As Maine Goes, So Goes the Nation!

Mainers vote - about 73% of voters cast a ballot in 2004, compared with 64% nationally. Maine has the oldest median age in the nation, is 96% white, and as any visitor knows, over 12% of the state is below the poverty line in a high cost-of-living state.

Today, amid an ice storm and slush, they held their Republican Presidential Caucus to send 18 delegates to the convention this fall. Both popular moderate Republican Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, spoke on behalf of John McCain.

They had a good crowd. According to the Associated Press, "Kim Pettengill, who has been a party activist for more than three decades, said Saturday's was the largest Kennebec County caucus turnout since 1980, the year Ronald Reagan won his first GOP nomination for president. Party Executive Director Julie O'Brien said other counties reported similarly heavy turnouts. In coastal Damariscotta, O'Brien said she counted about 400 people packing the meeting at the Great Salt Bay School, and local organizers said it was the biggest turnout they had seen."

To put this in perspective, Porcupine met Sen. McCain there at a rally for candidate Chan Woodcock in 2006, and 25 people was considered a big event.

But, at the end of the day, the caucus went to Romney, whose son Tagg attended the caucuses. The vote tallied Romney with 53 percent of the vote, John McCain trailing with 21 percent, Ron Paul was third with 19 percent, and Mike Huckabee had 5 percent. Undecided votes accounted for 2 percent.

A couple of observations - Huckabee blew it big-time by not campaigning here. Maine is Oklahoma with pine trees. The tiny town where Porcupine has his summer burrow has only 2,400 people - about the same size as the town of West Tisbury here in Massachusetts - but four competing Baptist churches. Also, all the flap about Romney not being backed by more Republican Governors - if both popular Senators personally spoke on caucus day for McCain, how influential are these endorsements, anyway?

Mainers are concerned about the economy - with good reason - and illegal immigration across their largely unpatrolled border. The 9/11 terrorists began their flight at the Bangor International Airport, flying in from Canada and proceeding to Logan Airport in Boston. Porcupine believes it was Romney's stance on these issues that proved so appealing, and wonders if this vote is a harbinger of next Tuesday.

Huck-A-Whoops!

Porcupine is watching Mike Huckabee stammering his explanation on Hannity & Colmes about how showing an attack ad to a room full of high-octane reporters, and then piously announcing that he WASN'T going to attack anybody, while the ad ran behind him and there were foam core images of the attack, wasn't REALLY important, but how we should instead talk about "hunger, poverty and the enviornment".

Above is a captured copy of his ad - could his epiphany about negative campaigning have anything to do with the jab that Mitt Romney failed to execute any criminals while he was Governor? (pssstt....Mass. HAS no death penalty...in fact, while Governor, Romney filed what he called a 'gold standard' death penalty bill, requiring DNA evidence, eyewitnesses, etc. - and the Legislature still voted it down). Huckabee explained that he SHOWED the ad to all the reporters - getting it on national news for zero bucks - because unless he DID, the reporters would think he didn't really HAVE an ad. There was nothing WRONG with the ad....

Porcupine would have enjoyed Huckabee's explanation of this factual error. It must have been Jesus' kid brother that made him do it....

YouTube Republic

Well, the snowman was there and said Hi! to Mitt Romney in his helium voice. The Florida Republican YouTube debate was tonight. A CNN transcript is HERE, and YouTube's video recap is HERE.

Porcupine thought the questions were decent enough on the whole, if a little predictable. Why there were no questions of the enviornment, health care or education is a travesty. It was nice to see all the candidates get some time, and Duncan Hunter was a particular beneficiary of the work of Anderson Cooper to give all eight a chance to participate. UPDATE - the mom with toys from China was a union manager; the girl asking about abortion works for the Edwards campaign; and the Log Cabin Questioner is a declared Obama supporter, in ADDITION to the Clinton campaign plant - Porcupine's opinion of the questions and the editing process has just taken an elevator ride to the basement.

Each candidate got their own 30 second YouTube spot as well. Guiliani’s 30 second spot was the very best, using his quirky humor to take credit for 'Decreased Snowfall in New York!'. But the humor blew up in his face when he accused Romney of not merely having a sanctuary city, but a sanctuary mansion by having illegals work on his law. “Wait a minute – if you hire a company to paint your house or put on a roof, do you go out and demand to see the papers of anybody who is a different color or has a different accent than you? THAT is Un-American!”. Later, Fred Thompson chipped in that he was surprised Guiliani would bring up employees, as 'I guess we've ALL hired some people who didn't work out exactly the way we thought they would...', a reference to Bernard Kerik.

McCain was the straight talk guy again. On amnesty to Ron Paul - 'That kind of isolationism brought on WW II'; on torture to Romney - 'I am shocked that you think that kind of tretment could ever be used by Americans' and suggesting that we need to either abide by the Geneva Convention or leave it. Romney said he didn’t think it was wise for a candidate to be too specific, which Porcupine happens to think is a prudent position but a poor debating point.

Mike Huckabee had the best spontaneous jokes of the night, and his appeal is obvious. He personifies compassionate conservatism, and comes across as warm and engaged.

The only real ringer of the night was a YouTube question selected from retired Army general, Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr. After listing his military credentials, he said at the end of his video that he is an openly gay man and wanted to know why gays can't serve in the professional military. It produced discomfort from all the candidates as Anderson Cooper needled them to respond. Later, Politico reported that Kerr was on the Steering Committee of "Veterans for Kerry", and now Nightline reports that he serves on the advisory committee for the Clinton campaign.

Anderson Cooper opened the debate by saying that "All the questions come from you", and that there were 5,000 questions, about 2,000 more than the Democrat debate attracted. CNN represents this as 'The People's Debate'. Based on Cooper's choice to have the Clinton campaign not only be selected to ask the questions, but to be seated in the audience for follow up, Porcupine is curious as to what 'people'they refer to, as Porcupine awaits the use of Karl Rove as a questioner in the next Democrat debate.

Sunday Summer Sing Along - 2007 - Number 8!

Yet another musician from Hope, Arkansas and the Arkansas Goveror's Mansion is running for President. Cheery Mike Huckabee is an excellent speaker and has his own group, called Capitol Offense. Porcupine is sure that as a country rock musician, Gov. Huckabee will appreciate this offering modeled upon the greatest song of Miss Patsy Cline called 'Crazy':

Crazy, They Said I was Crazy for Tryin’
I'm Crazy, Crazy for Speaking So True;
I knew I had the Ideas That You Wanted
And Then Someday You'd Be Wanting Somebody New!

Worry, Why Should I Let Myself Worry?
Wond'ring - What in the World Did I Do?
Crazy - for Jumping to Real Big Dog Status,
I'm Crazy for Straw Polls, and Crazy for Poll Rolls,

And I'm Crazy Running for You!
Crazy - For Hoping My Speeches Could Hold You
I'm Crazy with Trying, and Crazy, not Lying,
Be Crazy – Say I’m Voting for You!

Next Week - Sunday Summer Sing Along Grand Finale!

Wheat and Chaff

Now that the dust has begun to settle from the Ames, Iowa straw poll, Porcupine has some observations about some common themes, and some ideas of his own to present.

First, the Chaff -

The straw poll this year has less significance, as the turnout was so much lower.

Actually, as the Des Moines Register pointed out, attendance this year was more in line with previous polls - it was the heavy turnout in 1999 that was the exception. In 1995, attendance was described as having 'ballooned' to 11,000, while this year it was 14,302, and for the first time, a valid Iowa ID was required. Back in 1987, it was only 3,500 attendees.

The poll is not really a victory for Romney, because the other top tier candidates didn’t compete.

Please explain to Porcupine why building such a well run team that your opponents are afraid to compete, as it might muss their MSM story-lines, isn’t a victory.

Romney did just about as well as expected.

Actually, Romney did better than expected. A Friday poll had Romney at 25%, Giuliani at 23%, McCain at 21%, and Huckabee and Brownback tied with 8% - the others were less than 3%. Romney got 32% of the vote - a slightly better percentage than George Bush in 1999 - and Giuliani and McCain got less than 1%. In fact, McCain got 101 votes overall, fewer than every other candidate but John Cox. Additionally, while Romney beat his nearest competitor by 13%, Bush only defeated Steve Forbes by 10%.

Romney purchased the poll, spending almost $500 per vote.

If Ames were the only Iowa event, that assessment would be correct. As it is, Romney has built name recognition for the caucus, and has established a working team on the ground for that - something his 'top-tier' rivals, those MSM darlings, have yet to do.

Now for the Wheat -

Almost as satisfying as Romney’s first place was Huckabee’s victory over Brownback.

Consider – CNN polling had them both at 8%, and then Sen. Brownback went on a spiteful tear against both Romney and Huckabee, saying that they weren’t Christian or Conservative. Huckabee blew up and pushed back against the television ads and robo-calls, and was rewarded with a second place finish over the candidate who had hired over 100 buses to ferry in his support. There is a phenomenon in Iowa known as ‘faithless riders’ – that is, people take the free ride, maybe even the free ticket and free lunch and swag bag with the tee shirts and foam toys, but still cast their secret ballot for somebody else. At one point on Saturday, Huckabee said, “I can’t buy you. Heck, I can’t even RENT you!” in describing his spending. The secret of his success had to be Faithless Riders, and it gives Porcupine a great deal of pleasure to see such mean spirited and petty tactics blow up in a candidate like Brownback’s face – it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

The Three Wise Men – Giuliani, McCain and Fred Thompson – goofed up badly.

The day after the Ames straw poll, the announcement was made that the Iowa caucuses are moved up an additional three weeks, and the New Hampshire primary will be in early January as well. So instead of having a team in place to work now, they have less than five months to put one together, and get to explain why they blew off the state’s single most important GOP fundraiser as well.

Tommy Thompson is an honest man.

He said if he didn’t finish at the top, he would drop out – and he did. That’s what a Straight Talk Express looks like.

Oh - and Ron Paul is apparently a Virtual candidate, as few actual Human Voters showed up for him despite his vast Internet poll victories. Once again - the only polls that count are taken every two years!