http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2007/12/20/retro_campaigning Retro Campaigning By George Will Thursday, December 20, 2007 … On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee's role in the '70s Show involves blending Jimmy Carter's ostentatious piety with Nixon's knack for oblique nastiness. "Despicable" and "appalling" evidence of a "gutter campaign" — that is how The Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, Mass., characterized this from Sunday's New York Times Magazine profile of Huckabee: "'Don't Mormons,' he asked in an innocent voice, 'believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?'" Imagine someone asking "in an innocent voice" this: "Don't Jews use the blood of gentile children to make matzoth for Passover?" Such a smarmy injection of the "blood libel," an ancient canard of anti-Semitism, into civic discourse would indelibly brand the injector as a bigot with contempt for the public's ability to decode bigotry. Huckabee's campaign actually is what Rudy Giuliani's candidacy is misdescribed as being — a comprehensive apostasy against core Republican beliefs. Giuliani departs from recent Republican stances regarding two issues — abortion and the recognition by the law of same-sex couples. Huckabee's radical candidacy broadly repudiates core Republican policies such as free trade, low taxes, the essential legitimacy of America's corporate entities and the market system allocating wealth and opportunity. And consider New Hampshire's chapter of the National Education Association, the teachers union that is a crucial component of the Democratic Party's base. In 2004, New Hampshire's chapter endorsed Howard Dean in the Democratic primary and no one in the Republican primary. Last week it endorsed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary — and Huckabee in the Republican primary. It likes, as public employees generally do, his record of tax increases, and it applauds his opposition to school choice. Huckabee's role in this year's '70s Show is not merely to attempt to revise a few Republican beliefs. He represents wholesale repudiation of what came after the 1970s — Reaganism.

George F. Will, a 1976 Pulitzer Prize winner whose columns are syndicated in more than 400 magazines and newspapers worldwide, is the author of Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball.

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From Powerline, Paul Mirengoff says the following:

This was Mike Huckabee's comment on the Today show in response to Rich Lowry's argument that the Republican party should not nominate Huckabee for president:

"There's a sense in which all these years the evangelicals have been treated very kindly by the Republican Party. They wanted us to be a part of it. And then one day one of us actually runs, and they say, Oh, my gosh. Now they're serious. They don't want to just show up and vote. They actually would want to be a part of the discussion, and really talk about issues that include hunger and poverty and things that ought to be really a concern to every American, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative."

This self-pitying nonsense is an insult to Republicans, and demonstrates further why Huckabee should not be the party's standard bearer. First, Huckabee overlooks the fact that George W. Bush, though not a preacher, is a born-again Christian. If Republicans like Lowry wanted to keep Christian conservatives at arms-length why did they support Bush so firmly? The notion that evangelicals have somehow been excluded from the Republican discussion is ludicrous.

Second, the quickness with which Huckabee conflates criticism of his record and his policy statements with antipathy towards evangelicals is telling. Although Huckabee exudes charm and humility, I've heard Arkansas Republicans complain of his thin skin and vindictiveness. His statement on the Today program tends to confirm that assessment.

Huckabee seems to believe he deserves a “pass” by virtue of his status as an evangelical and the fact that evangelicals have supported Republicans. That's a dangerous mind set. Other serious Republican candidates have no difficulty understanding that resistance to them flows not from prejudice or elitism but from legitimate policy differences. Thus, Rudy Giuliani understands that his "pro-choice" and related positions, not anti-Catholicism, represent the source of Republican resistance. And John McCain has acknowledged that his position on immigration reform, not prejudice or personal animus (of which there actually is some), was the reason why his campaign faltered so dramatically. Huckabee's small-mindedness stands in sharp contrast, and constitutes another reason to see him as second-tier in stature, if not in present popularity.

Huckabee's statement aspires to seriousness when he attributes criticism from Lowry and others not just to his standing as an evangelical but also to his desire to "talk about hunger and poverty." Perhaps, then, Huckabee will point to the Republican critics who have attacked him for discussing these issues. To my knowledge, the criticism has focused on matters like tax increases (though I defended him on this), scholarships (not food) for illegal immigrants, the release from prison of an obviously dangerous rapist, the desire to negotiate directly with Iran, the desire to trade with Cuba in order to confer profits on Arkansas farmers, and so forth. Huckabee's strange and sometimes false explanations of these matters haven't helped him either.

If Huckabee's argument is that his religious beliefs impel him to wage war on poverty, he should articulate his anti-poverty agenda so that conservatives can examine the extent to which it comports with bedrock conservative principles. Right now, it looks like Huckabee has little use for the poverty issue beyond invoking it to whine about his critics.

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Townhall
By Governor Mitt Romney
December 19, 2007

"As Americans prepare for the holidays with their families and loved ones, we have many challenges to face but also many reasons to be thankful. We are thankful we live in a nation that is still a land of freedom, hope and opportunity. And we can be thankful that President Bush has kept us safe. Too often our politicians in Washington and on the campaign trail seem to have forgotten this simple fact.

"It was disheartening when Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) questioned the sworn testimony of General David Petraeus, the troop commander of our forces in Iraq, when he reported on the success of the surge. A disbelieving Senator Clinton said reports of progress require 'the willing suspension of disbelief.' We now know beyond any reasonable doubt that Senator Clinton was wrong and General Petraeus was right, and yet to this day she has refused to apologize for her unwarranted attack on the integrity of one of our finest soldiers. Even in my own party, Governor Mike Huckabee criticized President Bush by accusing him of 'an arrogant bunker mentality' in dealing with other nations around the world. Just like Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee has refused to apologize."

…

"In the wake of 9/11, the President took unprecedented steps to keep us safe and defend Americans at home and abroad. We revamped our homeland security apparatus, passed new laws that allowed us to listen in when al-Qaeda was calling, cleared out terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and successfully toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein.

"Far from home, our soldiers, National Guard and Reserves, have overcome early strategic mistakes to make progress in Iraq that is both undeniable and should be welcomed by all. This progress has come as America's heroes and their families have made unequalled sacrifices." 

…

"A half century ago, our mothers and fathers in the Greatest Generation came together to defeat fascism and communism, promote freedom and civil rights, and build a strong and prosperous country that is the envy of the world. They showed that there is no threat that a united America cannot defeat. By remembering their example, we can overcome the challenges that confront us."

To read the full op-ed, please see: http://www.townhall.com/

RedState has an open post for people to explain why the support Gov. Mitt Romney here.

I have not responded, but here is one reason:

He is the only one to have taken ANY of these classes:

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/academics/required.html

• Financial Reporting and Control
• Leadership and Organizational Behavior
• Technology and Operations Management
• Business, Government, and the International Economy
• Strategy
• The Entrepreneurial Manager
• Negotiation
• Finance II
• Leadership and Corporate Accountability

Fred Lucas (any relation to George?) wrote an article (from a computer
located in his closet) in Cyber News Service (ran out of that same
closet) called; "Romney Calls for Employment Verification System that
Already Exists."

Drudge has linked to it, and anything Drudge links to gets millions of hits…

But the article is plain wrong.

The article is taking Gov. Mitt Romney out of contect, and in the
process of doing so is LYING about what he said.

Romney spoke at length about the problems with the system… He spoke
about how it is illegal for employers to "descriminate" against fishy
documents… and how there is no way to identify if the documents that
are real.

So, no, the "Employment Verification System" that Romney calls for
does NOT exist.

I don't mean to yell, but what do you do when major news outlets say
things that aren't true? The tamper-proof ID badge for workers, that
has biometric information on them, that Romney called for on Meet the
Press DOES NOT EXIST.

Sure, there is a federal system, but that's not Romney's point.
Romney's point is the federal system sucks. That no GOOD SYSTEM exists
to have guest workers. Is this something too complicated for Fred
Lucas to understand?

Mike Huckabee says the US government has an “arrogant” “bunker mentality”. George Bush has surrounded himself with the best minds in the business. Dick Cheney was previously Secretary of Defense, and has more years in service of this country than Mike Huckabee has been alive. Robert M. Gates, the current secretary of defense was the Director of Central Intelligence for three years, and again make’s Huckabee’s Resume look pathetic. Rumsfeld was a brilliant strategist, and twice served as secretary of defence. Do we need to even mention the qualifications of General Petraeus? Each of these men lead organizations of thousands of people each working on the problems that America faces. Condoleezza Rice is also a very competent Secretary of State. These men and woman set American foreign policy, and project American power overseas.