My thoughts, going off of the ad:
He really did all that for Arkansas? Can he walk on water and turn it into wine too?
How did he do everything he claims he did while *cutting* taxes? And, more to the point, who did he cut them for?
I think the more politically aware residents of Michigan will hear the code in "cutting taxes" and make their decision based off of that.
Governor Scudder's hoping that, for Michigan at least, ignorance is bliss.
"Most Americans want their next president to remind them of the guy they work with, not the guy who laid them off".
is it just me? I don't even know what this means? huh?
He is talking about Romney. There is a ad about Romney firing all these people at a plant he ran in Mass.
Huckabee doesn't have to sell himself too hard in Michigan - and his being batshit crazy won't be much of an issue in a state that, outside of Detroit, Ypsi, Flint, Ann Arbor and East Lansing is one of the most racially segregated, politically assbackwards havens for right wing nutjobs in the Union. Hell, he could run for Governor there and do quite well for himself. Especially considering that the only thing of substance that Romney has going for him there is family name recognition, and he'll likely win the state unless he totally fucks up. That, in and of itself, is all you need to know about Michiganders - some of the dumbest fuckers in the country.
Dr. Bopper, I've always maintained that native Floridians were the dumbest fuckers (with Mississippi and a few other states vying for stupidest or most pig-ignorant).
Michigan has a huge rural component to it, and that tends to mean lots of fundis and charasmatics these days. The greater Grand Rapids area trends very conservative and very pro-corporate in the worst sense of the word, and then you have odd company towns like Midland, which isn't a very big town, yet has two high schools - one for the blue collars and one for the executives' kids at Dow Chemical and whatever's left of Dow Corning.
Add to that a job situation that is just plain bad throughout the state, a poorly thought out tax breakdown that doesn't fully fund their needs pushed through under Engler, and you have a lot of frustrated people looking for new options.
Huckabee will do better than expected there, and a win wouldn't at all surprise me.
(But remember - this is also the state that produced Michael Moore, and he learned how to sell himself there before he went national. Surprises can happen there as well.)
Doc, if nothing else I like the time stamp on this post. Long night or getting an early start? 
>"Most Americans want their next president to remind them of the guy they work with, not the guy who laid them off".
A variation of who you'd want to have a beer with?
Obama has his "Change!" strategy, which involves him saying the word as many times as possible and not specifying his platform, what he stands for, what will he do as president.
Huckabee has his "Regular guy!" strategy, which is his version of a populist candidate, involving "I am of the people" schtick.
My my this election is glorious.
He's trying to appeal to everyone, not just independents and Republicans. Michigan primary voters are not limited to voting for someone in their party. He's hoping Democrats will show up at the polls and not know that he's GOP.
Mike Huckabee has a good slogan for the main race too.
Most Americans want their president to remind them of the slightly below average kid who worked hard at remedial classes, got Cs and Ds anyway, and threw a tantrum when the science teacher talked about evolution, not the smart girl or uppity black guy who got As in the hard classes without having to struggle.
It's perfect for Mike. Really catches the Essence of the Huckabee.
Batshit crazy?
Compared to whom? Rudy Giuliani? Ron Paul? Alan Keyes? Tom Tancredo? Duncan Hunter?
The Republicans really only have three choices in this election:
1. Batshit crazy (all of the above)
2. Brown nosing panderer (Romney and McCain)
3. Asleep at the wheel Grandpa (Thompson and maybe McCain)
As for Michigan? I've got a lot of family from upstate Michigan. Let me tell you Appalachia has nothing on upstate Michigan. I'm thinking of a particular cousin of mine. Big huge dude. Works as a prison guard and deputy sheriff. Lives for his giant 4x4 pickup, gun collection, and hunting. Hand loads his own ammo in his spare time. Would rather eat glass than vote for a Democrat who's going to take away his guns and raise his taxes to support the lazy n****ers who live in Detroit.
Huckabee is right in his wheelhouse.
wanderer wrote: "Dr. Bopper, I've always maintained that native Floridians were the dumbest fuckers (with Mississippi and a few other states vying for stupidest or most pig-ignorant)."
wanderer.....
Clearly your travels have never brought you to Texas. We do everything bigger and better down here. Including ignorance.
US Blues -
I woke up in the middle of the night, posted up, and fell back asleep till just now. (I normally wake up about every 3-4 hours to take pain meds.)
Now that I'm awake, I'm doing a quick once around to make sure everything's fine.
Then on my way out the door to go have brunch (and work on a post for tomorrow.) Waffles and bacon. Yum.
I have a number of relatives (who I am not in close contact with) in Northern Indiana.
Which is a very frightening place.
Where someone actually said to my mother and I (born there, got out) when we inquired where to find the closest bookstore, "You're not from around here, are you?" and turned her back on us.
They would wear Xenophobia t-shirts; if they knew what the hell it meant.
What can be done about people who are stone ignorant and proud of it?
I suspect the adapt-or-die economy we are facing will deal most harshly with them. It's possible a resurgence of traditional agriculture, caused by a shortage of petro-based fertilizers, which let them hang on.
But they won't save themselves. They don't even know how endangered they are. And if you try to tell them, they tend to hate you.
Yes, I too know Huckabee's base.
This is gonna be fun. Markos is promoting Democrats to cross over and support Romney (the "native son" whose heavily-funded campaign is bleeding in the polls); DOG (the Democrats who orchestrated the early demise of Governor Engler's national career when they crossed over and handed Michigan to McCain instead of Bush, who Engler'd promised the state to, in '00) are supporting Huckabee; both the Free Press and the News are supporting McCain, in hopes that the legendarily right-wing MIGOP (run for years by the daughter-in-law of the Republican fundraiser with the Amway fortune, whose sister is married to the guy who started Blackwater — "I know a little something about soft money, as my family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party" —Betsy De Vos) has forgotten about McCain Feingold; any feet Huckabee has on the ground are self-organized evangelical volunteers, and clerical Huckabee supporters say they've gotten anonymous e-mails threatening their tax status if they support him publicly; Jim "á bas les frostbacks" Gilchrist of the Minutemen is in working-class cities stumping for Huckabee; and election workers say that up to 15% of known Republican voters have requested Democratic absentee ballots.
The marvellous thing about Michigan is that by the time they leave, every one of the candidates is going to offend deeply at least one of their party's core constituencies, and whoever gets out on top is going to have an asterisk attached to them going into 2/5 (in some cases, more than one).
and election workers say that up to 15% of known Republican voters have requested Democratic absentee ballots.
Not really that weird. A whole lot of people are registered in one party but vote in another party. For example, I'm willing to bet there are large numbers of wives out there who are registered Republican because their husbands are, but who vote Democratic in the voting booth. A lot of kids also register to their parent's party when they are 18 and then never bother to change parties later if/when their politics change and mature.
It's probably a misnomer to call these folks "known Republican voters" because we do have a secret ballot. It's probably more correct to call them registered Republicans.
Also, I suspect a whole lot of Michigan residents applied for Democratic absentee ballots not knowing that Clinton would be the only candidate on the ballot. A lot of them probably thought that they would be getting to choose between Obama, Clinton, and Edwards, etc.
Kent, my man - you know exactly what I'm talking about. All due respect to family ties.
Kent, my man - you know exactly what I'm talking about. All due respect to family ties.
Yep, his wife is a waitress in a truck stop. She's about 35 and about 100 pounds overweight. Her email handle is
truckstopbabe@.....
Also a die-hard Republican and no doubt a Huckabee girl too.
My wife still gets puzzled when we get the annual family email letter from someone called truckstopbabe....
Gator, I know exactly what that means, because it goes directly to the thing that puzzled me most about W.
I've never been able to figure out that "have a beer with" thing. (For one thing: the guy's supposed to be in recovery, right?) To my working-class nose, he smells exactly like every incompetent college boy who got put in charge of the plant -- over far more deserving and experienced foremen -- because his daddy owned the joint and he wasn't qualified to do anything else.
Working-class guys hate those assholes. They're mean, they often make downright dangerous decisions, and don't hesitate to lord it over you just to show they can. And W just so that guy that I was astonished that working Americans couldn't smell the smug and smarmy from a mile off.
Huckabee's insulating himself from that kind of faux populism, and good on him for it. He is, as Dave Sirota wrote yesterday, making this a class issue -- and this phrase does that, plus several other things, all at once.
Northern Indiana, huh? My dad's people were among the earliest settlers (1820s) of Cass and Carroll Counties -- suburban Logansport. My granddad was a machinist who built parts for the Chrysler plant in Kokomo, while continuing to run the family farm on Deer Creek.
Meanwhile, up north, Mr. R's dad's people were the very first settlers of the Grand Rapids/Traverse City area. (The Rix Robinson clan built the first roads and ran the first trading posts in the region.) The Robinson boys were loggers, and famous for marrying Ojibwa brides. Mr. R's grandfather was born in Muskegeon in 1875. He was a dead-eye shot -- and the ninth of 11 kids -- so he left home and came west working as a meat hunter for the railroads in his mid-teens. Landed in California in the early 1890s, went into the oil business, and the rest is history...
So I know those backwoods Hoosiers and Michganders -- they're my people, too. Congratulations on getting the hell out.
I've never been able to figure out that "have a beer with" thing. (For one thing: the guy's supposed to be in recovery, right?) To my working-class nose, he smells exactly like every incompetent college boy who got put in charge of the plant -- over far more deserving and experienced foremen -- because his daddy owned the joint and he wasn't qualified to do anything else. Working-class guys hate those assholes. They're mean, they often make downright dangerous decisions, and don't hesitate to lord it over you just to show they can. And W just so that guy that I was astonished that working Americans couldn't smell the smug and smarmy from a mile off.
Ah...but you're missing the point. It isn't the working class stiffs who craving having a beer with Shrub. It's the smug frat boy syncophants that compose the national media elite who are obsessed with having a beer with Shrub. Think Chris Mathews. Because he's one of them. The faux populism. the towel-snapping meanness. The amorality.
Logansport?!?
My late best friend and her husband had to spend two years in Logansport. For the rest of her life, whenever they experienced something they liked about the Bay Area they said, "SIL" for 'Sure isn't Logansport', the epitome of backwardness. Rima said they went to a dance once in Logansport where everyone in town was there and she looked around and noticed that she was the only short brunette there. I've heard a lot of tales about Logansport....
The Huckster is ahead of the curve and is able to merge the republican values thing with the class warfare thing. So the values voters, having been beat to a pulp by republican hegemony (over the last 7 years) can still vote republican and feel good about it - even if it is a big government plan. Its a good indication of how complete the utter failure of republican ideology has become - that their best shot is essentially an internationally clueless domestic religious (nut) running as a liberal in disguise. All I can say is go Huck!.
Kent, since you have to request a ballot for the party you want to vote for in primaries, wouldn't a voter who previously has requested Republican ballots be a known Republican voter?
I have no idea what this means, except that the MIGOP has a history of freeping the Democratic nomination, so I assume it's not friendly. The Republican nomination is contentious enough that I can't quite see crossing over for a purely symbolic vote when you could be cancelling a vote for someone on the Republican side unless you had some sort of ulterior motive.
i think there should be a sign campaign of scarlet republican 'R's w/ arrows to point at the lawn signs of republicans not showing their party affiliation. the only way to identify the signs of the local Rs in the last election here in phx was by the LACK of a D on their sign.
Hmm. No short brunettes?
My Dunker great-grandmother, born right outside Logansport in the 1880s, was 4'10" with thick dark hair and snapping black eyes. One of the toughest women I've ever known -- but the draft horses and my 6'4" great-grandfather were terrified of her. She left the Old German Brethren (who are even more plain than their Amish neighbors) at 15 because she "wasn't gonna worship no god who didn't like pretty things." Gotta love it.
But there were a lot like her in that neck of the woods -- short, dark "Black Dutch" Bavarian gals from the various Plain communities that are scattered throughout northern IN. Given their religious proclivities, I doubt you'd see many of them at dances -- though Grandma Lydia was notoriously fond of tent shows. (She met Grandpa at one. But that's another family tale.)
Here in Washington State on my side of the mountains, you will never see an R on a Republican't poster. That's how you know they're Republican'ts, the deception and the shame.
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