I may be eating crow in 24-48 hours for writing this, but I just can't help but think that Mike Huckabee will be McNicotine's running mate.

John McCain seems set to announce his Vice Presidential pick Friday morning. So I've got a couple lists for you: his best options and his worst.  Let's hope he chooses from the list of worst picks.  Also, why not visit my blog.  I vent daily and it's nice when I know someone has heard me.  Comments on this post also very welcomed.

Picks after the jump

Partial transcript from an interview with CNSNews.com:

Huckabee: ... You know, it’s interesting, the California decision as well as the Massachusetts decision, I don’t think should ever have been implemented by the governors, Schwarzenegger and Romney. They were both decisions that the governors simply could have said the court has said that we have to do it, but let them enforce it. Because those were administrative decisions that had to put that in place and there was no mandate.

Jeffrey: Right, but Governor Romney actually went ahead and certified same-sex marriages without an act of his state legislature.

Huckabee: It should never have happened. It should never have happened. And while we want to blame the courts—

Here is McCain's latest attack on Obama...

If he doesn't pick either Huckabee or Romney now, he would come off as the world's biggest hypocrite and we can scour him endlessly by making an identical ad featuring Romney. Romney afterall actually won more votes than McCain for the first half of the Primaries and came within a hair's length of beating him.

Romney made some pretty damning statements about McCain's ignorance of economic matters. Huckabee made some damning statements about how out of touch and ignorant McCain and the Republicans were and how real people are suffering under the weak economy. If he doesn't pick them to cover up these very real weakness, he's opening himself up to a barrage of attacks.

Koers, please, for the love of god, don't attack Romney and Huckabee now. Wait until either one is the pick. File away the attacks for later. Be patient, or risk not having Romney be the pick.

I support a New Group which has formed on the GOP side.

Composed of all of those millions who voted for Mike Huckabee in the recent primaries.  They are demanding R. E. S. P. E. C. T.

After all, there are a lot of people in this country who deny Evolution.  They deserve a hearing, don't they?  

There are a lot of people who voted to return women to their proper place. They must be given a voice, too.

There are a lot of sunny, funny people who have never had a chance to be President. They must all be allowed to pout, and whine until the media discovers a "split in the Republican Party".

There are many folks who lost a lot of weight and walk everyday to keep it off.  Why shouldn't they be given a major voice in Minneapolis?

Imagine my surprise, when I picked up the phone and I hear, "Hi, this is Mike Huckabee.  I've got a few questions to ask you."

Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee emerged from the GOP nomination process as the leaders of their respective GOP factions. Huckabee represents the social conservatives. He aspires to speak for the evangelicals, who reportedly make up 25% of the electorate. Romney represents the business side of the GOP. He is the consummate executive and as a former CEO is the GOP’s possible poster boy for someone to fix the economy. These two factions are warring for the chance to have someone from their camp land as the McCain VP and the fight has major long-term implications for the party.

It doesn't matter how many times good reporters like Marc Ambinder report that the Obama-Clinton discussions are smooth and the plans for the convention are amicable, and it doesn't matter how often Hillary stumps for Barack, the media love a good fight.

Reports of strife between negotiators for Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama are exaggerated and the two sides are nearing an agreement on how Clinton's delegates will participate in the formal nominating process at the Democratic National Convention, according to advisers to both Democrats.

The trouble is, they are missing the real feud, which unlike the made-for-TV stuff on the D side has serious bad blood potential .

"I think that there are better choices for Sen. McCain [than Mitt Romney] that will have the approval of values voters," [Mike Huckabee] added.

Huckabee denied an earlier media report in which he seemed to suggest that it was Romney's Mormon religion that should be a disqualifying factor.

"There is absolutely no issue about Mitt Romney's religion. I have never said that," Huckabee said.

But his comments renew what had become a nasty spat between the two politicians during the Republican primary. Huckabee's come-from-nowhere victory over Romney in the Iowa caucus was a big reason that Romney lost the nomination.

and

Yet as Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, is said to have emerged as a top contender to be Senator John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, a vocal segment of conservative leaders and grass-roots activists have mobilized against him, with some going out of their way to block his path to the Republican ticket.

and

"I think when you look at Mitt Romney, he's not in the totally uncomfortable column, but he's not in the completely comfortable column," said Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council. "Those that do have opposition to him, they're pretty adamant in their opposition."

The social conservative wing and the Club for Growth wing really dislike each other, to the bone. When McCain sent up that trial balloon about pro-choice Ridge and Lieberman as VP, it sank like a stone.

That thud you just heard was the Ridge/Lieberman VP trial balloon that social conservative activists quickly popped. They couldn't find reporters fast enough to denounce the prospect of McCain adding a pro-choice pol to his ticket. "It absolutely floored me," Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values, told the Politico’s Jonathan Martin. "It would doom him in Ohio." Home School Legal Defense Association President Mike Farris said to the Washington Times: "If Tom Ridge is on the ticket, I will not be voting Republican." Then again, if this was a trial balloon, wasn’t this the response McCain is looking for?

So where are the rest of the divided GOP stories? Oh, sorry. With our media, that narrative only applies to Democrats. I forget that, sometimes.

The bitterness between Governor Mitt Romney and Governor Mike Huckabee never really died.  Romney, favored by Bush, was the poster-child of the Club For Growth(which Huckabee called the Club For Greed).  Huckabee was the champion of the "value voters" and the Fair Tax.  Somewhere in between them was John McCain, ceding Iowa to the Romney/Huckabee struggle while he focused on Iowa.  Then the Huckaboom of Iowa happened, that night of the underdogs(can't forget Obama), and then the resurgence of "the Maverick" in his beloved New Hampshire.  Out-maneuvered, Romney would cut his loses after Super Tuesday at CPAC and move to set himself up as the team player.  Mike Huckabee fought on for another month, setting himself up as the winner of the silver medal, and then ambushing Mitt Romney's Veep-prospects when the timing was right.

And Huckabee is just getting started on solidifying his place in American politics.

Yeah, I know you don't want to hear it.  Some people here would rather sit around and snicker at George W. Bush saying something else stupid--this time while he's in China.  Think Progess has a pretty good summary, including the video that was pulled from YouTube because of a third party ownership claim.

Worthless stuff is usually not worth claiming.  But, that's not the only reason I'm going to give you an opportunity to reconsider whether what Bush said was stupid or part of an orchestrated campaign.  That NBC interrupted its coverage of the Olympics with this vignette may or may not be significant.

Let's go back to earlier in the week.

Longtime Republican operative Peter Hong, who served as campaign spokesman in 2002 for Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) – a top-tier candidate frequently mentioned as a possible V-P candidate for McCain – was arrested for soliciting prostitution on Wednesday in St. Paul, MN and was booked at the Ramsey County Jail early that evening.

In past elections, the Bush/Rove team undercut, back stabbed and push polled John McCain's campaign without mercy, limits nor reservations.  Now, we are supposed to believe that they are "good friends"?  Mr. McCain has attempted to become the nominee in past elections and has been viciously attacked by his own party's hard core base.  The primary leading to his nomination this election cycle was no exception to that historical precedent.  Right wing talk radio and pundits were seen to join Mitt Romney's campaign and Mike Huckabee's campaign in attacking the authenticity of McCain's conservative credentials, his "Republicaness" if you will.  Once again, completely out of touch with the average voter and America at large (even the average Republican voter, perhaps), the far right wing of the Republican party pushed McCain and the other candidates as far to the right as possible to appeal to the base. This is fairly typical of a primary fight, one must acknowledge, and McCain, of course, managed to win the nomination despite these attacks from within.

(This is actually a repost from some months ago, but I put so much time into hunting down the appropriate photos, I decided to repost it; besides, I'm depressed about not being able to make it to NN this year, so I wanted to post something light to cheer myself--and perhaps others--up a bit)

Several months back, Canadian Noise posted an Oscar-themed diary which speculated on the casting for a filmed version of the 2008 Presidential race.

Unfortunately, the diary didn’t get much notice, but I thought it was such a fun idea that I ran with it, and came up with the following. The only rule I made for myself is to take it seriously—no cartoon characters, no dead actors; all of the choices have to be current, professional film or TV actors. Feel free to toss your own ideas into the ring; I know that I’m way off on at least some of my choices, but what the hell...

Normally, this would be a pretty generic headline - something along the lines of '[politican's name here]'s Ambition Knows No Bounds' is pretty standard fare in American political discourse.  But anyone who read my diary on VP knows that I firmly believe that Mitt Romney was the Republican's best chance for victory this year and will probably be in 2012 (even more so with a VP nod under his belt).  I think he knows that, and the fact that there is no visible friction whatsoever within this man who has gone from annihilating McCain at every turn to giving him credit for things that a)he didn't invent and b)aren't all that great makes be very, very afraid.  I think we have to take him seriously.

For all the hype surrounding the prolonged primary battle on our side, there's been very little attention paid to what the Republican nomination process looked like in 2008.  Our bloated attempt to copy their get-a-nominee-as-soon-as-possible-and-commence-nuking-the-fuck-out-of-the-other-side (phew) system with Super Duper Tuesday fell flat on its stupid face, while McCain appeared to be a man on an island - with a party united behind him.  

Clearly, the Republicans had their act together in a way we didn't - they had gone in, grim faced, and pulled levers for a man they had all but burned in effigy over his illegal immigration compromise with Senator Kennedy because he was their best candidate for President, principles be damned.  Must not have mattered who McCain was running against.

Now, since this is the MSM's preferred storyline, I call bullshit as a sheer reflex reaction - then I see if said declaration of bullshit has legs.  A whole bunch of legs under the fold.

The Political Newsline took a look to see who still has debt from the presidential primary and who is free and clear.

Democrats

   * Clinton        $22,523,860
   * Kucinich       $1,177,644
   * Biden          $1,170,869
   * Dodd           $386,991
   * Edwards        $354,719
   * Richardson     $285,418
   * Gravel         $136,565

Republicans

   * Romney         $44,600,000
   * Giuliani       $3,124,113
   * Hunter         $222,447
   * Huckabee       $121,109
   * Thompson       $83,648
   * Paul           $0  
   * Tancredo       $0

The Republican party of Texas is ready to choose a bumper sticker slogan, and out of over a thousand entries, you would have thought they'd come up with something wittier than:

Obama for Change? That's all you'll have left in your pockets!

Insert idiot laugh here -- I don't know how to represent it phonetically -- "yuck yuck yuck" perhaps?

In yesterday's post, I noted how the Assemblies of God are rallying around Kenneth Copeland's latest attempt to derail Sen. Chuck Grassley's investigation of nonprofit groups.

There's a very valid reason why the Assemblies may be quite concerned, should Congressional attention focus on them.

Namely...not only is illegal electioneering rife within the denomination, but there is some troubling evidence to suggest that violations may be crossing over into direct contributions to Assemblies-favoured candidates--possibly the most blatant 501(c)3 violations ever documented.