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Huckabee Saves Chocking NC Candidate With Heimlich Maneuver
Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee saved the day at the North Carolina Republican Party Convention. Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, Robert Pittenger, suddenly began choking after laughing during a meal. Mike Huckabee immediately went over to Pittenger and began performing the Heimlich Maneuver on him. Pittenger said the food immediately dislodged thanks to Huckabee.
Video: Huckabee Concession Speech
McCain Clinches GOP Nomination, Huckabee Pulls Out Of Race
According to the AP count, John McCain surpassed the requisite 1,191 GOP delegates as voters in Ohio, Vermont, Rhode Island and Texas put him over the threshold.
Moments after it became clear that McCain had captured the 1,191 delegates, Gov. Mike Huckabee ended his bid for the nomination just as he said he would do.
Huckabee promised to do everything he could to support Sen. McCain and unite the Republican party.
-Chris Jones
Huckabee Wins West Virginia
Mike Huckabee won the first contest declared on Super Tuesday, picking up all 18 national delegates awarded at West Virginia’s state GOP convention.
McCain is still the Republican front-runner, all but unchallenged in winner-take-all primaries in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and his home state of Arizona.
-Chris Jones
Huckabee Performing With His Band “Capital Offense”
Huckabee and Obama Dominate In Iowa
Sen. Barack Obama swept to victory in the Iowa caucuses Thursday night, pushing Hillary Rodham Clinton to third place. Mike Huckabee rode a wave of support from evangelical Christians to win the opening round among Republicans in the 2008 campaign for the White House.
Complete returns showed the first-term lawmaker gaining 38 percent support from Iowa Democrats. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina appeared headed for second place, relegating Clinton, to a sort of close third.
Huckabee, a preacher turned politician, handily defeated Romney despite being outspent by millions of dollars. He stressed his religion to the extent of airing a commercial that described himself as a “Christian leader” in his race against a man seeking to become the first Mormon president.
Nearly complete returns showed Huckabee with 34 percent support, compared with 25 percent for Romney. Former Sen. Fred Thompson and Sen. John McCain battled for third place, while Texas Rep. Ron Paul wound up fifth and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani sixth.
With the New Hampshire primary only five days away, the three way battle between Clinton, Edwards, and Obama for the Democratic nomination is sure to heat up.
Senator Hillary Clinton assured her supporters in a speech after the results that she intends to see this race through to the end, and that there is still a long way to go.
“We have always planned to run a national campaign,” the former first lady told supporters at a noisy rally attended by her husband and their daughter, Chelsea. “I am so ready for the rest of this campaign, and I am so ready to lead.”
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney sought to frame his defeat by looking at the bright side, saying he had trailed Huckabee by more than 20 points a few weeks ago.
“I’ve been pleased that I’ve been able to make up ground and I intend to keep making up ground, not just here but across the country,” he said.
Turnout for this year’s Iowa caucuses was up for both parties, but the Democrats enjoyed a substantial increase compared to previous years.
Projections estimated that 220,588 Democrats showed up on a cold midwinter’s night, shattering the previous mark of 124,000.
Turnout on the Republican side projected about 114,000 people taking part. The last previous contested Republican caucuses in 2000 drew 87,666 participants.
In interviews as they entered the caucuses, more than half of all the Republicans said they were either born-again or evangelical Christians, and they liked Huckabee more than any of his rivals.
About half the Democratic caucus-goers said a candidate’s ability to bring about needed change was the most important factor as they made up their minds, according to the entrance interviews by the AP and the television networks.
Tonight was no doubt a devastating loss for Mrs. Clinton, however her opponents would be incredibly naive to underestimate her. I suspect the gloves are gonna come off the Clinton campaign from this point on. Obama can look forward to withering attack ads, whisper campaigns, and all the rest starting tomorrow morning.
It should be interesting to see how far the Huckaboom can go. While he did have a decisive victory in Iowa, he will have a tougher time in the national election. During a time of war, it’s not likely that Republicans are going to nominate a guy with virtually no foreign policy experience whatsoever.
The guy to really watch on the Republican side is John McCain who is in the midst of quite a comeback. His campaign got off to an incredibly rocky start, and most pundits left him for dead months ago.
-Chris Jones
Iowa Pastors Supporting Huckabee Receive Anonymous Warning Letters
Iowa pastors who support Republican Mike Huckabee for president have received letters warning them that getting involved in politics could endanger the tax-exempt status of their churches.
Several pastors who have publicly backed Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister who has support from many evangelicals, said they have received the letters, which have no return address. They have arrived in the weeks leading to Thursday’s precinct caucuses.
Two letters were sent to the Rev. Brad Sherman, of Solid Rock Christian Church in Coralville. The first arrived a couple weeks ago and warned that he could be prosecuted for his support of Huckabee.
“I just laughed. No one lands in jail for this,” Sherman said. “Somebody is trying to intimidate Christians from getting involved.”
There is no question that those letters were meant to intimidate Christians. A Pastor is allowed to endorse anyone as a private citizen.
It only crosses the line when a church leader actively uses the the pulpit to campaign for a candidate and recommend to the congregation that they should vote for a particular candidate.
However, it’s perfectly legal for a Pastor to encourage his congregation to go out and vote.
-Chris Jones
Huckabee To Cross Picket Line To Appear On Leno
Huckabee Has Anti-War Protesters Arrested
Mike Huckabee called “the fuzz” on a bunch of shrill anti-war protesters today at his campaign office in Iowa. Of course, the liberal blogs are incensed by the Governor’s audacity.
Eight members of the Iowa Occupation Project and Voices for Creative Nonviolence arrived at Huckabee’s Locust St. campaign office early Monday afternoon, waiting for the former Arkansas governor’s reply to a letter delivered two months ago that sought his pledge to completely withdraw from Iraq within 100 days of assuming office; halt all military actions against Iraq and Iran; fund the rebuilding of Iraq as well as health, education and infrastructure needs in the U.S.; and “…the highest quality health care, education and jobs training benefits for veterans of our country’s Armed Services.”
Brian Terrell, director of the Catholic Peace Ministry in Des Moines, said approximately 35 reporters, including a number of international journalists, were at Huckabee’s office during the protest.
Terrell said in addition to the “Who Would Jesus Bomb?” banner, the eight protesters held signs that read, “End Iraq War” and “No War with Iran,” sang the refrain from “Auld Lang Syne,” chanted ‘Who Would Jesus Bomb?’ and then read names of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers killed in the war.
Sgt. Vincent Valdez of the Des Moines Police Department said officers responded to an early afternoon complaint from the Huckabee Campaign office and arrested Robert Braam, Mona Shaw and Kathy Kelly, on charges of trespassing. He said the three were among a group “holding signs, singing and reading aloud, basically making a disturbance.” Valdez said the officers had no trouble making the arrests and the three were taken to the Polk County jail.
Huckabee was within his rights to call “the fuzz” on the protesters. As I have said numerous times on this site, protesting is fine within reason.
It would have been perfectly acceptable for the group to stand outside Huckabee’s office for as long as they wanted and sing, picket, or smoke a peace pipe.
Where they crossed the line was going into his office to protest. It’s absurd to think you can walk into someone’s office and basically hi-jack the place and start protesting.
They were standing in his office singing, chanting, and holding signs, which undoubtedly prevented work from being done.
Having anti-war protesters thrown in the clink is doing God’s work as far as I’m concerned. I only wish there had been a couple of members of Code Pink involved.
-Chris Jones
Rice Calls Huckabee Criticism “Ludicrous”
Today Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rejected Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s recent bizarre comments to Iowa voters that the Bush Administration’s foreign policy is characterized by a “bunker mentality.”
“The idea that somehow this is a go-it-alone policy is just simply ludicrous,” she said at a State Department news conference. “One would only have to be not observing the facts, let me say that, to say that this is now a go-it-alone foreign policy.”
Huckabee’s comments have angered many Republicans including rival candidate Mitt Romney who called for the former Arkansas Governor to apologize to President Bush.
You expect to hear that kind of rhetoric out of Ron Paul or any Democrat, but not a leading Republican candidate. Besides the fact that it isn’t true, it’s also a little odd that the candidate with the least amount of foreign policy experience would make such an uninformed, and ignorant statement.
If Mike Huckabee thinks he’s going to sway conservative Iowa Republicans, or any other Republicans by attacking the President’s foreign policy, then he’s not smart enough to be President.
-Chris Jones
Huckabee Last Hope For Christian Right?
Dick Morris has an interesting column this week about Mike Huckabee and the Christian right.
Peel them away and, underneath, you have Mike Huckabee, the last survivor in the elimination tournament of the Christian right. And they could do a whole lot worse!
Start with the dreams about Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), who became former Sen. George Allen before he could become a viable presidential candidate. Then go to Mitt Romney, his putative opponent for the designation of the right wing. But that was before he ran straight into a wall of bigotry against Mormons. The most recent polling suggests that while a majority of voters agree that “other Americans” would be amenable to a black or female candidate for president, only 36 percent feel that way about a Mormon. Unjustified. Unfair. Outrageous as it is — it nevertheless is. That prejudice and the justifiable cynicism that his flip-flop-flip on abortion engendered have held down his vote share despite massive advertising. (He was pro-life before he ran against Sen. Edward Kennedy (D) in Massachusetts, at which point he discovered a relative who died after an illegal abortion, which, conveniently, induced a change of heart. He remained pro-choice as a governor of the most liberal state in America until, as he contemplated entering the GOP primary for president, he realized that abortion had cultivated a contempt for life and so decided to become pro-life — equally conveniently.)
If you wanna read the rest of Dick’s column just click HERE.
