Right Wing Nut House

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Fresh off of disappointing finishes in Iowa, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson are hoping to rebound on Saturday when Wyoming Republicans gather in county conventions across the state to choose delegates to attend the national convention in September.

Both candidates shelled out $10,000 each for a precious list of party members who are eligible to participate in the 23 county conventions and it would appear from press reports that they have been the most active in contacting potential delegates.

Convention attendees are mainly precinct committee members but about a quarter of the total were chosen at precinct caucuses last month. The contest to be a delegate to the Minneapolis-St. Paul convention is wide open. A potential delegate can either have a friend nominate them or they can nominate themselves at which point, they get a chance to get up and make a statement in favor of their candidacy. It is expected that the delegate candidates will announce their presidential preference in order to draw as much support as possible. Questions can be directed at the candidates after which voting will commence. The vote will continue until one delegate receives 50% + 1 of the convention.

It sounds simple and it is. The problem is that no one is paying any attention.

Last February, the state GOP had the idea that they could grab some attention for Wyoming by jumping ahead of almost every other state and holding their county conventions “on the same day as the New Hampshire primary” then scheduled for January 22. As the year went on, however, state after state began trying to leapfrog New Hampshire and Iowa which led to the debacle of Iowa and New Hampshire constantly having to readjust their own nominating contests to keep ahead of the pack.

After the dust settled, Wyoming decided in August to squeeze its county conventions in between the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primary by holding the event on January 5.

Now I have nothing against Wyomites. But asking “What were they thinking?” is not out line. The consequences to the state party have been heavy with very little in the way of a payoff in either media exposure (zero) or visits by the potential next President of the United States. John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani never bothered to show up at all. Mitt Romny is the only candidate with an office in the state.

Fred Thompson, on the other hand, has worked the state hard. He visited Wyoming back in September and has a network of supporters throughout the state who have been touting his candidacy. Thompson may also have a secret weapon. Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz is a supporter although it is unknown just how much influence she may wield. Other high profile endorsements include former Gov. Jim Geringer who is has backing Mike Huckabee and State Auditor Rita Meyer who has said she supports Romney.

But the price the Wyoming GOP paid for their shot at fame was steep. The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle blasted the decision to hold the conventions now:

But making matters worse is that Wyoming’s decision to move its caucuses to early January will end up hurting the state.

That’s because the Republican National Committee has a rule that the earliest states can pick delegates to the convention is Feb. 5. That’s why so many states are having their delegates picked on Super Tuesday.

Because Wyoming Republicans so badly wanted to stand out, they will lose half their delegates to the national convention along with New Hampshire, Florida, Michigan and South Carolina.

Yet even now Wyoming Republicans are hoping to gain some clout out of their decision to hold caucuses on Saturday. Indeed, they want the event to end by 3 p.m. so the state can get a mention in the Sunday New York Times. Since when does this state care what the New York Times has to say? This is just further proof of how badly this state wants to be noticed.

Starting with only 28 total delegates to begin with, the loss of 14 delegates (the party has decided that all delegates chosen at the conventions will get to attend the national convention) would seem to be a huge price to pay simply to get a few candidates to come into the state for a drop by. But then, judging by comments made to the media , party leaders seem reasonably pleased at how things turned out.

It will be one of the more interesting facets of the upcoming party conventions to see if the RNC and DNC go ahead and deny Michigan and Florida - two of the ten most populous states in the union - half their delegates or, in the case of the Democrats, all of them. Dare they risk alienating so many voters by denying their states full representation in choosing a party leader? Of course, if they forgive the two biggest states their sins it would stand to reason they would allow the other three states full representation as well.

No polls have been done but press reports indicate that the contest could be between Thompson and Romney based on the declared support for both candidates. If Romney wins, it may assuage some of the sting from his Iowa loss while demonstrating some strength in one of the most Republican states in the nation.

But the candidate who would gain the most with a victory in Wyoming is Fred Thompson. The last two weeks in Iowa saw a slow but steady increase in support for the former Tennessee Senator which allowed him to finish in a virtual tie with John McCain for third place. A win in Wyoming would energize the “Fredheads” for a run at the South Carolina primary on January 19th which Thompson led at one point in the polls but has fallen back considerably with the rise of the other southerner in the race, Mike Huckabee.

But Thompson is confident he can come back in South Carolina and a win in Wyoming would prove - at least to his supporters - that he is still indeed a viable candidate with a shot at getting back into the race with both feet if he can secure a victory in the Palmetto State.

The stakes then are not very large. But for some of the candidates, The Cowboy State might give them just the boost they need to become competitive.

UPDATE

Geraghty has it in the bag for Romney.

THE PARTY OF LINCOLN?

There is much angst and hand wringing in the rightosphere today. While our opponents gleefully gloat about the surprisingly easy win by Baptist-Preacher-Turned-Presidential- Prophet Mike Huckabee in the Iowa Caucuses last night, many of us are left with a feelings of utter astonishment and ultimately despair over this revolting development.

Stephen Green pulls no punches or minces any words as his “Letter to Iowa Republicans” drips venom and spits acid into the faces of the social cons who gave Huckabee his victory:

I’ll put this in language even your tiny little Iowa brains can understand: What the f*** is wrong with you people?

The news coming out of Des Moines (literally, French for “tell me about the rabbits, George”) tonight is distressing in the extreme. 32 years ago, your Democratic brethren took one look at Jimmy Carter — the worst 20th Century President bar Nixon, and the worst ex-President ever — and declared, “That’s our man!”

Three decades later, and along comes Mike Huckabee. Same moral pretentiousness, same gullibility on foreign affairs, only-slightly-less toothy idiot’s grin. Then you so-called Republicans took a look at Carter’s clone and said, “That’s our man, too!”

Having lived in Iowa for 7 years, I would say that there is nothing much wrong with the people as much as the process of choosing a Caucus winner. It virtually guarantees an extraordinarily small group of people can have an enormous impact on the choice of a candidate for president.

Iowa has about 600,000 registered Republicans. Mike Huckabee got 39,000 votes. That’s about 8% of Iowa Republicans choosing a man who will now seriously compete for the GOP nomination.

Are we really prepared for this? A man whose foreign policy experience lies in promoting Perdue chicken sales to South America? Or was governor of a state whose major University has a battle cry of “Soooeeeeeeeey…HOG?”

I am bereft today. What was once unthinkable has now become slightly more realistic. The odds of Huckaboob getting the nomination are still pretty long. After all, there are plenty of states where they have churches that are for, you know, worshipping God and not plotting the downfall of the Republican party by nominating a fellow who believes the earth was created 6,000 years ago and that it took only 7 days for the universe to expand, cool, coalesce, and create an infinite number of galaxies filled with uncounted numbers of stars. And let’s not start with the notion that God simply plopped millions of creatures on planet earth because the elderly gent was lonely. In those states where rational, thinking Christians outnumber the kinds of loons who voted for Huckabee in Iowa, the Huckadisaster will have trouble.

And well he should. This is a man who thinks that man walked the earth with dinosaurs. This is a man who thinks the Cambrian Explosion was a Fourth of July celebration at a college in England. This is a man who will consult Christ before the American people or Congress.

Myself, I prefer the reverse order of the above, thank you. I don’t think Jesus knows much about improving health care or building the next generation Air Force fighter.

Does any of this matter to the superstitious nincompoops in other states who are salivating to vote for this guy? Does it matter that thugs like Hugo Chavez are sharpening their knives at the thought of a Huckabee presidency (admittedly a virtual impossibility but we’re talking about the thought processes of people who would be envious of birds if they knew the average size of the avian brain)? And can you imagine what a cutthroat like Vladmir Putin would be thinking if the Huckafu*k ever made it past the gate to the White House? He might consider simply backing up a truck into Foggy Bottom and making off with the State Department fine china.

The prospect of what would be going through the mind of Osama Bin Laden at the thought of a Huckabee presidency cannot be put down on paper lest the sheer, abject horror of it were to give the reader a heart attack.

And yet here we are the day after the Iowa Caucuses gazing up into the dopey looking visage of a rube who, with his fake sincerity and oily words have hypnotized the faithful into thinking that he’s the man to lead the way to the New Jerusalem.

Huckabee is a party killer. He is a rogue asteroid on a collision course with Planet GOP and looking around, the only saviors in sight are John McCain and Rudy Giuliani (please my fellow Fredheads, don’t stop me I’m on a roll). And if those guys are the only thing standing between Huckabee and an historic meltdown, I weep for the party of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan.

UPDATE

Allah believes that posts like Green’s play into the hands of Huckabee:

It’s being interpreted by some, I think, as a veiled swipe at the intelligence of evangelical voters, who made up 80+% of Huck’s support, or even rural voters. VP doesn’t say a word about either, although I admit to cringing at it just because it plays right into the type of identity politics Huckabee’s worked so hard to cultivate and which our own resident evangelical incisively exposed last night. Like I said when Coulter attacked him for being “easily led,” he’s trying to fuse religious, class, and regional grievances into some sort of “simple folk vs. the elites” movement. Every time an “elite” hits his supporters for being stupid, it’s more grist for the mill to allege that what those elites really find stupid is Christianity or farmers, as opposed to pretty much everything he’s said about Pakistan in the last two weeks.

The irony is, while it’s true that most of Huck’s supporters last night were evangelical, it’s not true that most evangelicals were Huck supporters. From what I hear, a little more than half broke for other candidates. We have plenty of evangelicals commenting here, first and foremost among them my esteemed co-blogger, and the Hucka Hucka burnin’ love is nowhere to be found. It bears reminding people of that, since the more his supporters are falsely equated with Christians in the public mind, the easier it is for him to disingenuously spin attacks on him as attacks on Christianity or Christmas or whatever. Which isn’t to suggest I’m accusing VP of attacking religious voters, merely that making it an issue of intelligence is the wrong “frame,” as the nutroots like to say.

In a slightly different vein, frequent commenter B. Poster offers this:

Insulting the so called social const is probably not the best approach to forging an acceptable compromise with them. The philospy represented by Stephen Green and others like him are the dominant forces in the Republican party.

The question is does the Republican party want to survive or not? If it does, the Stephen Greens of the world will need to get busy on trying to work out a compromise with the so called social cons. The current one sided arrangement we have where the social cons get very little except being ignored and insulted is not very helpful. If the Conservative movement is going to survive, the powers that be in the Republican party will need to work on forging a compromise with social conservatives that is based upon mutual respect. Perhaps the Republican party needs to take a drubbing before the Stephen Greens of the world and those like him will be humble enough to work constructively with social conservatives. If this is the case, so be it. Perhaps, after the drubbing, the Republican leadership will be humble enough to work construcively with Social Conservatives.

I plead incredibly guilty.

I would say to both of those thoughtful gentlemen that the war has already started, that simply papering over differences with the various factions is what has brought us to George Bush, a Congress drunk with power and besotted with overspending not to mention a party whose best hope now lies with a moderately left leaning former Mayor of New York City and Senator so in love with his being labeled as a “maverick” by the media that he will stick it to conservatives any time he thinks he can get away with it.

What Allah and to a certain extent B Poster are trying to prevent has already happened. Putting a bandaid over the open wounds for the sake of electoral victory only delays the inevitable reckoning. Cobbling together a broken coalition using chewing gum and kite string won’t address the fundamental concerns that some of us have; that the GOP is getting out of touch with the modern world because it continues to live on past glories rather than do the intelligent thing and reform itself to better reflect the realities of 21 century America.

Call me an apostate. Call me a fool. Call me a liberal if you want. It won’t change what I see as a total, unmitigated disaster represented by the candidacy of this guy.

UPDATE: 1/5

Updated with an apology.

If you’ve been following politics as long as I have or have been involved in a few campaigns, you usually have a sense of where the race stands on the day of the voting. Perhaps not exact numbers or even the winners or losers so much as who’s on the way up, who’s tanking, and who’s on life support.

On the Democratic side, while there seems to be a surge for Obama, that may be an illusion. According to the polls, a majority of Obama’s support comes from independents. In order for the candidate to translate the enthusiasm for his campaign into a victory, those independents will have to show up to the caucuses in much greater numbers than they have historically.

That’s why I think John Edwards will be the winner tonight. He also is enjoying a surge in support plus he has a genuine ground game in the state thanks to his union endorsements. It will be close but I think Edwards pulls out a narrow victory over Obama with Hillary not far behind in third. If independents do not show up for Obama, Hillary has a shot at second. But the Illinois senator has energized voters with his message of change and hope so look for enough unaffiliated Iowans to boost the candidate into a strong second place finish.

For the Republicans, I honestly don’t know. Enthusiasm for John McCain has become evident over the last 48 hours so anything is possible. I believe Huckabee is dropping while Romney is holding on. Fred also is enjoying a mini-surge according to Zogby. But when people around the campaign start setting a date for dropping out, the writing is on the wall.

Thompson himself denies the rumors:

GOP presidential hopeful Fred Thompson said in an in-studio interview with KCCI-TV in Des Moines that there is no truth to rumors that his campaign will fold before New Hampshire if he doesn’t have a strong showing in Iowa.

“That is absolutely made up out of whole cloth,” said the former U.S. Senator from Tennessee.

Thompson said a rival campaign was likely the source of that rumor.

“Can you imagine such a thing in politics?” he asked.

Thompson said his campaign is seeing a “surge” in interest right now, and said he has visited 50 communities in the Hawkeye State in the last couple weeks.

“I’m not going to play into any scenario that’s not totally optimistic,” he said.

Politico may be a little teed off at Thompson because bloggers exposed Roger Simon as a liar when the reporter mischaracterized a Thompson campaign event last month. But Jonathon Martin’s reporting appears to me to be sound, based on observations from both staff and politicians who are close to the campaign. And it’s not a secret that the campaign is out of money and that a poor showing - less than 15% - would place Thompson in an untenable situation where Fred would be forced to compete in New Hampshire with no money, little in the way of paid staff, and not much hope.

At any rate, I am not confident at all about the order of finish on the Republican side. But when in doubt, go with the man with the cash - in this case, Romney. The former Massachusetts governor has a huge organization in Iowa and a sophisticated get out the vote operation. Huckabee will depend on his network of churches and the Fair Tax crowd to get his people to the caucuses. In a war of amateurs versus pros, give the nod to people who get paid to deliver. Let’s go with Romney as the winner tonight.

Will Huckabee finish second? There has been an enormous amount of media generated buzz for McCain over the last 48 hours. But that’s all it is - buzz. It’s hard to see at this late date how you turn that enthusiasm into an organization that will get McCain’s people to the caucus sites. However, if Huckabee truly is melting down - not an impossibility - then there will probably be a shocker awaiting us when the results are announced. A second place finish for either McCain or Thompson would not be as far fetched as it might have seemed just 48 hours ago.

Then again, the trend for Huckabee in the polls has not been all that disastrous. So let’s give Huckabee second place with McCain not far behind in third and Thompson not far behind McCain in fourth. It’s possible that any of those three could finish second. If it’s anyone but Huckabee, we are going to have a barn burner of a race on the Republican side.

Or, everyone - the polls, the pros, the pundits - have all been wrong and its Ron Paul in a landslide. (I threw that in just in case the apocalypse is upon us.)

Allah has some thoughts on what might have been for the Thompson campaign that ring true. And his speculation about Thompson’s Veep prospects also appear to be about right. Glenn Reynolds has been saying for months that Thompson’s goal was the second spot all along.

However, if Fred doesn’t like campaigning, it’s hard to see him wishing for the Veep slot. While the nominee gets to go to all the glamorous venues, the Vice Presidential candidate gets stuck speaking before the Kiwanis and Elks. And is there any more thankless job than Vice President of the United States?

I think if Fred drops out, he goes back to Tennessee to bounce his kid on his knee and make a TV or movie appearance here and there. A sad ending to what began as a promising moment for conservatism.

UPDATE

Byron York talked to Thompson aide Rich Galen who vehemently denied the basis of the Politico story:

Galen told me, “I’m a Republican official in the Thompson campaign, and I’m denying it.” Galen also said that no one inside the campaign was a source for the story. “I can’t put enough adjectives in front of the ‘deny’ to accurately describe how vehemently I’m denying the story,” he said.

Galen said that “just to make sure,” he checked with Thompson himself, who told him the story was not true. “We have the schedule for Saturday and Sunday in New Hampshire, and then we’re going down to South Carolina,” Galen told me.

I have no doubt what Galen says is true. But reality might reach up and bite the campaign tonight. The Zogby tracking poll has Fred at 11% - still third place but a dismal number just the same.

Thompson may be hoping McCain and Romney savage each other which would give him a shot - if he does well in the debates this weekend - to gather some momentum for South Carolina.

But if money is the mother’s milk of American politics, Fred, at this point, is an orphan.

Joe Gandelman received a cryptic email from “a spokesman for Revelation Press” that indicates a major scandal is brewing involving a “Leading US Presidential Candidate.”

One of this year’s leading candidates will be “Swift-Boated” in a new book to be announced next Monday, January 7th at 1:30 p.m. in the Murrow Room at the National Press Club in Washington.

One candidate is about to be challenged – with hard and cold facts, presented cogently by an author, former TV business news editor, decorated military hero and college political science instructor who shares this candidate’s party affiliation – and who has known the candidate personally since their college days.

Next Monday, the truth will be revealed when a book that literally gives “chapter and verse” about this candidate’s less-than-candid candor with the American people.

This book is supported by 10 pages of meticulously-researched end-notes supporting every factual assertion about the candidate’s failure to shoot straight with the American people, and this breach-of-faith’s implications for the Presidency.

If you’re serious about covering the 2008 Presidential campaign, you won’t want to miss this news announcement – and you will want to meet the author.

The candidate isn’t mentioned but the military angle would seem to suggest an attack on John McCain.

The same fellow who mounted the Viet Nam Veterans Against John Kerry now has a group called Viet Nam Veterans Against John McCain. Gerard “Jerry” Kiley is claiming that McCain betrayed the United States as a POW and hints that he is being blackmailed even today by the Vietnamese.

I will not sully this site with details of the charges. I will only say that any legitimate news outlet that attends that press conference or runs with any story connected with these folks should be sued by the McCain campaign.

Kiley also has a campaign committee to raise funds and presumably run commercials against McCain.

What has Kiley’s panties in a twist? Apparently, Senator McCain - despite his treatment at the hands of the enemy - was willing to make peace with his former captors, establish normalized relations with Viet Nam, and most of all, wanted to put the Viet Nam War behind us.

I think honest people can disagree about whether it is a good thing to normalize relations with Viet Nam. They are still a communist country with all the oppression and lack of freedom that implies. But not wanting to put the war behind us? I think it is long past time for that to occur. And McCain demonstrated true statesmanship by leading the way in Congress to achieve normalization.

Of course, at bottom, is the POW issue. So many are still listed as missing. To this day, sightings of white men in jungle prisons haunts the dreams of those whose loved ones never returned and are unaccounted for.

But nothing has ever come of those sightings. And while it is not my place nor my desire to close off hope for those with so little of it, I think McCain did well in leading the way to a new relationship with one of the emerging powerhouse economies in Asia. He put aside his personal feelings for the good of the country - a demonstration of leadership.

And the curious thing is that these charges against McCain have been around for years, dating back to the Senator’s 2000 bid for the presidency. I don’t recall hearing anything about them back then but of course, that was the era before blogs and a ubiquitous internet. Now all you have to do is throw a pile of crap out into the ether and someone will latch onto it and run with it. So it will probably be with this rehash of old charges against a courageous man.

Could Romney be behind this coming smear campaign? Not likely because all the principles have been active for years against Senator McCain. Besides, why wait until one day before the voting in New Hampshire to spring this? Anyway, this is pretty much as low as politics gets in America and I don’t think Romney is really that sort of candidate.

For some, the war will never end. Only when the last Viet Nam era American passes on will the War in Viet Nam truly be over. Until then, all we can do is honor the dead, comfort the living, and give thanks that patriots like John McCain - a man whose politics I sometimes abhor - are still serving this country today.

UPDATE

Tommy Toliver doesn’t think it’s McCain who is the target of the smear. I have also received several emails questioning whether or not it’s McCain.

My belief that it’s the Arizona Senator in the crosshairs was on the Viet Nam Veterans Against John McCain website. If you scroll down (no permalinks) you will find an article by John LeBoutillier entitled “McCain Bombs as Candidate.” Directly underneath is the subhead:

“Swiftboating” New American Political Jargon Term Meaning “Outing” the Fraudulent.

Several commenters on this and other threads have complained that by using the term “siwftboating,” the author of the upcoming smear against the presidential candidate is adopting the definition used by liberals; i.e., lies and distortions against a candidate.

But as you can see, they use the same definition that the “Revelations” emailer used when touting their press conference. This is what led me to believe that the Viet Vets Against McCain were behind this effort.

As far as the author knowing McCain back in their “college days” that could very well just be a substitution in order to hide the identity of the candidate to be smeared. After all, the Naval Academy is an accredited college - one of the finest in the country. If they had come out and said the author had known McCain from their days together at Annapolis, that would have let the cat out of the bag.

That was my reasoning for believing the target was McCain. However, other information emailed to me makes me doubt my original hypothesis and it may very well be someone else.

The next time you see the Huckster on TV look closely. Are those horns sprouting from his head? And is there the beginnings of a tail that is barely poking through his $1000 populist inspired suit?

Is Mike Huckabee morphing into Satan right before our eyes?

The devil, as we all know, is extremely clever. And frankly, there has been no more clever, or underhanded, or downright dispicable stunt pulled by a campaign than Huckaliar’s “rope a dope” of the press yesterday.

You’ve all heard by now that Huckadope called a press conference in order to unveil a new attack ad. But then, according to “top aide” Charmaine Yoest, the holy spirit descended from heaven and the candidate decided not to run the ad sliming Romney. Actually, Charmaine said no such thing but it would be a perfect explanation given Huckabee’s now blatant use of his Christian religion and Christian symbols in his advertising. Huckasaint has abandoned any pretext of secularism in his bid for the presidency and has now made his campaign a mobile tent revival meeting.

I can’t wait for the healings to start.

And then, in an act of cynicism so profoundly disturbing that the assembled press broke into nervous laughter, Huckabee went ahead and showed the ad to the press anyway, hoping the assembled cameras would do his dirty work for him and spread the ad’s message across the country while flanking the candidate were 5 screens highlighting charges against Romney’s flip flopping.

Elmer Gantry couldn’t have done it better. Aimee Semple McPherson has got nothing on Huck when it comes to pure “hucksterism.” And what made this little episode so nauseating was the dripping, oily, insincere explanations of the candidate himself:

But he then opened his press conference by saying that while the ad was expected to start appearing on local television at noon, he had decided an hour before to pull it. Conventional wisdom is to attack back if one is attacked, he said, but he had decided there was much negativity and he wanted to tell voters about why he should be president, not why Mr. Romney should not.

What a crock.

“The people of Iowa deserve better,” he said.

In the past few days on the campaign trail, Mr. Huckabee has painted Mr. Romney in the harshest of terms, flatly calling him “dishonest.” He vowed today that in addition to stopping the ad, he would stop criticizing him in his speeches.

“It’s not worth it,” he said.

Asked if he wasn’t being hypocritical by showing the ad to a roomful of cameras that were likely to replay it, Mr. Huckabee said he was showing it only because reporters were so cynical that if he didn’t show it, they would not believe that he really had made it. “You’d say, ‘Where’s the ad?’ ” he said.

“It’s never too late to do the right thing,” he said.

Unless you want to believe that the Huckabee campaign is a complete amatuer hour organization, this little drama put on by the Huckster and his staff has taken political cynicism to a new low.

Will this bit of blatant dishonesty matter to his base of holy rollers? Given everything else about the candidate that has come to light in the last months, I sincerely doubt it.

UPDATE

Gag me:

At a Huckabee rally this morning at a Pizza Ranch restaurant in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, Huckabee’s longest applause line came when he talked about pulling the ad. “If I can’t do it with self respect, and can’t do it with decency, it isn’t worth doing,” he told the crowd from a podium next to the salad bar.

Jesus effing Christ! What a pompous, gut churning lump of hypocritical milquetoast. A pox on the party if they nominate this slug. And a pox on those of you who think this guy is qualified to be anything other than an itinerant preacher who doubles as a snake oil salesman.

The final poll conducted by the Des Moines Register newspaper before the Iowa Caucuses on Thursday is out and Barack Obama has widened his lead over Hillary Clinton while Mike Huckabee continues to outpace Mitt Romney on the Republican side:

Obama was the choice of 32 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers, up from 28 percent in the Register’s last poll in late November, while Clinton, a New York senator, held steady at 25 percent and Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, was virtually unchanged at 24 percent.

The poll reflects continued fluidity in the race even as the end of the yearlong campaign nears. Roughly a third of likely caucusgoers say they could be persuaded to choose someone else before Thursday evening. Six percent were undecided or uncommitted.

The poll also reveals a widening gap between the three-way contest for the lead and the remaining candidates. No other Democrat received support from more than 6 percent of likely caucusgoers.

The findings mark the largest lead of any of the Democratic candidates in the Register’s poll all year, underscoring what has been a hard-fought battle among the three well-organized Iowa frontrunners.

Huckabee enjoys a 6 point lead on Romney, 32-26% with John McCain a distant third at 13% and Fred Thompson in fourth with 9%.

A couple of thoughts on this poll that will probably be echoed by some of the campaigns as they try to spin the results to their advantage.

First, I find it striking that observers on the ground in the last 72 hours who have been reporting surges for Hillary and Romney and the consequent drop of Huckabee and Obama are either seeing things or the poll itself is just not accurate. The reason for the latter could be due to the novel experiment of polling during the biggest holiday season of the year.

Polling is a science where methodology is all. What kind of sample? Was it “random” enough? Was it a big enough sample? How do you determine a probable caucus goer? Couple that with the astonishing information that up to a third of those who say they will attend the caucuses could change their mind between now and caucus night and I believe it more than likely that the holidays have been a distraction to the process. It could very well be that a sizable percentage of people will walk into their caucus on Thursday night not knowing who they will support.

I think as an indicator of a general trend, the poll is accurate. Romney and Huckabee are probably pulling away from the rest of the field while Obama is putting a little distance between himself and Hillary/Edwards. But beyond that I don’t know how accurate it is even as a snapshot.

The poll was taken over 4 days - December 27-30 - with 800 “likely” Caucus goers being polled. If you follow the first link to the story on the Democrats and go to the bottom, you’ll find a chart showing how the polling percentages broke down over the 4 days. What you see is a remarkable surge by Obama over those 4 days as late deciders are evidently flocking to his banner while Hillary’s numbers tank over the same period. Obama starts at 29% and ends up at 34% while Hillary starts at 27% and drops to 23%. John Edwards also saw his numbers climb dramatically over the 4 days from 23% to 26%.

This is exactly the opposite of what has been reported on the ground over the last 3 days by many reporters who saw Clinton on the upswing with Edwards peaking and Obama dropping.

So much for our vaunted political press.

For the GOP, Iowa has apparently become a two man race between Romney and Huckabee. Is Huckabee really up by 6 points? Sometimes you can tell more from the candidate’s behavior than you can published polls. They are reacting to internal polling which measures support a little differently than public polls. And the way Huckabee and Romney have been acting would seem to suggest that it is Romney on the rise with Huckabee trying to stop a slide.

For Fredheads, the only good news is that Thompson is the only GOP candidate whose support rose during the entire polling period. But 10% won’t cut it by any means and if that’s the best the candidate can do, I would expect him to drop out on Friday morning.

If polls are considered snapshots of a moment in time, there’s plenty of mud on these photos making it difficult to read. We may as well resign ourselves to the idea that we’re just going to have to wait until late Thursday night to find out the winners and losers.

UPDATE: LET THE SPIN BEGIN

TNR is puzzled by the same things I am:

This totally shatters the CW of the political crowd here in Des Moines, which had been convinced that Edwards was on fire and really might win, and that Huck was totally imploding. (Although the polling stopped yesterday, before today’s Huck presser fiasco.) It also reaffirms my instinct that Fred Thompson isn’t booking a flight to New Hampshire.

Update: The Edwards camp is already spinning the numbers–which, as Ben Smith notes, swing a wrecking ball through their “surge” storyline–not unreasonably questioning the accuracy of polling over a holiday weekend, and noting that many respondents remain uncertain of their vote.

In a post over the weekend I cited a campaign operative who worried polling around the holidays would be wacky. But he predicted that variable would undercount traveling young people, doing damage to Obama. If you believe his theory, Obama may be even stronger than this poll shows. But that’s a little hard to believe.

Crowley also believes Fred will drop out on Friday.

Register columnist David Ypsen:

* Undecideds exist. There are 6 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers and 4 percent of the Republicans who have no first choice. Their final decisions will be enough to change the order of finish in both parties. That fact alone should keep anyone from using these polls to forecast the outcome of the race.

* Last-minute developments won’t be reflected. In 2004, 21 percent of those who showed up at Democratic caucuses decided who they’d support in the last three days of the campaign. This poll won’t reflect those decisions because it came out of the field on Sunday night — four days before people vote. So, for example, it can’t reflect the goofy press conference Huckabee held on Monday in which he promised not to run attack ads against Mitt Romney while producing them and showing them to reporters anyway. Right.

* Some support is soft. Of those who have decided on a candidate, 34 percent of the Democrats say they could still be persuaded to change their minds. Among Republicans, it’s 46 percent.

That GOP number reflects a profound dissatisfaction with their choices not, as some would hope, Iowans who can’t make up their minds.

Read the rest of Ypsen’s analysis. It contains some very bad news for Republicans next year as above all, voters are seeking a change.

Hello, I’m Fred Thompson.

In the closing days of this historic contest here in Iowa, I wanted to take a few moments to talk quietly with you about the stakes in this election and the critical issues you will soon decide.

Because there is no frontrunner here in Iowa and because yours will be the first votes cast in this crucial election year, your decision will be one the entire country closely watches and learns from.

When you go to your local caucus on January 3rd and fill out your paper ballot - and, by the way, it’s just that easy - how you vote will go a long way towards deciding who will lead us as president through dangerous years ahead.

That the years ahead will be dangerous needs no elaboration from me. Most Americans know the forces of terrorism will not rest until a mushroom cloud hangs over one of our cities. The recent tragic assassination of former Prime Minister Bhutto in Pakistan again demonstrates the terrorists’ will to power and their relentless cruelty.

Along with threats to our national security, we have great domestic challenges before us - the economy, taxes, protecting our borders, and protecting the right to life.

So, I want to talk to you now about the threats and dangers that we face as a people — but also about the hope and opportunity I see out there.

Before doing that, however, I’d be remiss if I did not — on behalf of myself and my wife, Jeri - thank the people of Iowa for all your hospitality and warmth over the past few months. Traveling around the state with all our wonderful volunteers and staff and especially with your great congressman Steven King meant getting to know all of you better. And that’s been one of the great privileges of our lives.

You may have heard about our bus tour - we’re visiting about 50 cities. Having that time out there in the heartland has also taught us once again about what counts in life - the importance of passing on to our children and grandchildren the same safe and free future that others protected and passed on to us.

By any measure, we live in the greatest country in the history of the world. Every generation of Americans has an obligation to keep it that way. And to do that we must remember how we got to where we are — and why we are so blessed.

That means remembering the fundamental, conservative principles that have unified us for over two centuries.

What are those principles?

o First, the role of the federal government is limited to the powers given to it in the Constitution

o Second, a dollar belongs in the pocket of the person who earns it, unless the government has a compelling reason why it can use it better

o Third, we don’t spend money we don’t have, or borrow money that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back

o And the best way to avoid war is to be stronger than our enemies. But if we’re caught in a fight, we need to win it because not doing so makes us much more likely to be attacked in the future

o Also the federal judiciary is supposed to decide cases, not set social policy — and bad social policy at that

o And the bigger the government gets, the less competent it is to run our lives.

Now these are ideals and principles that made our country free, prosperous and strong. And these principles are the foundation of a conservative movement that I’ve been faithful to throughout my adult life. These are not principles I decided on a few years ago. They are not concepts that I learned from a focus group. And they are not ideas I came up with to curry favor or to win an election. These principles are part of who I am and, I suspect, they are views and instincts I share with most of you.

And every single one of these principles is under assault today - under assault from a left wing, big-government, high-taxing, weak-on-defense Democratic party. A party whose leadership is licking its chops just waiting to take over the reins of government - waiting to bring to the United States presidency the same reckless power-seeking and incompetence it’s brought this year to the United States Congress.

That’s why the upcoming caucuses are so important. On January 3rd, the people of Iowa are going to answer an important question. Who’s the man you want to represent us — to stand against this assault and protect our principles and values?

It’s a little late in the process to be coy. I believe I’m that man. I can stand up to those who would trifle with our great founding principles. I’ve done it before. I’ll blow the whistle on their schemes. And I know how to beat them in the war of ideas.

And in demonstrating that, I have laid out plans for:

o A simplified, flatter income tax to take away power rom the IRS

o A way to save a Social Security system that is going bankrupt

o A stronger military ready to face the threats of a dangerous world; and

o A solution to our illegal immigration mess.

Any number of publications and commentators - the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Review, Investors Business Daily and others — have praised these plans. And many have pointed out that I’m the only Republican in the race for the presidency who has stepped up to offer such bold, conservative ideas. I invite you to check the policy details on my website Fred08.com

But you’re not electing a set of position papers. You’re electing a leader - at a time when strong leadership is going to be needed.

Now if you watched or heard about the most recent debate between the Republican candidates you probably know that I declined when called upon by the moderator to do any hand-raising - I just thought that there should be some things that are below even the dignity of presidential candidates. But the point’s this: I don’t think it was difficult to pick the leader out of that line-up. If those other fellas can’t stand up to an overbearing moderator in a debate, I’m not sure how they would fare against the leader of Iran or North Korea.

Now there are many good men running for our party’s nomination. Each of them loves our country. Each of them has something interesting and useful to offer. But the fact of the matter is that the Republican Party is a conservative party. That’s the philosophy that’s shaped us. That’s the philosophy that has won us elections. And that’s the philosophy we must champion if we are to win again in 2008.

And on that score, among each of the men seeking our party’s nomination, my record stands out. I entered public life as a conservative. I served in the Senate as a strong, consistent conservative with a 100% pro life voting record. And I have the same philosophy today that I had back then. What you see is what you get. I dance to no man’s tune. And no one has ever accused me of changing my position on anything for the sake of political expediency. That’s why when someone here in Iowa said conservatives were looking for a horse to ride in 2008, I responded, “Saddle me up.” And in the battle of ideas, we can’t afford a Republican leader who doesn’t have a core philosophy that grounds him. I know who I am. I know what I believe. And I am ready to lead.

When I was in the federal government, I concentrated on national security. I served on the Intelligence Committee, met with foreign leaders around the world. And I managed for the Republican side the passage of the Homeland Security bill which I believe has helped us prevent another “9/11.”

I continued public service after I left government. Although my role on TV’s “Law & Order” got considerably more publicity, I took on other roles from time to time as well. When Condoleeza Rice needed someone to advise her on matters of international security, she called on me. When the President needed help to get a good conservative judge confirmed as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, he called on me.

What it all comes down to is this: The most important issue facing us is the national security of our nation and the safety of our people.

I’ve spent a lot of time both in and out of government working to make the American people safer. I know the world we live in, I know what we need to do, and I know it’s going to require strong leadership.

And I would ask people to think one thing before they caucus: When our worst enemy is sitting across from us at the negotiating table, and they’re thinking about what they can do to harm the United States of America, and what they might could get away with, who do you want sitting on our side of the table representing you, working to keep you safe? That’s probably the person you ought to elect as President.

I’ve been tested. And I believe our country’s best days are ahead of us if we take on the responsibility of leadership. The American people are waiting for us to step up, protect our values, our principles and our country. Together we can do something great for America. I welcome that challenge.

But, my friends, I need your help.

Because right now in this final weekend another issue is before us: that of electability.

I believe I am the only candidate in this race who can bring our party to victory in the Fall. First, because of the firmness of my principles and the trust that that engenders. Secondly, because of the detailed program I’ve put before the people. Third, because I’ve been tried and tested - and I’m a known quantity in public life.

But, most of all, I think I know how to talk to the American people about the opposition and the danger their victory would pose to the principles we hold dear.

You know in the last debate - when I was asked the biggest problem with American education– I had a ready answer: “The NEA.”

By which I meant the National Education Association — that highly politicized, Washington-based union that is a hindrance to students as well as to the teachers it claims to represent.

But you know the NEA is not the only problem. Just like its education policy, the Democratic party’s foreign policy is heavily influenced by another left-of-center pressure group-Move On.org which implied that our leading general in Iraq betrayed us, that tells our men and women in uniform that the war they are fighting is lost, and then tries to cut off funds for our troops in the field.

And its social policy is heavily determined by the radically secularist ACLU — which tries to take God out of the public square and leaps to the legal defense of our Nation’s enemies.

You know, when I’m asked which of the current group of Democratic candidates I prefer to run against, I always say it really doesn’t matter. Because these days all those candidates, all the Democratic leaders, are one and the same. They’re all NEA, Move On.org, ACLU, Michael Moore Democrats. They’ve allowed these radicals to take control of their party and dictate their course.

So this election is important not just to enact our conservative principles. This election is important to salvage the once-great political party from the grip of extremism and shake it back to its senses. It’s time to give not just Republicans but independents and, yes, good Democrats a chance to call a halt to the leftward lurch of the once proud party of working people.

So in seeking the nomination of my own party, I want to say something a little unusual. I am asking my fellow Republicans to vote for me not only for what I have to say to them, but for what I have to say to the members of the other party — the millions of Democrats who haven’t left the Democratic party so much as their party’s national leadership has left them.

In this campaign I will be seeking the support of millions of Democrats who no longer believe that they can trust their own party’s leadership on the issue of national security.

I will be seeking the support of millions of Democrats with young families who are beginning to see the economic burdens they may face because of their party leadership’s taste for high taxes and politically motivated refusal to fix social security and remove the threat of a shortfall in federal benefit plans that could be a catastrophe for younger taxpayers.

And, finally, I’ll be seeking the support of Democrats who are weary of spin politics and the permanent campaign and endless attempts to control the media dynamic– who think policy stances ought to be judged on a higher criteria than what works better in a sound bite or fits this week’s campaign-message guidance.

So I’ll be asking good Democrats as well as Independents to give us another chance - to see if a Republican president and Congress that’s dedicated to conservative principles can move forward with an agenda that goes beyond narrow partisanship and political expediency and actually deals with the long-term foreign and domestic crises we face.

I know we can do better than a 14% approval rating the current Congress had. And I know we’ve learned our lessons from last year’s election. We’re the party of smaller, smarter government, lower taxes, and less Washington spending. And the only way we win is if we understand that, remain true to it, and refuse to yield to those who would have us abandon it.

All of this, then, and more is why I’m running for president. I believe, that, yes, we can deal with the dangers and threats before our nation and the world.

And we can begin now by remembering who we are, where we came from, and what we’ve done before as a people. This isn’t the first time our nation has been in grave danger, even in our own lifetime. Not long ago ours was an East-West world where the democracies were beleaguered and small in number. Now so much that was once unimaginable is happening before our eyes. We see a world where representative government is flourishing. A world where the global economic boom is taking millions out of poverty every year. A world where there’s even talk of a permanent end to poverty.

Well, we got to this place because of leaders who saw something more than political expediency, leaders like a Ronald Reagan. A Ronald Reagan who would use his time in office wisely precisely because he thought politics had higher uses than just the pursuit of power.

He spoke often of the abuses of government power that our founding fathers feared and warned against. You know, I’ve always thought one of the most impressive things about one of those founders — George Washington — was his willingness to walk away from power. Having spent eight impossibly difficult years in a military struggle against the greatest military power on earth, he was filled with an awe and wonder not at the work of mere mortals but at the workings and power of Providence, an awe and wonder that was never to leave him. To his dying day he was to remind Americans that the one condition of a prosperous and free people was a belief in a will higher than our own, a trust in Providence.

Lincoln had it too — the conviction that no free people and certainly no president can long endure without a belief in a wisdom far exceeding any human understanding.

I know the people of Iowa think that way. I recognize it when I see it. That’s one of the great advantages that comes from growing up in another part of the heartland — Lawrenceburg Tennessee. On Sunday morning, my hometown was a pretty busy place- people on the way to hear the good news - the good news that the future is in better hands than our own. So, thanks to what I learned in those early days I’ve always known no matter how much we want it otherwise, we humans aren’t in charge. Life is sometimes harsh though in teaching us that truth.

And all this was much on my mind last summer when I decided to run for the presidency. Especially as I looked around my home at another generation — a three-year old and a five-month old — and thought — as have so many of you over the past few years - about the safe future I had and how much I wanted to make that future a certainty for my children and yours.

So for this reason and all the others I mentioned, I’m hoping that you support me in the days ahead. I am hoping too that you’ll join me in something that comes pretty easy here in ‘the heartland” — a prayer of thanks for the great things that have happened in our time. And a prayer of hope too. Hope that when the history of our own age is written it will be said of us what was said of those before us. That we were unswerving in our dedication to the cause of human freedom and dignity. And that we kept our trust in the will of Him who made us — and who enjoins us to now go forth and make a newer world ,

Thank you all. May God bless you and May God bless America

Writing about Fred Thompson has always presented a challenge to me as a blogger. The analyst in me is in conflict with the cheerleader - a common conundrum for most bloggers who have a favorite in the race. I must confess there are times when the cheerleader part of me takes control and I become overly enthusiastic about a candidate who many see as no one to get very excited about. And there are other times where I highlight the cold, analytical facts and figures of the race - much to the disadvantage of the candidate - which drives many of my fellow Fredheads up a wall.

Indeed, from a purely analytical point of view, looking at all the polls (not just the select few that seem to give a rosier picture of Thompson’s chances), Fred Thompson will probably not be the Republican nominee for President of the United States. There are few serious professionals I have heard or read that give the candidate much of a chance. Too many lightening strikes would be necessary for that to happen, too many improbable scenarios in too many of the early primaries would have to come true for Fred to survive.

The candidate has little money on hand and with the February 5 Super Tuesday gaggle of 21 primaries a little more than a month away where 50% of the delegates to the national convention will be chosen, it seems an impossible task to raise money in amounts that would allow the candidate to be competitive with Mitt Romney’s bottomless pit of funds or Giuliani’s reservoir of cash.

As I have said before, all of this is beside the point. As long as there is a chance for success and as long as the candidate himself believes he can win, his supporters should back his play to the best of their ability. And in the here and now, Iowa is the battleground where the candidate has chosen to make a stand and where he absolutely must do better than the pundits and pros are expecting.

I was gratified to see yesterday on CNN’s Late Edition that Fred was touting the fact that he thinks he can finish second in Iowa:

BLITZER: OK. Let’s talk a little bit about the chances that you have in Iowa right now. Some of the more recent polls have you coming in at third or fourth. What do you have to do? How do you have to emerge in Iowa in order to justify moving on to New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan and beyond?

THOMPSON: Well, the overwhelming number of polls out this way have me running third right now, and the last couple of credible polls that have come out have showed me in the teens or the high teens and not that far back from the pack.

You know, I think I have a decent chance of coming in second out here, and it’s moving in the right direction.

We’re in the middle of a 50-county, 50-town and city tour out here. And we’re going out, taking the grassroots, the numbers are reflecting that. People who get a chance to hear us, and we’ve had a little chance to spend time with them, it’s resulting in on-the-ground activity, and it’s resulting in contributions coming in and things of that nature.

When the conventional political wisdom dictates the candidate play down his chances thus lowering expectations, Fred once again goes against the grain and ups the ante considerably by giving himself a shot at second place - presumably at the expense of Mike Huckabee who is being turned into hamburger by Mitt Romney’s multi-million dollar last minute negative ad blitz. It is not a likely scenario but is one of those lightening strikes I mentioned above that would have to occur for Thompson to become viable in the eyes of conservatives elsewhere.

In fact, Thompson has eschewed “conventional wisdom” for the entire campaign. From his unorthodox “front porch” campaign in the spring and early summer, to his effective early use of the internet, to his unconventional (and controversial) mode and method of campaigning, Thompson has followed the dictates of his inner voice about how to go about running for president. It has placed him at odds with the media, the punditocracy, and most of the political class - all of whom worship at the altar of conventional wisdom. These gatekeepers love CW because it makes their jobs easier.

Rather than doing any real reporting or analysis, it is much easier (and much more profitable as a writer) if you can take the CW about any candidate and with a clever turn of the phrase that either sticks in the knife or places a halo around their head, simply repeat what every other reporter, columnist, and analyst is saying. It has made political reporting in this country as monochromatic and boring as can possibly be - mostly because the lack of originality is so glaringly obvious. Only on blogs (and a precious few online magazines) does one find the kind of fresh and penetrating analysis that used to be the hallmark of political reporting in this country.

So when a candidate that rejects conventional wisdom about how to run a presidential campaign comes along, there is resistance from the gatekeepers. According to CW, a candidate must run around like a whirling dervish from campaign stop to campaign stop, torturing themselves in order to make themselves worthy in the eyes of of the high priests of politics inside the beltway.

Most forget that this kind of all out, pedal to the metal campaigning is a relatively new phenomena - at least during the primaries. It was Jimmy Carter who began campaigning in Iowa two years before the caucuses in order to grab headlines and gain momentum going into New Hampshire. Since then, CW has dictated that the candidates who flails away the most and knocks themselves out campaigning are deemed worthy of consideration. All others need not apply.

For whatever reason, Thompson has rejected that model and followed his own instincts. And the candidate has also rejected the normal appeals by a politician to people’s fears and emotions and instead tried to engage the voters on an intellectual level. This has led to charges that he is “uninspiring” or boring. To answer that, Thompson has recorded a 17 minute appeal to Iowa voters, laying out his case to support him.

Conventional wisdom says that this recording is a waste of time, that no voter will sit through 17 minutes of a politician talking about himself and his qualifications to be the next President of the United States. I’m not so sure. The video is compelling and revealing. It shows a man offering himself for public service not a politician bragging about and exaggerating his meager accomplishments. There is little in the way of embellishments or histrionics. It is just Fred Thompson being Fred Thompson - refreshing in a way that is not easily dismissed.

It is, as the candidate infers, the anti-sound bite. It is not the background noise of a campaign that floods the airwaves with 15 and 30 second spots with the deep intonations of a narrator talking about some superficial attribute of the featured candidate. This message has meat on the bone and gives a voter who watches it the opportunity to fully take the measure of the man speaking. No artifice. No subterfuge. Simple, straightforward, from the shoulder facts about Thompson, his reasons for running, and his belief that he can win.

But what Thompson’s message to Iowans shows above all is a very serious man talking about very serious issues and the fact that the years ahead will demand a thoughtfulness and a seriousness of purpose from our President if we are to successfully navigate the treacherous shoals of history and bring the ship of state safely through to the other side.

No other candidate that I’ve seen possesses this kind of serious approach to the enormous problems facing this country in the years ahead. That’s why I support Fred Thompson despite his long shot chances and despite all the criticisms levelled against him by the conventional wisdom crowd.

Fred Thompson says he is “not consumed by personal ambition.” He says that he won’t slit his wrists if he loses the presidency. He says “I’m not particularly interested in running for president, but I think I’d make a good president. Nowadays, the process has become much more important than I think it used to be.”

The press is having a field day, of course. They love it when a candidate seems to confirm all the supposedly nasty things they’ve been saying about him. Go here for a full transcript of what Thompson said in response to an earnest question from a voter who asked “if I caucus for you next week, are you still going to be there two months from now?”

It’s too late for Thompson to change the minds of the press regarding the importance of having an overweening ambition to be president. Collectively, it appears they have decided that this is an extremely relevant and serious criteria by which to judge a candidate’s worthiness for high office. Somehow, a candidate’s thoughtfulness, integrity, instincts, temperament, and views on the issues have become secondary to an artificial measurement of the heat given off from how much fire is in his belly.

Our gatekeepers are, if nothing else, consistent in their criticism of Thompson’s commitment to running for president. Ever since the first weeks of the campaign when the press woke up to the fact that Thompson was going to run the campaign his way and not the way that everyone (including the press) expected him to run it, the conventional wisdom developed that it didn’t matter what Thompson was saying or what he believed. What mattered is that he failed to meet the arbitrary standards set by the media denoting what might be termed “the cup of desire” test. Thompson refused to drink deep draughts and has been skewered for it.

I can’t think of any other candidate in the last 35 years who has been judged by such extraordinarily shallow criteria. There were whispers prior to Reagan running for President in 1980 that the candidate was too laid back. Indeed, Reagan’s loss in Iowa in 1980 was attributed to a “lazy” campaign. But no one accused The Gipper of lacking desire for the office or even that his laid back style disqualified him from consideration.

This is an entirely new phenomena in politics and is directly related to the fact that running for President has become pretty much of a 4 year undertaking. A large part of the reason for that is the ungodly sums of money that must be raised to build what amounts to a $100 million nationwide business whose only product is electing the candidate president. Those few candidates who can accomplish this have a huge leg up in the race.

Declaring early means wrapping up the party “whales” and “bundlers” who invest in a candidate as they would a promising stock or top performing mutual fund. When you consider the fact that the top 4 fundraisers in the race had all been mentioned as possible presidential candidates as far back as 2004, you begin to see where a candidate like Thompson, already at a huge disadvantage, would seek to break the mold and run a different kind of campaign, freed from the necessity of living up to anyone’s expectations about how a successful run for office should unfold.

Unfortunately, mold breakers are inevitably punished for their apostasy. In Thompson’s case, the candidate himself hasn’t helped much. Voters may not have been asking the questions raised by the media about Thompson’s demeanor and desire, but judging by the poll numbers, those questions may have been uppermost in their minds. The fact is, Thompson has failed to adequately address the issue - until he hit a home run with his response yesterday. Predictably, the press spun the story the way they wanted - an easy task given the complexity and subtly of Thompson’s argument. But an examination of his explanation reveals a refreshing honesty about the candidate’s inner thinking and what exactly is motivating him to run.

Surprisingly, the reasons are no different than any other candidate. A desire to serve, a belief that he can accomplish “special things,” the confidence that he is running for “the right reasons.” So if it is not his motivation for running that is in question, what exactly is it that has the press so doggedly determined to portray him as “lazy” or “lacking fire in the belly?”

In an age when candidates run campaigns that are dependent on emotionally connecting with the voter (usually by trying to frighten them to death about their opponent), Thompson seeks to engage people on an intellectual level. Rather than using rhetoric to inflame passions, the candidate tries to make the voter think. There is little pizazz and less of the campaign superficialities in Thompson’s effort than one finds in any other campaign. In short, as entertainment, the Thompson campaign receives failing grades. The candidate does not make good copy nor do his appearances necessarily make good TV. Rather than giving off sparks, the campaign emits a stolid, steady feeling of seriousness.

The press uses code words like “lazy” simply because they can’t bring themselves to describe the campaign and the candidate as “boring” - a description that would reveal them to be as stupid, shallow, and cynical as we all know that they are. In our media saturated world where people (and the press) demand to be constantly entertained, Fred Thompson fails miserably.

That is his greatest sin. He has broken the mold of what the press expects of a candidate and a campaign and is being punished for it. Not a very elevating reason to eliminate a candidate from serious consideration for the presidency but given the reality of presidential politics and the times we live in, it is perhaps not surprising.

There is something refreshing in the astonishing ignorance demonstrated by Mike Huckabee when the candidate talks about foreign affairs. It’s just not something experienced everyday in the civilized world that we see one of the major party’s presidential front runners more knowledgeable about the bible than anything recently published in Foreign Affairs magazine about Pakistan.

If this race continues the way it is, we will be entertained with many more such moments of hilarity. Mike Huckabee is the first candidate in a while who needs a team of aides to spread out after he speaks and tell the press what the candidate really meant when he stuck his foot so far into his mouth his nosehairs were tickling his kneecap:

Explaining statements he made suggesting that the instability in Pakistan should remind Americans to tighten security on the southern border of the United States, Mr. Huckabee said Friday that “we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities, except those immediately south of the border.”

Asked to justify the statement, he later cited a March 2006 article in The Denver Post reporting that from 2002 to 2005, Pakistanis were the most numerous non-Latin Americans caught entering the United States illegally. According to The Post, 660 Pakistanis were detained in that period.

A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security, however, concluded that, over all, illegal immigrants from the Philippines, India, Korea, China and Vietnam were all far more numerous than those from Pakistan.

In a separate interview on Friday on MSNBC, Mr. Huckabee, a Republican, said that the Pakistani government “does not have enough control of those eastern borders near Afghanistan to be able go after the terrorists.” Those borders are on the western side of Pakistan, not the eastern side.

Further, he offered an Orlando crowd his “apologies for what has happened in Pakistan.” His aides said later that he meant to say “sympathies.”

He also said he was worried about martial law “continuing” in Pakistan, although Mr. Musharraf lifted the state of emergency on Dec. 15. Mr. Huckabee later said that he was referring to a renewal of full martial law and said that some elements, including restrictions on judges and the news media, had continued.

Anyone who still thinks Mike Huckabee has what it takes to lead this nation as President in the extremely perilous days ahead after watching and listening to him flail about the last couple of days needs a reality check.

That’s not exactly what I wanted to say. I wanted to say that anyone who still supports Huckabee after his performance regarding the Bhutto assassination is an idiot, or should have their head examined, or should be disenfranchised, or should run off and start their own party. They could call it the “Idiotic, Superstitious, Religious Fanatic and Intellectual Twit Party.”

I wanted to say all of that but I’m glad I didn’t. People don’t take you seriously if you go overboard in your criticism - even if those being criticized it deserve it.

The only question I have is will this indeed be a death blow to the Huckabee campaign? If it isn’t and Huckabee still does well in Iowa, and is viable through Super Tuesday and beyond, I will weep for the ignorance of the rank and file in the Republican party. Let them have their preacher man. Let them revel in that old time religion. Let them dream of segregating gays and people with AIDS lest their kids be exposed to the deadly sins of modernity and tolerance. Let them stick their heads in the sand and pretend that a lack of basic knowledge of the world around us should not disqualify someone to be president during a time of war.

The left has been fond of saying that Huckabee’s success is only what we conservatives deserve in courting and pandering to the religious right all these years. There is probably something to that criticism. After all, if Dennis Kucinich were a front runner on the Democratic side, we conservatives would be similarly gloating about chickens coming home to roost for the left.

But beyond such childish analysis is the very real and frightening prospect that Mike Huckabee, despite his demonstrated lack of expertise and knowledge about a vital part of the world where our enemies are making a supreme effort to win an important battle in the War on Terror, is still seen as presidential timber by perhaps a third or more of Republican regulars. I don’t know if that will be enough to get him over the top and win the requisite number of delegates for a first ballot victory at the convention. But it almost certainly will make him a player in the party and will give him a big say in platform deliberations and perhaps even the choice for Vice President.

All because nothing the Huckster says or does that reveals him to be unqualified for the presidency seems to matter to his legions of supporters.