Okay, I'll try this again. I'm going to try and live blog the debate tonite. Blogstream is kind of quirky with updates, so I may have to just save all my comments and put them in later.
On another note, as I and other supporters have been saying, Huck is moving up big time. And he needs money to compete. I have increased my donation target to $250, and as before, I will match all donations until the target is met. I'm willing to do my part, how about helping me help the Gov.?
10:11 That was torture! Let's see some donations now folks!
10:09 Great Red Sox question. Yankees won 4 titles while Rudy was mayor.
10:07 Crazy uncle Paul will not run as an independent. He's giddy! $4.3 million in one day!
10:04 Infrastructure spending -- this should be Huck's question . . . nope, Rudy gets it. Uncle Paul -- more spending on war than home; John McCain -- no bridges to nowhere, slams Rudy on pork; Rudy -- line item veto is unconstitutional; Fred?'s laughing!
10:03 Crazy uncle Paul's video is pretty wild, makes him look even nuttier.
10:00 Question about the Rebel flag. Mitt doing a lot of stammering on this!
9:58 Huck got plenty of votes from the African-American community. Reach out to all portions of the society.
9:56 Mars Society? Who the hell are these guys? Huck likes the space program. More money into science and tech. "Hillary on first rocket to Mars." heh heh
9:55 No such thing as Social Security trust fund. It's a pay as you go system! Geez, didn't anyone pay attention in civics class?
9:52 Huck would accept support of gay Republicans, but won't change position based on their support. Chuck Norris is in the audience! Cool!
9:48 D-Hunt bravely answers question about openly serving gays and lesbians. Huck's answer -- UMCJ says no. Mitt stumbled badly. Questioner is in audience. He didn't admit to being gay while serving, isn't that in conflict with his own question? John McCain -- don't ask/don't tell is working.
9:46 Huck's video. Excellent! Nice applause.
9:43 D-Hunt has Chuck Yeager endorsement. Cool.
9:40 Good animation! Nice rejoinder from Fred? How much power for VP? Lots of talk, no answer from Fred?
John McCain -- bit of love for Bush here.
9:34 Crazy uncle Paul has just completely mis-represented Iraq progress. John McCain looks pissed. How are we occupying Saudi Arabia? Ron Paul is totally nuts!
9:30 Edgy exchange between Mitt and John about torture. Again, I appreciate John McCain's experience, but he might be wrong on this issue.
9:27 D-Hunt! I'll never apologize for the US!
9:25 Rudy needs to read the Qur'an, no one is perverting Islam.
9:18 Huck nailing this!!!!!!!!!
9:16 What a clown asking that Bible question!
9:13 Death penalty question for Huck -- eloquent answer -- big applause -- "Jesus was too smart to run for public office" Fabulous!
9:12 Sign ban on abortion? Rudy - no; Mitt - yes; why not ask everyone? Come on, Anderson!
9:09 Oh, oh, abortion question. Crazy uncle Paul is an OB/Gyn? How come we've never heard this before? Fred wants to punish the Dr if abortions become illegal.
9:02 Rudy tap-dancing as fast as he can about gun control. BTW, 2nd Amendment does not guarantee a carry permit. Hey, Fred owns guns! John McCain missed a good joke about using guns. Waiting for Huck on this . . . nothing.
8:58 Oh brother! Gun control video. A**holes like Jay make us all look bad!
8:56 Geez, this is exhausting!
8:52 Nice answer by Mitt about the abortion flip-flop, impressed! Huck had a nice parry of Fred?'s attack video.
8:51 Good slam against China by D-Hunt! "Buy American!"
8:49 Tanc's ad is pretty cool!
8:44 Huck mentions again about signing no tax pledge
8:41 McCain slams uncle Paul about isolationism. "Let us win!" I think John wants to lay the smackdown on uncle Paul.
8:39 Huck brings down the house about eliminating the IRS!
8:38 Fred isn't answering that question about the three programs. Crazy uncle Paul would cut Depts of Education, Homeland Security and I missed the last one.
8:34 I like John McCain, but he looks exhausted. Whew, that fired him up! Look at that smirk, don't think John is impressed with Mitt.
8:29 Huck handled Mitt well after he again mis-represents Huck's plan.
8:26 Huck straightens the record about tuition for children of illegals. Good mention about his veteran's bill of rights.
8:24 Tancredo sounded good on the guest worker program. Duncan Hunter is trying to get elected on his fence alone.
8:18 Fred, nice jab at Mitt and Rudy
8:13 Whew, slugfest between Mitt and Rudy!
8:08 Singing guy, this is officially stupid!
8:05 Mis-stating Huck as running on anti-abortion platform. Where did that come from?
Okay, here's the thing with the widget -- I'd like to at least hit my donation target. I've put one donation in already, I'll match any other donation until I reach the $100 target -- you put in $10, I'll put in $10; you put in $20, I'll put in $20. I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is here. Let's help the best candidate win, he needs the cash to compete. Thanks
Here's a few exchanges between the Gov. and the cloyingly annoying Chris Matthews on Hardball the other day. I left out the nonsense about the Scott McClellan book as it has little to do with the presidential race.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about your appeal.
You must know, when you travel around—I mean, when you come here, everybody seems to like you. You seem to have an appeal to the American people right now, Governor, that wasn‘t expected when we first looked at the shape of this field.
Can you explain it?
HUCKABEE: Well, there‘s a big, long line of people who don‘t like me that much, too. They‘re throwing all sorts of stuff.
But I—I think what people sense in me is that I‘m not a candidate who‘s the sort of culmination of a room full of consultants. I pretty well say what‘s on my mind, and I‘m going to say it the same way tomorrow that I said it yesterday. I think people find that refreshing.
I know what I believe. I‘m comfortable in that. If the people reject me in those beliefs, I can live with that. I couldn‘t live with changing my view every day to come up with one other way to try to sell the voters on something that I don‘t even believe myself.
And I think, if there‘s anything that the American people are looking for in leadership, it‘s not that they have to agree with me on every issue, because they won‘t, but they would like for me to agree with myself that I would approach this with convictions, with a sense of—of clarity.
MATTHEWS: Right.
HUCKABEE: And I do believe that, whether a person is a Republican or Democrat, they‘re looking for that.
MATTHEWS: You seem to be a conservative fundamentalist. I don‘t mean that in a religious sense, although I know you are, but a fundamentalist about the Constitution as written, the original intent on the Second Amendment. You seem to be a person who‘s very comfortable with a hard-and-fast position on a lot of conservative truths. Is that the best way to look at you?
HUCKABEE: I would like to think that. Of course, you know, then I would get attacked for being a pro-life liberal by one of the other candidates.
So, it‘s really one of those issues, Chris, where I think labels sometimes become so simplistic. I‘m a conservative. I think I‘m an independent conservative. I‘m not a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street.
I challenge my own party to talk more about hunger and poverty and about the environment, because I think we ought to be giving leadership on issues like that, as well as education and health care reform.
And I feel like we have allowed maybe the Democrats to own those issues, and they shouldn‘t. Frankly, the American people ought to own those issues. It shouldn‘t be left, right, liberal, conservative issues. It ought to be vertical, up-down issues.
And what I‘m sensing people are wanting more than anything else, more than a Democrat or Republican, they want someone who says, “If I‘m elected president, I will manage the crises. I will manage the government. And we will fix some of these problems by not trying to make it all a Republican solution."
Now, I don‘t think that detracts from my being a conservative.
MATTHEWS: No.
HUCKABEE: I think it perhaps means that I have been a governor, and I have had to actually balance a budget and make things work.
MATTHEWS: You know, it sounds like—and I mean this with respect—it sounds like you‘re a bit of Martin Luther. You‘re a “Here I stand” kind of guy.
HUCKABEE: That‘s a compliment to me.
MATTHEWS: Oh, it sure is. I—I mean it that way.
HUCKABEE: Martin Luther is one of my theological heroes.
MATTHEWS: And I mean it that way, but it seems like you‘re almost a...
HUCKABEE: And, as a Baptist, you know, to give praise to Martin Luther, no, it‘s a...
MATTHEWS: And you‘re leading a reform of the conservative movement, it seems to me. It‘s a little deeper than just a personality change. It looks to me like you want to reform the conservative movement, purify it.
HUCKABEE: I don‘t have any illusions that I‘m, you know, the great white hope of the conservative movement.
But I do think that, for example, true conservatives ought to be conservationists. True conservatives ought to do that which will preserve and conserve the best of our children and the next generation. We ought to bring the kind of reforms to health care that actually, in the long term, will cost less money than what we‘re doing now, which is intervening at the last moment of catastrophic disease.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
HUCKABEE: There are some things that we can do that could radically change this country‘s future. And, if we don‘t do it, Chris, and if all we do is just sit and argue about who‘s winning, Democrats or Republicans, it‘s our grandchildren that ultimately are going to pay the price for that.
MATTHEWS: OK, thank you very much, Governor Mike Huckabee, who‘s making a big challenge for that Iowa Caucus on January 3.
[widget moved up]
Okay, the widget thingy is working like it's supposed to. Now to business. I set my goal at $100, and I'm half way there. This is a big fundraising push for the Gov. If you can spare a couple of bucks, click on the contribute button and help out.
Maybe this will encourage you:
Wrestling superstar Rick Flair has officially endorsed the Gov. for President --
"It's a tremendous honor to offer my support to such an outstanding leader as Mike Huckabee" Flair said. "His authentic conservative qualifications and level of executive leadership experience are unmatched by his opponents. And like I always say, to be the man, you've got to beat the man and Mike Huckabee is the man. Whoooooooo!"
Flair will make his endorsement official by campaigning with Huckabee at a tailgate at 5:00 PM prior to the Clemson-Carolina game that will take place just outside the West Entrance to Williams Brice Stadium in Stadium Lot spaces 433-434 on Saturday, November 24.
Mr. Flair has previously campaigned for the presidential primary campaigns of George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, and George W. Bush. His endorsement comes on the heels of the unveiling of a new Huckabee campaign ad featuring the endorsement of actor and martial arts expert, Chuck Norris.
So the Gov. officially has the baddest campaign endorsements out there. Oh Yeah! Okay, it's kind of kooky, but what the heck, we've got to have a couple of laughs along the way.
Okay, here's a new donation widget. It is coded specifically for me, so all donations are credited to my account. If it loads properly, I'll make sure it appears on each page, moving it from old to newest blog. I'm starting low, a $100 total in donations. This blog is getting a bit of traffic, so we'll see if it is only one or two people checking back a lot, or whether there's a bunch of folks dropping by.
Many Blogstream members are there
already! Quotes from members: "It's like blog lite!" -- "I like the instant
gratification!" -- "Stop spectating, get in the game!"
If you have not joined in, you are really missing out!
