Reply #10: OK [View All]

[WilliamPitt]

(snip)

1. No national GOP nominee can win if the base abandones him/her;

CONVERSELY...

2. If the GOP nominee has the base vote locked up, i.e. 25% of "likely voters" will vote GOP, it means that GOP nominee is halfway to victory before getting out of bed on Election day. Dems need 51% to win; if the GOP nominee has the base's support, he/she only needs 26% to win.

3. The GOP base never really went for Thompson, and have been truly sickened by the idea of having to vote for a baby-killer-gun-grabber like Giuliani or an evil anti-Christian cultist like Romney (and yes, that's how the GOP base describes Mormons). The base has mostly bailed on both Rudy and the Plastic-Fantastic phenomenon that is Mitt's eerily fake-looking head already...

...but they also have to beat HILLARY *thunder, lightning, brimstone*...whom they are convinced (thanks to the predictions of Rush, Savage and the faint radio signals picked up in their fillings) is a dead-bang mortal lock to be the Dem nominee...and thus, we have fundy hearts in conflict...fetus uber alles?...or beat Hillary?...fetus...Hillary...fetus...blarg...bzzt...

And then...Huckabee. Of course. When in doubt, choose the guy who doesn't believe in stuff like science and dinosaurs. For the GOP base, going for Huck was a no-brainer...yeah, and on many levels besides.

Huck has 25% nationally. That's Bush's crew. If Mitt and Rudy can't woo some or all of that 25% back into their camp before the 2/5 Primary-o-Doom, they're both finished. Rudy looks to be mostly done anyway, but Mitt still had a shot at bringing enough of the base back his way, still had a shot at the prize...especially if he hints (read: lies) that Huck will his pick for VP.

Not anymore. The base is about to be 100% done with Mitt, if my tea leaves are working properly.

P.S. Huckabee is my personal hero. I see no way he can win the nomination, but he could stick it out long enough to shatter Rudy and Butter-Head's campaigns completely...and that's A-OK with me, seeing as how Rudy actually listens to Podhoretz and Romney quite brazenly explained his belief that we have no rights or privacy or freedoms, and should expect to have none if he wins (per a recent Glen Greenwald blog post).

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/WilliamPitt/378