you hear about him, the less you like him.

First, when he was granting clemency as a Governor of Arkansas, he listened more to his friends and fellow preachers than he did to the professionals. It was more important to be connected to a friend of Mike Huckabee than to be really reformed. That is a poor way to judge right and wrong. In some cases you will make correct choices. But, in many cases you will be wrong. I just read about the Field case. That is a case of a wealthy connected donor Field that was convicted after 4 DUI’s. He appealed to his friends, who were friends of Mike Huckabee, and got his release. Shortly after his release, he was picked up for DUI where his blood alcohol limit was twice the legal limit. That was one of the poor choices.

Second, Huckabee continually brings religion into the Republican debate. Religion has a place in the debate; it just does not hold the central place when talking about a Presidential candidate. It is working by confusing many voters. They are confusing being a good “Christian” with being a good Conservative. The two are not related. It is possible to be a good Conservative and not be a Christian at all. Many pundits are thinking that we are getting our Jimmy Carter in Mike Huckabee. Jimmy Carter was arguably the worst President we have had. Bill Clinton was the most corrupt. Jimmy Carter was incompetent. Mike Huckabee appears to be in the incompetent mode. He takes criticisms personally, not politically like it is meant.

Selecting a President is finding the person that most closely matches your world view and ideals. What religion a person is in this case is not important. When you boil most religions down to their essentials you get pretty much the same points. If the person running is a good person, you should be able to vote for that person. What religion they are should be a secondary consideration. If the two share all your ideals and the only thing that separates them is their religion, then that can be a criterion. But, overall it is more important to find someone who will safeguard the country and run it efficiently.

Mike Huckabee is not a Conservative. He does not believe in supply side economics. He does not believe in most of the conservative economic issues. Socially, he is a conservative as he is pro-life. He is also a liberal when it comes to foreign policy. On two of the three legs of being a conservative, Mike Huckabee qualifies as a liberal. He only qualifies as a conservative on one of the three. That is not a good percentage. Rudy Giuliani at least qualifies on two of the three. Mitt Romney qualifies on all three. Fred Thompson qualifies on two and there are real questions on the third. John McCain qualifies on two and there are questions about the third plus he cannot be counted on when the chips are down.

Where does this leave us? We have a problem on our hands. If Huckabee becomes the nominee, we no longer have a Republican Party. We have a Democrat Party lite with a social conservative plank.  That will not get anyone elected. That will mean a Democrat President and a Democrat Congress. We cannot afford that when there are Supreme Court Justices to be confirmed in the next four years. We need a conservative President to lead a conservative legislative branch. That can only happen if we select a nominee that is a conservative on all three legs of the Republican stool.

In my case, I cannot vote for Mike Huckabee as currently running. I want a conservative on all three legs of the conservative stool. Huckabee only qualifies on one leg. That stool cannot stand. Until he changes to fit all three legs, he is unacceptable to me. I will not vote for him until he modifies his views on economics and the world. But then, in the eyes of many he would be a flip flopper and only doing it for the nomination. That would then disqualify him in the eyes of many.

The campaigns are winding down for Christmas. Some of them are putting out campaign commercials that are Christmas messages.

Mike Huckabee came out with the first commercial. In the commercial, he wishes everyone a Merry Christmas and has a Cross prominently displayed over his right shoulder. When asked about the Cross, he said that it was not deliberately put there. Everything in a campaign ad is deliberate. There is nothing left to chance or accident in a campaign commercial. The campaign knew the Cross was going to be prominently displayed. When confronted, he should have stood up and said that he intended the Cross to be displayed. By trying to hide his involvement, he is made to look like someone not in charge of his own campaign. He is also open to charges that he is trying to inject Christianity into his campaign as a campaign issue. That is not a good position to be in when you have people of all faiths voting in an election.

John McCain came out with the second commercial. It talks about an event that occurred when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The event is that a guard comes into his cell and draws a cross in the sand. They both look at the cross and then the guard leaves. Pictures are shown of John McCain when he came home from Vietnam and today. A picture is also shown of someone drawing a cross with a stick in some sand. The intent is to say that the person is the guard doing that in Vietnam. But, obviously this is done today. John McCain then gets to put that he is a war hero and a Christian in the ad at the same time. The ad sounds like it is effective. It is not as blatantly Christian as Huckabee’s ad and that makes it all the more effective in its effect.

I have not heard of any other campaign commercials for the Christmas season. With these two ads out wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, I am sure that other campaigns will do the same thing. Some will play the Christian card like Huckabee and others will not. I expect Romney to have a commercial of him and his family around a roaring fire and a tree. Then they will wish everyone a Merry Christmas. That would be particularly effective. It highlights his family values and that he celebrates Christmas. It would help if there was a Manger Scene on the Mantle or something like that. I cannot see Romney using a Cross like Huckabee or McCain. Using family and the mentioned backdrop would make the commercial effective even if they only said Merry Christmas and nothing else.

Is it a good idea for campaigns to wish voters a Merry Christmas? Generally, campaigns do not do that. But, because religion has been injected so much into this campaign the need is there. Huckabee was the logical choice as the person most likely to make a campaign commercial for Christmas. When he did that, other campaigns felt they had to follow or they would be made to look anti-Christian. The only decision then is to make a commercial that highlights the candidate’s faith and does not copy Huckabee. In this campaign I think the commercial works. In other campaigns this tactic would not work. The trick also is to do this commercial without offending non-Christian voters. That is also a difficult task for a commercial of this type.

Things are righting themselves in the Republican primary race. The Huckaboom is ending. You can run a race with no money and take the elites by storm. But, it does take money to stay in the game. That is being shown in Iowa right now. Huckabee has almost no money. He has made magnificent use of what he has. But, he is limited on what he can buy for campaign ads. His surge of support has not resulted in any real increase in donations. This has meant that he is still underfunded when it comes to the campaign.

Mitt Romney is not underfunded. He has been able to raise campaign cash all along. Even when Huckabee was booming, Romney was steadily raising campaign cash. Campaign cash translates into commercials. Commercials will result in support for a candidate. We are starting to see the result of the latest Romney ad contrasting his record on crime with Huckabee’s record on crime. Before the commercial started, Huckabee had 39% support and Romney had 25% support. After the commercial had run a few days, Huckabee had 23-25% (depending on the poll) and Romney had 28%. Similar results are being seen in other states.

In reading the Hugh Hewitt article for this week at Townhall.com, he came to the conclusion that Mitt Romney has the inside track for the nomination. That is because he has campaign cash and a campaign organization. You need both to run an effective campaign nationally. Huckabee had a groundswell of support, but no campaign cash. Giuliani has a lot of campaign cash, but his organization on the ground is not there in many states. The other candidates lack either cash and/or organization in the states as well, usually both.

I have felt all along that Rudy Giuliani’s idea of waiting out the early contests and betting it all on Florida and the later contests was very risky. If one candidate took all the early states, he would be doomed. For a while it looked like Romney would win all three and Rudy looked like he would be in trouble. Then when Huckabee surged, Rudy looked smart again. But, with Huckabee falling Rudy looks in trouble again.

There are a couple of weeks until the Iowa Caucus. During that time we have Christmas and New Years. Getting out a message during that time period will be difficult. From now until Dec. 25, people will become more concerned with Christmas. On December 26, people usually are returning gifts that do not fit or finding bargains. You then have a couple of days where people will listen before New Years strikes and people do not listen for a few days. The Iowa Caucus is on January 3. There will not be much movement during the next couple of weeks among the candidates.

Recent poll results are showing that people are taking a second look at Mike Huckabee and he is not wearing well. His 15 point lead in Iowa is now 3 points among all voters. Among likely caucus goers, he is in second three points behind Romney.

In my opinion, the reason he is failing to keep his lead is that he is trying to run as a Democrat. He sounds more like John Edwards than a Republican. His foreign policy report that came out last week was filled with the aw-shucks type of stuff that jumped him into the lead. It also had a liberal sprinkling of Democrat populism. Put those two together and it makes him sound like a foreign policy idiot.

You also add in the gaffs he has made in regard to religion. He is well versed in Evangelical Christian terminology and says things that make them happy. He has no clue how to say things that other religions will accept. As a result, he is turning off people that are not Evangelical Christians. Also, people are bringing up talks he has given between 1998 and 2007. In these talks, he is constantly talking about how he wants to take America for Evangelicals. That is not the kind of talk that non-Evangelicals want from a President of the United States.

Not everyone is ready to be a front runner. Mike Huckabee seems to fall into that category. When he got to the front, he had not done his homework. When the NIE report came out, he knew nothing about it for at least 24 hours. His staff should have prepped him on the NIE report within the first few hours after it was released. Either the staff did not think it was important or he put them off. Either way, he comes out looking bad.

Another issue that is hurting Mike Huckabee is the release of the prisoner that then went and raped and murdered a woman in Missouri. With 10 years as Governor of Arkansas, he had lots of decisions to make. It would be easy to say that the decision was one that was a mistake. The problem is that he lobbied the parole board to release the prisoner on parole. His rationale to the parole board was that the person had found “Christ”. When you look at his record, you find a number of prisoners that were released after they found “Christ”. It looks like the prisoners discovered that if you say you found Christ, they would be released. Huckabee’s explanation of what happened in the decision sounds like he is trying to hide something. Now it would not matter what he says, he would look bad.

One of the rules in politics is to get the bad news out there early and on your terms. That way you can constantly refer to the bad news as old news. Mike Huckabee is letting the bad news drip out slowly. Also, when the bad news comes out, he is less than honest with the public about his involvement. This makes him look sleazy. The one thing an Arkansas politician cannot look like is sleazy after the Clinton’s.

Other candidates are responding differently to Huckabee’s new status as front-runner. McCain is surging a little in New Hampshire. McCain has surged into second place, a long way behind Romney. Rudy has faded everywhere. This may be a response to the fact that Mrs. Clinton is failing everywhere too. Rudy runs best against Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton runs best against Rudy. When one slips in the polls, the other follows. Thompson is barely showing a pulse at this time in either Iowa or New Hampshire. Romney is holding his own in Iowa and New Hampshire. For him, the expectations are to take second in Iowa and first in New Hampshire. That could still happen. With Huckabee slipping everywhere, a Romney victory in Iowa would be huge though not unexpected.