Any thoughts  I ever had about giving Mike Huckabee the benifit of the doubt just flew right out the window.  I saw a video interview wherein the person conducting the interview asked Huckabee about his thoughts on Romney leaving the race. Huckabee was grudgingly complimentary. Understandable given the amount of rancor between the two. But then the interviewer asked a question and Huckabee's answer just about turned my stomach. The interviewer asked what he thought about Romney's reason for leaving the race. And the answer Huckabee gave was probably the biggest bald-faced lie in political history.

Huckabee said, (paraphraseing) "It confused me because, if he thought he wasn't up to the job, why was he in the race in the first place?"

Huckabee took Romney's very magnanimous and patriotic gesture and turned it into Romney admitting to the voters that he wasn't the man for the job. You cannot possibly listen to Romney's speech and the thousands of comments upon that speech afterwards and come up with the conclusion that Romney was stepping aside because he felt he was unequal to the task, not unless English is your second language or Lying is your first.

Huckabee is the master of lying by insinuation and half-truth. So much so that he reminds me of a passage of scripture, "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field" Genesis 3:1

This is the man that claimed his faith defined him; who claimed that, of all the other candidates, he was the Christian leader.

A lot of  Christians like to answer the Mormon asserton that they are also Christian with, "But it's not the same Christ" I never believed that there were two but then the scriptures DO speak of false Christs coming and the REAL Jesus gave us a litmus test on how to tell, "By their fruits, ye shall know them"

So we place into the evidence, two men. One Claims to be a Christian and insinuates that the other is not

The other man claims that they are both Christian.

In the middle of a presidential campaign, one man dons his Elmer Fudd gear and invites the press along on a pheasant hunt. The other man quietly sneaks away from the press and helps a man whose home has been devastated by the fires in southern California. http://confessionsofapoliticaljunkie.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-often-do-candidates-do-stuff-like.html

One man makes his money by wit and intelligence, The other makes money by losing a hundred pounds with the aid of bariatric surgery and then selling a book about how he lost all that weight by "self-discipline"

One man has a family that is the model of perfection, the other has a couple of fat kids who abuse animals and get arrested for trying to sneak a handgun onto an airplane.

One man served his faith and paid for the priviledge to do so. The other serves his faith for money

One man served his state for no recompense, the other man took his governor's pay and tried to get more by opening up a "bridal registry" so that lobbyists could give him gifts

One man saw that the country was facing peril if we allowed the democrats to win and felt the best way to prevent that was to step aside and let the front runner begin mounting a national campaign.

The other man stays in the race despite overwhelming odds, blocking the ability of the front runner to mount a national campaign and then, lies about the man who got out for patriotic reasons.

Jesus said, "by their fruits, ye shall know them"

I put it to you; who is following the real Jesus?

Why can't a patriotic gesture also be an opportunity? Mitt Romney is a brilliant man; on that issue there is an almost 100% consensus. He amassed millions of dollars by smelling opportunity where there was none. He has been able to take failing enterprises and turn them into success. Why should this be any different?

Romney lost his campaign for the presidency...the reasons why he was unsuccessful are many but, in business terms, he simply failed to sell the product. He could not shake that 'empty suit' identity that his opponents were so quick to hang on him. In politics, one learns quickly that if you don't define yourself, your opponent will define you.  I think that only the most cynical of individuals will attempt to argue that Romney was in this race out of any quest for personal gain. He does not come off as power-hungry or particularly egotistical. He says he entered the race out of a love for this nation and a desire to put his talents to use in serving. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity.

So let's take Romney the politician out of the equation for a moment and think like Romney the businessman. Any good businessman has to know when to fold his tent and call it a day...to stop throwing good money after bad and Romney is the quintessential businessman. However, like all good businessmen, Romney would be loathe to walk away from equity.

There is an elephant in the middle of our GOP living room that only a few have dared to mention in hushed tones. The inevitable choice for Vice President. Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani would seem to make the obvious choice for McCain to choose as his running mate. He owes a political debt to each for helping him be the front-runner for the nomination. Fred Thompson might look good to many as well. Any 3 of these men might be considered potential candidates. But I think the obvious choices will boil down to either Huckabee or Romney and here is why:

McCain desperately needs to win over conservatives and convince them that he's an upright guy. The best way to do that is to get himself a conservative co-runner.

Rudy Giuliani, although a McCain supporter is a poor choice because he is socially conservative and, as his performance demonstrated, a poor campaigner and, let's face it...a vice president needs to be a tireless campaigner. So that would pretty much eliminate Fred Thompson as a serious consideration. He's socially conservative but Caspar the Friendly Ghost was more visible that Thompson.

Huckabee seems to have it all. He's socially conservative, a tireless campaigner. He has a charming charisma and he and McCain seem to be in love with each other. In fact, it almost appears as if Huckabee has been running as McCain's vice presidential candidate ever since the Iowa caucus. In fact, he actually sent McCain a message after Iowa, "now it's your turn to beat him" ('him', of course, referring to Mitt Romney)

The only problem is that Huckabee is still in the race. It is becoming painfully obvious that he isn't in a position to actually win the nomination so what's he up to? Ocham's Razor seems to be an appropriate means of solving the riddle. The most obvious answer is usually the correct one. Huckabee expects to be McCain's running mate. He played his role as wingman and undoubtedly expects his eventual reward. One would have expected that Huckabee would have folded his tent about 5 minutes after Romney did. But he's still in the race!

Why? He can't possibly hope to win. And if he seriously did, anyone that delusional or egotistic is a dangerous consideration for president. The only logical answer is that Romney pulled the rug out from under Huckabee's hopes for getting the nod for vice-president. He took the wind right out of Huckabee's sails...not by withdrawing, but in the classy and selfless WAY in which Romney withdrew. Romney's reasons for suspending his campaign gave him much more political coin than staying in ever would. He is seen now as a man who truly puts principle over self. The pundits are positively gushing over the man.

Meanwhile, Huckabee is off in the wings looking strangely like Miss Haversham in her tattered wedding dress.

By asking Romney to be his running mate, McCain accomplishes several things:

1) He reaches out to the conservative base.
2) He demonstrates that he can work with people he really doesn't like
3) He adds to his ticket, an expert on the economy
4) He positions the person that ran 2nd to him to succeed him.

The longer Huckabee remains in the race, the petulant and childish he seems. Romney's statement that forestalling the inevitable takes time away for the republicans to mount a national campaign was spot on and that spot light is now shining on Huckabee to do the same thing and all we hear is the crickets chirping. The longer Huckabee remain in the race, the more it looks like he's in it for purely selfish reasons and self-promotion. Romney has positioned himself to be a more obvious choice for vice-president. The positive free press coverage alone makes it a more enticing choice.

Wouldn't that just lick the red off ofol' Huck's lollipop?

A lot of people have been saying the same thing lately, Mitt Romney is crazy. He's spent millions of his own money on a futile effort and it has gained him nothing. Politicians have said it, pundits have said it and people around the blogosphere have echoed it.

They may be right. Conventional wisdom would certainly indicate such.

But then Mitt Romney has made hundreds of millions of dollars by looking at the data and seeing things that others don't see..and then cashing in. Certainly, if he's not out of the race, there is reason to believe that maybe, just maybe, Romney has again seen what other do not or refuse to see. He may be seeing trends that others don't see. The reasons he hasn't cashed in his chips yet would seem to suggest that he sees a valid reason for continuing.

Ego might be at play here but rash egotistical behavior has never been attributed to the man before. He's built a very successful life by being cool and collected.

It may be that the politicians and pundits are right. Mitt might be crazy. But maybe...just maybe...the guy who is worth all those politicians and pundits put together sees something they don't see.

If there's one thing I can find hope in, it's the transient nature of politics. I remember when Reagan reached out and embraced his bitter rival, George H.W. Bush as his running mate. The two had been going after each other hammer and tong for so long that to see each other on the same stage holding hands in unity seemed to me as disingenuous a political ploy as has ever been witnessed.

Yet, they pulled it off and did great things together. First and foremost, their coming together was able to help bring about the downfall of America's greatest threat at the time. The transient nature of politics being what it is, I've seen more than a few liberal pundits claim that Reagan had no real substantive role in bringing down the Soviet Union. But the only problem is that I was there and witnessed it.

I was working at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories when the Star Wars Laser Program was in full swing. I wasn't a scientist. I was one of the thousands of people who supported those scientists. I watched the news and the papers. There was no dearth of naysayers willing to weigh in on the viability of Star Wars. Thier objections seemed plausible and so I asked one of the main scientists what his thoughts were about the viability of the program...if it would really work.

"Doesn't have to work", he said.

"Come again?", I asked.

The wise old scientist saw that I was out of my element and so he described the situation to me in terms that I was apt to understand, cartoons.

"You've seen the Roadrunner cartoons?"

"yes"

"There's always a segment in those cartoons where the roadrunner is running down the road and the coyote is running behind him, knife and fork in hand, running for all he's worth. Eventually the roadrunner looks behind him, sees the coyote, goes 'beep beep' and kicks on the after-burners leaving the coyote in the dust. You know which segment I'm talking about?"

"of course"

"What does the coyote do ater that?"

"He gives up"

"That's what is happening here. You're watching America going 'beep beep' and kicking on the after burner. The Soviet Union won't be able to keep up. They're already almost bankrupt trying to keep up now. They'll have to fold their tent and go home. Star Wars doesn't have to work. The Soviet Union only has to think it might work"

I never did find out if Star Wars was actually a viable missle defense, but my poker game improved after that lesson.

Which brings me back to a quarter century later and John McCain. There was no blogosphere 25 years ago, but the messages still got out. There were Reagan people and there were Bush people and never the twain would meet. But they did, they came together and pulled off something vitally important to America.

Now there's McCain people and there's Romney people. They're just as divided and bitter enemies as Reagan and Bush were. Yet each has a needed ingrediant to pull off something magic and wonderful. Romney's belief that he was going to be able to turn Washington around by demanding everyone sing a different tune was naive. It was a wonderful thought and worthy of dreaming about but the reality is you're not going to change Washington without some knowledge of how Washington actually works. Mcain, for all his faults, knows how Washington works. The question is, does he want to change how it works?

I don''t think he has a choice. Enough people have spoken for the candidates of change on both sides of the aisle that a candidate who seriously wanted to win had better pay heed. Romney knows how to turn things around and McCain knows how to drive the ship. If there has ever been two more suitable candidates to bring about change in Washington, these two are.

Between the two they have real and viable experience in both Washington and the private sector. Experience that points to a lifetime of success.

John McCain is the unquestioned front-runner right now but he can be steam-rolled very easily by either candidate from the other side of the aisle...unless he is able to convince the conservative base of his party that he really does take them seriously. Th best way to do that is to reach out the olive branch to Romney?

Will it happen? I won't hold my breath. But if it did....watch the afterburners kick in and the republican party leave the democrats in the dust this November,