The real flip floppers

Throughout the Republican presidential nominating contest thus far, much attention has been given to Mitt Romney and his drastically changing views on several issues.  While it is only fair to examine a candidate's record, it is not fair to mold sound bytes from an unsuccessful campaign that took place over a decade ago and use them as the basis for your claims of flip flopping.

What galls me, however, is the lack of attention that is being paid to the flip flopping being done by Mr. Romney's opponents: John McCain and Mike Huckabee.  Not only have both of them hanged their positions on issues from stances that they have taken recently, but they have also taken offense to anyone who questions their record.

For instance, Mike Huckabee has sought to align himself with some fiscal conservatives by becoming a leader in the Fair Tax movement.  But if we look to his record as Governor of Arkansas we see that a Fair Tax would have only stunted the amount of money he could have collected- each dime being needed more and more every time he wanted to raise spending.  Go to a Huckabee rally, however, and you find crowds of Fair Tax supporters adamantly supporting Mr. Huckabee-- all seemingly oblivious to their new found candidate's past as a fiscal liberal.

In what has got to be one of the largest flip flops ever, Mr. McCain is now releasing ads touting himself as a "true conservative".  If John McCain is a true conservative, then I must be as Libertarian as Ron Paul.   One need not look any further than a meeting between Mr. McCain and a room full of lawyers early in his campaign in which he called Samuel Alito too conservative.  Or, if you agree with his assessment of Justice Alito, you can look to his legislative efforts in the Senate: McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Leiberman, McCain-Kennedy-Edwards.  Each of these bills championed causes that were opposed by "true conservatives", such as campaign finance reform, amnesty for illegal immigrants, radical environmental reforms, and a patient's bill of rights that favors trial lawyers.  While one need not disagree with all of those positions to be a "true conservative", one cannot take each of those positions and still claim to be a champion of the conservative movement.

My real issue with Sen. McCain, however, is his inability to take criticism.  In New Hampshire, Mitt Romney launched a series of ads telling viewers about the two candidates' records.  Of course, much of the record that was uncovered in the ads were the same things that I mentioned above, and did not do very much to paint McCain as a conservative.  Rather than defend himself and his record, Mr. McCain attacked Mr. Romney for "attacking" him.  Only in presidential politics can one person call the strategy of bringing their record to light an attack-- and then get away with attacking the other person for it.  But the McCain camp's attacks do not stop with Romney's campaign tactics.  We have now recently seen an effort on the party of Sen. McCain to make Mr. Romney appear in favor of a war i Iraq.  If ever there was a time to cry foul, it would be on Mr. McCain for his outright fabrication of the truth.

If voters want someone who can stick to their positions and not change their public comments as called for by the electorate, they will support Mitt Romney (or Ron Paul if they're middle-aged and still living with their mothers).  And maybe at some point the main stream media will get a clue.

A tell tale sign

I opened my e-mail today and found a message from the Huckabee campaign.  The friendly folks at his campaign take time out of their busy schedule each day to let me (and hundreds of others) know where the governor will be the following day.  The contents of today's e-mail was telling.

The governor makes an early campaign stop at a polling place at 7:30 to kick off his day, followed by a second visit to a polling place again at 8:30.  Both of these visits are in Tampa, Florida.

But by 12:00 tomorrow Mr. Huckabee will be in Jefferson City, Missouri for a press conference announcing new endorsements.

He'll be back in Florida for the primary results, right?  No.  And for good reason: he's currently polling in forth in the Sunshine state.

2008 has been an interesting year for primary politics.  It is, apparently, acceptable for candidates who are clearly not going to be successful in a state to just skip it altogether.  That would explain why Rudy Giuliani skipped Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina.  That is also why Mitt Romney skipped town on South Carolina, John McCain put all of his eggs into New Hampshire's basket and why Fred Thompson concentrated almost exclusively on South Carolina- skipping both new Hampshire and Michigan.

Now Mike Huckabee is largely blowing off Florida.  Although he has campaigned meagerly around the state this past week, he spent a lot of time elsewhere at fundraisers and such.

For me, this style of concentrating only in contests where you know you will be successful is not the right approach for any of our presidential hopefuls to be taking; nor is it a strategy the GOP should be endorsing.

This pick and chose strategy of campaigning forebodes only bad things for the general election.  It has become clear that the United States is divided so sharply, and yet so indecisively, that every vote in every state will count.  Republicans cannot afford to relinquish states to their Democratic rivals like they have done in years past.  Rudy Giuliani makes a compelling point when he touts his ability to put "blue" states in play.  Hopping around from state to state- based on electability- is not the way to sharpen the vote-getting knives.

The winner of the Florida primary will certainly come out with a heavy advantage going into Super Tuesday just one week later.  Regardless of who wins, however, one thing is true: the candidates (or at least three of them) have made a valiant effort in the Sunshine state... with South Carolina all but a distant memory.