Pinpoint your chief objection to Mike Huckabee...

[saltpoint]

****

IMO, the most objectionable thing about Mike Huckabee is --

[daleanime]

1. What?

No 'all the above'?:evilgrin:

[saltpoint]

2. : )

Now THAT'S the kind of talk I like to hear!

[Inspired]

6. +1

All of the above.

[pscot]

13. +2

All of the above and then some.

[HughMoran]

23. +77

That was my choice.

[treestar]

3. I'm going with the religiosity

That insane stuff worries me and Bush gave it some lip service but didn't seem too fixated on it - if they really believe it imagine the damage such a President would do with regard to foreign relations. They'd be worse than Bush/Cheney.

[saltpoint]

4. Hi, treestar. Yes. It is one thing when Dubya tells a journalist that

Jesus is his favorite philosopher. It wasn't much more harmless, really, than an 8-year old trading baseball cards.

But with Huckabee there is the danger of the theocratic agenda deftly played into the big game. It is a source of worry.
---

edited: to apologize in advance to any 8-year olds who were likely offended by the comparison to George W. Bush.

[treestar]

7. Happy Thanksgiving saltpoint!

Cheney too was in it for power for himself, bad as that is, it's not as dangerous as that apocalyptic stuff that Palin and Huckster spout.

[saltpoint]

8. And a happy thanksgiving to ya right back.

Hope the weekend is a good one, too.

:thumbsup: :hi:

[marybourg]

5. He's a publican. nt.

[saltpoint]

9. Here is Huckabee's On The Issues page:

http://www.ontheissues.org/Mike_Huckabee.htm


Yuck.

[rocktivity]

10. Is that subliminal Christmas commercial he did still around?

(Gets off shiftless lazy ass and does her own research) Yep.

x(
rocktivity

[saltpoint]

20. OMG I had almost forgotten about that one.

What a yucky thing it is.

[southernyankeebelle]

11. I don't want a preacher for president - they just don't mix

[PADemD]

12. He's a Republican

[Clio the Leo]

16. +1 ..... what do more we need? NT

[GoCubsGo]

24. Another way of saying "all of the above"...

I find him to be equally reprehensible in all regards.

[Hippo_Tron]

14. None of the above: his arrogance

I read an interview with him in GQ during the primaries last year. He talked about how he pardoned Keith Richards for a traffic ticket he got in Arkansas. After doing so he told him "Keith I've made you right with the law. Now I want to make you right with the lord."

Mike, I've got news with you... Jesus Christ himself couldn't save Keith Richards!

[saltpoint]

19. Hi, Hippo_Tron. I'm thinking that Jesus would have to talk about with

Keith Richard than he ever would with Mike Huckabee.

[snake in the grass]

15. He's a jug-headed theocrat...

...and has no business being anywhere near the levers of government.

[jberryhill]

17. Other - this'll make you cringe, but...

...his likeability.

Absolutely, he'd be a dangerous theocrat.

But unlike other dangerous theocrats, he does it with a smiling face and an affable manner. He does not come across as a strident moral condemnation machine.

One of the things that killed McCain/Palin was the snarling contempt and derision directed at their opponents and encouraged among their supporters.

Huckabee's mild manner is his most dangerous weapon. It was Barack Obama's.

[saltpoint]

18. I hear you on that point. He doesn't have Romney's big bucks but he

does have charm.

I think that charm is dangerous.

[MarthaM]

21. He's not as 'mild-mannered' as he used to be (if he ever genuinely was)

Have you ever heard his little snippet thing that airs on talk radio daily? It started out sounding like a Paul Harvey type thing, with cute folksy news stories, and it's turned into a one-man snarkfest. The guy's every bit as sarcastic and nasty as Palin in two-minute 'Huckabee Report'. He comes across as more of a jerk every day that thing airs, and while I think his fans eat that up he isn't going to win over too many others with it.

[jberryhill]

22. I don't pay a lot of attention to him

...which may be why my vague impression of him is that of being relatively kindly.

He may have ratcheted it up, if voters last time didn't sense enough "passion" in him. He was mellow to the point of making folks wonder if he cared about winning.

But if he's getting testy lately, that's good.

Obama was able to work with the "omg he's an evil demon" stuff by simply presenting a contrast between his character and the image painted by his opponents. People wanting to see this awful man instead saw a nice guy, in contrast to an angry and erratic McCain.

[mitchum]

25. His religious nutjobbery

[knightinwhitesatin]

26. Newbie can't vote

but my vote would have been for horrible musical skills.....

[saltpoint]

27. I like it. And welcome to DU.

[Raine]

28. He's a self-righteous hypocrite

who acts reasonable but is a phoney and a far right wing nut bag.

[saltpoint]

29. Agree. He has that preacher charm -- he's actually a Southern Baptist

minister -- so he sounds reasonable but your assessment that he is a self-righteous hypocrite, is right-on.

[Hawkowl]

30. Hmmm. He's a Republican?

That would be my biggest objection.

[LeftishBrit]

31. That he's a right-winger!

ETA: that would translate as 'all of the above'!

[saltpoint]

32. You're right -- it would. Huckabee should plead guiltly as charged.

I'm hoping he decides not to enter the race but it looks as if he really wants iin the race.

[Starry Messenger]

33. He's a homophobe.

Another smiling hater.

[saltpoint]

34. Agree. It's dehumanizing for the Far Right to keep pretending that

same-sex relationships are in some way dangerous or undeserving of the rights and privileges of marriage when national polling and History are very clear that they are not dangerous and do deserve marriage rights.

Huckabee is homophobic and is smart enough not to be, leaving progressives a choice between his being too lazy to employ any critical thinking for the issue or that he is deliberately mean-spirited and exclusional. My guess is the latter.

[sunnybrook]

35. I voted for other

because more than anything it was his "joke" about Obama being assassinated that was out of line... what an asshole!

[Bluenorthwest]

36. 'thinly veiled' is not accurate. He's full tilt dominionist.

And my real answer would have been all of the above had the option been given.

[saltpoint]

39. Fair enough. He does sound pretty full-tilt, to me at least.

[Alcibiades]

58. You took the words

right off of my keyboard. Was about to post exactly that, but figured I'd actually read the discussion to see if someone had said it, and you had. Because it's true.

[windbreeze]

37. So now this is a republican site?

He IS a Republican, that in itself, raises enough objections for me...wb

[saltpoint]

40. We are a Constitutional republic, if that is your question.

If you meant the Republican Party, no, so far as any of us knows, this is not a Republican site.

The original post in this thread is strongly anti-Huckabee.

[AllentownJake]

38. We should not give Nuclear Codes to men believing they are living in the Last Days

Sounds like a very very bad idea.

[saltpoint]

41. I'll second that.

And then glare at Mike Huckabee so he knows who we mean.

[AllentownJake]

43. It is a miracle we survived Reagan and Bush II without a Nuclear Holocaust

Giving nuclear codes to people who have wet dreams over the apolocalypse is eventually going to result in something wore happening.

[saltpoint]

44. Yes. In an earlier time in our country, communists were said to have

pervaded every walk of American life. Government, schools, and the film industry.

Now it is the terrorists, who conspire with such menacing willfulness and adaptability that we must buy duct tape by the truckload to seal outselves into our own homes.

The Right has been at the fear-mongering game for a long time, and it's getting worse, marking it not just as a poor civic attitude but as a psychiatric affliction.

[Odin2005]

42. He's a religious nutball.

[saltpoint]

45. A succinct assessment, and IMO, exactly right.

[Orsino]

46. He's a member of that criminal failpile, the GOP.

Seriously, that's probably his worst fault, and is what keeps him from making any fucking sense when he talks.

[saltpoint]

47. True -- and you and I are likely not his target audience, which is a good

thing for us, but it does make me nervous about the people who are his target audience.

My hope is that there are not nearly enough of them to nominate Huckabee. Of the many poor choices for a 2012 ticket, he is the candidate I fear the most.

[AlinPA]

48. He is a phony Christian, and nothing but a right-wing extremist. nt

[saltpoint]

49. What's dangerous about Huckabee, IMO, is that he appears to be

a sincere man, even when he is snarky, and that his preacherly charm can get to larger audiences than say, ice-souled Mitt Romney.

I think you are exactly right -- he is a fraud of a Christian, but he did remain a fairly strong candidate in the 2008 GOP primaries. Of course his competition was kind of thin. I thought McCain was cooked early on, but he held on to win. With McCain well out of the picture this next round, Huckabee and Romney strike me as the big boys in the contest.

I still don't believe Palin or Pawlenty are top-tier contenders for the Puke nom.

[AlinPA]

50. I think the republican base will insist on Palin on the ticket; either at the head, or VP again. nt

[saltpoint]

52. She could surprise me, but Iowa is looking kind of iffy for her right now.

Romney is a stiff. He spent a lot of dough last cycle and didn't get nearly as far as he might have hoped.

Maybe he's improved the show here and there this cycle but it doesn't seem as if he has quite enough cards in the deck to defeat an even more conservative candidate. GOP primary voters just don't seem likely to be enthusiastic about a Mormon candidate. Romney is limited in appeal. He's tall, he's handsome, he's rich, and he's Mormon.

If Huckabee wants the job and thinks the nomination is worth having, he'll likely go for it. It looks to me that he could defeat Romney in Iowa, draw a respectable second in New Hampshire, and then sweep South Carolina. Romney would be in no better position after SC than he was this past time.

But whether Palin can capitalize on Romney's troubles is yet to be seen. I think she loses in Iowa, placing perhaps third or even fourth, with Huckabee the likely winner, and because she is a sensationlist, Palin announces before midnight that she will bolt from the Republican primary contests and seek the White House as an Independent.

That immediately steals the fire from Huckabee and presents an electoral nightmare for him. He can't carry a swing state if all the nutbags vote indie for Palin. Even in a depressed Democratic turn-out, a Palin third-party campaign would doom the Republican ticket.

[asdjrocky]

51. I don't like the cut of his jib.

Whatever that means.

[saltpoint]

53. Appropriately assessed, IMO.

Hey there.

Happy Thanksgiving, a day or two late.

[saltpoint]

54. On Huckabee and the Lakewood, Washington murders:

This poll was posted prior to today's news from Lakewood, in which a man said to have been granted clemency by then-Governor Huckabee, also reportedly over the objections of prosecutors, shot and killed four police officers.

There are concurrent DU threads on Huckabee's chances in the aftermath of this event if in fact it is borne out that he granted clemency to the assassin.

In the early reports of the shootings mention was made of the cafe being "near a military base." Can't speak for others but I found that kind of reporting careless and reactionary. It seems to me that a good editor would have taken that out of the first draft. Evidently not.

One variable I'd like to know is whether the man who shot the police officers had been examined by behavioral health clinicians in Arkansas and found to be stable and well integrated, or not. If Huckabee listened to credentialed therapists who had examined this guy and then made his decision, it is a different kind of decision than if he just decided to blow off the prosecutors' recommendations to be flippant or because he felt like it.

[damonm]

55. Did "other"...

...as you didn't include "all of the above".

[saltpoint]

56. I've been kicked around a bit for failing to put in "all of the above," plus

it occurs to me after today's news that the ' conduct as Arkansas' governor' choice might have drawn a bit more votes if I'd posted the poll tonight.

[Skittles]

57. he looks like Howdy Doody

[saltpoint]

59. LOL.

[Joe Bacon]

60. Wayne Dumond!

'nuff said! :puke:

[saltpoint]

61. Hi, Joe. I was woefully ignorant of the Dumond case until tonight on DU,

and it kicked my butt to google up some info.

Thank you for being one of the butt-kickers.

The initial response across a few of the blogs seems to lean toward Huckabee's being suddenly a non-contender for the Republican nomination.

[EFerrari]

62. His thinly veiled white supremacist code.

Sarah Palin's got nothing on him.

[saltpoint]

63. Agree with both your point and the ping-pong point off Palin.

I feel that in Huckabee without actually having in-hand evidence. The vibe is present as far as I'm concerned, and it is strong.

[EFerrari]

64. I was watching him at a rally last time out.

My brain won't give me the specifics but he was awful. In fact, listening to him and watching him at that rally taught me how to listen to Pain and her "Obama's not like us" stuff at her own Klan rallies. I've been mercifully under-exposed to people who speak that way so both of these individuals have been an education. :wow:

[saltpoint]

65. You know, though, I like it that you were not tuned into that dog-whistling

racism and fear-mongering that Huckabee and Palin and other Republicans practice.

It could be argued that you have put better things on your shelves than their skullduggery.

Great music. Rothkos. Poetry.