Republican Convention Controversy

The centerpiece of the opening night of the Republican Convention was the speech by Melania Trump, the wife of Donald Trump.  But her pleasant performance was soon overshadowed by allegations of plagiarism. 

Candidate Trump, the ultimate showman, made an unprecedented and dramatic appearance on the first night of the convention to introduce his wife.  Mrs. Trump praised her husband, speaking in a Slovenian accent, to an enthusiastic reception from the delegates.  But shortly after the convention wrapped up she became the center of a swirling controversy.  Two of the passages she read were strikingly similar to the speech Michele Obama made to the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

"From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life," a poised Mrs. Trump said, "that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect. They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily life."  In her 2008 speech to the Democratic Convention Mrs. Obama said, "And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: like, you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond, that you do what you say you're going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them and even if you don't agree with them."

Mrs. Trump then added, "We need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow... Because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them."  Back in 2008, Mrs. Obama added,  "Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values and to pass them onto the next generation, because we want our children — and all children in this nation — to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them."

Earlier in the day Mrs. Trump told NBC News that she had written the speech.  Whether she did or not someone in the campaign should have caught the similarities.  Instead, reactions to the convention speeches focused on whether Mrs. Trump had plagiarized Mrs. Obama.  Had Mrs. Obama done the plagiarizing the Republicans would have called for a Congressional investigation.

Monday evening's convention theme was "Make America Safe Again."  It is usually the practice of a political party to feature their values and positions on key issues on the first night.  But this was an evening that reflected Mr. Trump's combative tone.  Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani electrified delegates, especially with an attack against the presumptive Democratic nominee.  "It was Hillary Clinton who advocated the overthrow of Qaddafi in Libya. Now Libya is in chaos," he charged.  "Hillary Clinton is accountable for this and much more. For dereliction of duty and failure to keep our people safe played a major role."   At times seeming almost unhinged, he took a swipe at President Obama. "We must not be afraid to define our enemies. It is it Islamic. Extremist," he yelled. "For the purposes of the media...I said Islamic. Extremist. Terrorism."

The evening's most emotional speech was delivered before the broadcast networks were telecasting the proceedings.   Pat Smith, the mother of US diplomat Sean Smith who was killed during the 2012 attack in Benghazi, drew the rapt attention of delegates as she blamed Hillary Clinton for the death of her son.  "I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son," she said and accused Clinton of lying to her.  "If Hillary Clinton can't give us the truth, why should we give her the presidency," she added.   However, Smith's speech came before the prime time audience tuned in.  So too did the floor fight over rules led by the anti-Trump forces that failed.   

But Tuesday's news headlines focused on Mrs. Trump's speech.  Trump campaign officials scrambled to explain the controversy.  Campaign manager Paul Manafort tried to quell the dispute Tuesday, "There's no cribbing of Michele Obama's speech," he told CNN.  "These were common words and values that she cares about -- her family, things like that."   However, Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, said that someone has to be fired for the plagiarism.   And it is likely  that Donald Trump will have to find a scapegoat to fire in order to save his wife's reputation.  

In many ways opening night of the Republican Convention reflected the unpredictable and at times disorganized approach of the Trump campaign.  The theme for day two of the convention is "Make America Work Again."  But Trump clearly has a lot of work to do to make his nominating convention work.

The GOP's Dissonant Campaign

As billionaire Donald Trump unleashes his barrage of sharp attacks on Fox News and its anchor Megyn Kelly, other Republican candidates have improved their chances to gain their party's presidential nomination over the past few days.   Yet, as each of the seventeen announced candidates jockeys for position, Trump still continues to be the center of attention. 

Thursday's prime time debate on Fox News drew a record 24 million viewers, and they saw quite a show.   Fox News anchors Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace asked tough questions and skillfully managed the time among the ten candidates on stage.  While all of their questions were fair, many important subjects were not raised, like climate change, gun violence and voting rights. 

Trump attempted to lower expectations for his performance in advance of the debate.  Many pundits predicted he would not attack his opponents as he has done regularly in his campaign.   Yet, Trump found himself on the defensive from the opening question.

Bret Baier began the debate by asking if all of the candidates would promise not to run as an independent candidate and support the party's nominee.  Trump would not, saying, “I will not make that pledge at this time… I have to respect the person.”  Kentucky Senator Rand Paul chimed in, “This is what’s wrong.  He buys and sells politicians of all stripes…He’s already hedging his bet on the Clintons … He’s already hedging his bets because he’s used to buying politicians.”  Trump smugly responded to Paul, “Well, I’ve given him plenty of money.”

Later, moderator Megyn Kelly grilled Trump on his comments about women.  

“You’ve called women you don’t like 'fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,'” she said.

“Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Trump interrupted.

“For the record, it was well beyond Rosie O’Donnell,” Kelly retorted.

“Yes, I’m sure it was,” Trump said dismissively.  

Kelly continued, “Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, and how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who was likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?”
Trump answered, “I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct.” 

Following the debate Trump went to the airwaves and Twitter to attack Kelly's questions as "ridiculous" and "off base."  He told CNN, "You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes...Blood coming out of her wherever." But the comment drew the ire of conservatives, even though Trump later said he meant blood coming out of her nose or ears and nothing more.  Trump added, "Only a deviant would think anything else."  But the conservative group RedState.com withdrew its invitation for Trump to appear at its weekend gathering.  

Trump's attacks on Megyn Kelly only diminish him and makes him look overly defensive.  Meanwhile, he found himself aggressively reassuring his supporters in a round of interviews on the Sunday public affairs shows.  On CBS's Face the Nation, he said, "I will be phenomenal to women."  On ABC's This Week he said, "I have many executives that are women."  And on NBC's Meet the Press he said it would be difficult for women to criticize him, "It's very hard for them to attack me on looks because I'm so good looking."

As Trump struggles to contain the damage from his remarks, several other candidates have made headway in their campaign among conservative Republicans.  Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina was the big winner Thursday even though she appeared in the afternoon debate.  She showed she is ready for prime time and might make a strong vice presidential candidate.  

Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Ohio Governor John Kasich both did well in Thursday night's debate, and their performances could build real momentum for their campaigns.  Meanwhile, one-time front-runner Jeb Bush did not hurt himself among likely Republican voters with his debate performance, which may be viewed as a victory by those who are supporting him.

The Republican Party conducted an "autopsy" following Governor Mitt Romney's loss to President Barack Obama in 2012.  Its report said, “The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself. We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.”

Thursday night's dissonant debate once again shows that the Republican party has not changed.  

GOP Traffic Jam

Governor Chris Christie has finally gone on the offensive to defuse "bombshell" revelations that he knew about the Ft. Lee lane closures at the time they were happening.  "The Governor first learned lanes at the George Washington Bridge were even closed from press accounts after the fact," the 700-word email from the governor's office said Saturday.  

The email attacked the press for publishing the story, and attacked the story's source, former New York & New Jersey Port Authority official David Wildstein, who is seeking immunity in the investigation. "Bottom line -- David Wildstein will do and say anything to save David Wildstein," the email said.  But the attack on Wildstein got unusually personal, "He was publicly accused by his high school social studies teacher of deceptive behavior."  Really?  This schoolyard retort reveals a frustrated and desperate man.    

Even if Governor Christie's story stands up through the rigorous legislative and federal investigations the incident has triggered, in the end his 2016 presidential aspirations will be snuffed out.  Questions about the way he ran his office, about the people he surrounds himself with, and his management style will dog him for years.  Conservative Republicans already did not support him for higher office.

So, with Governor Christie out of the mix, the race to be the Republican presidential nominee is wide open.   Whomever they choose will likely face a difficult challenge in the 2016 election. A recent Washington Post poll shows Hillary Clinton has a 6 to 1 lead among Democrats over all other potential candidates for the party's nomination.  Further complicating the Republican's task are the divisions within the party between the Tea Party faction and those who hew closer to the center.

The Hill reported that Florida Senator Marco Rubio is now getting a lot of attention, especially since Representative Paul Ryan said he would not run for the White House in 2016.  "A group of Republican fundraising heavyweights and wise men in Washington's business community are solidly behind Rubio, and see him not only as someone who could win the White House, but someone they can work with," The Hill said.  Senator Rubio, who counts himself a Tea Party member, has had his eye on this prize for some time.  He has recently amplified his positions against President Barack Obama, Obamacare, immigration and education.  Ultimately, his role in the immigration debate will have an important impact on whether he can secure his party's support.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has been outspoken on everything from Obamacare to NSA surveillance.  He is a proud libertarian, and aligns himself with the Tea Party on most issues.  But he has recently made controversial statements, and has been accused of plagiarism for lifting parts of his speeches from Wikipedia.  He may prove to be too independent minded for the ever buttoned down Republican Party.

The Republican Party has several governors who could rise to the challenge; Ohio Governor John Kasich and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker are among the strongest.   But neither has a national profile, and both have taken controversial positions on state issues.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush would probably be the favored candidate if he decides to throw his hat into the ring.  Last week Bush said, "I'm deferring the decision to the right time, which is later this year."  A recent Washington Post poll shows him only behind Ryan among Republicans as the favored candidate.  Former First Lady Barbara Bush has said she doesn't believe her son should run.  Despite the fact that he is getting a lot of calls from top Republicans urging him to announce, he seems reluctant.  Should he decide to stay on the sidelines, Marco Rubio will benefit most.

Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been appearing everywhere.  Even though some of his supporters have called for him to run again in 2016, he has said he won't.   His running mate in 2014, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, would be a long shot for obvious reasons, as would former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz has thrust himself into the national limelight on issues like Obamacare, immigration and raising the federal debt ceiling.  The Harvard educated and overly ambitious Cruz is distrusted by many of his colleagues, especially Republicans.  His failed tactics led to last year's government shutdown.  His "never in doubt" attitude makes him a polarizing figure in Washington.  While the Canadian born senator is a darling of the Tea Party, it is unlikely that he could win his party's nomination.

At this point, the field of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination is wide open.  Governor Chris Christie's plight may not have altered the outcome of the Republican presidential nominating process, but it sure has led to another major traffic jam.

Republican Deaf Ears

Much of the country kicked off the New Year with heavy snowstorms followed by a blast of frigid cold temperatures.   But for 1.3 million Americans, whose unemployment checks have been cut off, this may be the coldest winter of all.

Congress returns on Monday, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he will schedule a vote on extending unemployment benefits.  But the outcome is uncertain.  Many Republicans in both houses of Congress are opposed to extending benefits; especially those in the GOP controlled House of Representatives.   One administration official predicted Wednesday that failure to extend emergency unemployment insurance through 2014 will have a negative impact on 14 million Americans.   It will also have an adverse effect on the nation's slowly recovering economy because those affected will not be able to buy food and supplies.

Republicans, led by their Tea Party wing, have staked out a series of positions that, when viewed on whole, may leave them vulnerable in future elections.  The president has proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10, which one recent study says will lift 5 million people out of poverty.  Republicans argue against such a move because they believe it is inflationary and it will end up costing jobs.

Congressional Republicans are also sparring with Democrats over their desire to reign in food stamps, citing cost, fraud and abuse.  But a recent statistical report released by the Department of Agriculture shows that the amount of food stamps given out in error is at an all time low, about 3%.  In 2000 the error rate was nearly 9%.

On Tuesday, a federal judge struck down a Florida law that required welfare applicants to undergo mandatory drug testing.  Republican Governor Rick Scott campaigned on the issue, and got the law enacted, arguing that it would ensure tax money was not going to illegal drugs.  A subsequent state study found that only 108 out of 4,086 people tested, 2.6%, were using narcotics.  The state records show that the program was costing more than it was saving.  Yet several other Republican dominated states have enacted a similar law, and Governor Scott has said the state will appeal the ruling.

The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, has been under attack from Republicans since it before it became law.  House Republicans have voted nearly 50 times to repeal the law.  The ACA, which got off to a terrible start due to problems with the federal website, provides many benefits.  It requires insurers to cover people with preexisting conditions, it ends lifetime or yearly caps on coverage, it makes it illegal for insurers to drop someone because they get sick, and it extends coverage to children under 26.   Most importantly, it gives 40 million uninsured Americans access to health care coverage, and it has already reduced the soaring growth of health care costs.  Yet Republicans do not have a plan to replace any of these benefits should their repeal efforts actually become successful.

Conservative Republicans are opposed to meaningful immigration reform.   There are now more than 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.  Hispanics and other minorities, who largely vote for Democrats, have been pushing for legislation to no avail.  Meanwhile, many Republican controlled states have enacted tough voter identification laws, citing massive voter fraud.   But the reported incidents of voter fraud in these states are actually minuscule.  Yet these laws fall disproportionately hard on minorities and the elderly, groups that vote for Democrats.

Following President Barack Obama's reelection and important Republican Congressional loses in the 2012 national elections, GOP Chairman Reince Priebus released an autopsy report assessing the reasons for the party's poor performance.  The findings were blunt.  At one point the report says the voters believe that "the GOP does not care about them and is doing great harm."  

It appears that the report has fallen on deaf ears.

 

The Same Old Party

President Barack Obama will give his State of the Union address Tuesday evening, the first of his second-term.  American voters may have hoped that their elected officials had gotten the message that they should put partisanship aside and work together solve the myriad of problems facing the nation.  Not so fast!

The president has his hands full.  Unless Washington acts, in three weeks the country will be hit with the “sequester”, mandatory cuts to the federal budget that will be devastating to the U.S. economy because several hundred thousand people will be furloughed or lose their jobs.  Instead of working to avoid disaster, members of both parties are busy blaming the mess on their opposition.  

Everyone in Washington thinks the deficits are a serious problem.  But Republicans, having gone along with raising tax rates on the rich to temporarily avoid the "fiscal cliff", are demanding deep cuts in the federal budget, especially in entitlements and social programs, while rejecting raising any additional revenues.   The president is proposing raising some more revenues by closing tax loopholes that favor the wealthiest, along with making targeted budget cuts.  The GOP has rejected his “balanced approach”.  

While the country has been careening from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, Republicans, who are still licking their wounds from last November's election defeats, are in a period of reflection and reexamination.   One outcome has been for the party to begin reaching out to Latinos, African Americans, Asians, and women, all demographics the party did poorly in last election.   

Republicans had been the party of "self-deportation" and impregnable border fences.  However, earlier this week House Majority Leader Eric Cantor actually did a flip on the Dream Act when he said the U.S. should, "provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home."  He also called for, "creating a workable guest worker program."  Meanwhile, Republican spinmeisters have hailed Florida Senator Marco Rubio as the leading voice for Hispanic Americans and immigration, while saying the president has failed to lead on the issue.  But Latinos won't be fooled. 

Immigration reform and gun control have been among the many hot topics consuming most legislators’ attention these past few weeks.  But the largely Republican opposition to any truly meaningful steps on either issue is certain to assure only minimal changes will be enacted.  

Meanwhile, Republican Senator Lindsay Graham has threatened to block two of President Obama's cabinet nominations until he receives satisfactory answers from the White House about what happened during the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, last September which left four Americans dead.  The appointees, Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, and John Brennan for CIA Director, were subjected to tough, some say personal, questions in their respective committee appearances.  Republican Senators John McCain and Rand Paul had previously made fools of themselves trying to beat up on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her testimony on Benghazi. 

While most everyone expects the president's nominees to be confirmed, leading Republicans are coming out of the woodwork to talk trash.  Former Vice President Dick Cheney criticized President Obama to a gathering of Wyoming Republicans, "Frankly, what he has appointed are second-rate people."  These words from a second-rate political hack who misled the world to start a war in Iraq, who authorized illegal torture, and who was a major player in the greatest recession since the Great Depression.  Remember, Cheney can't shoot straight. 

The Republican Party is out of touch with mainstream America.  They want to make deep cuts in federal spending, even though similar austerity efforts by England and other European have been an economic disaster.  They are against banning assault weapons and high capacity ammunition clips.  They are opposed to a path to citizenship for America's eleven million illegal immigrants.  They are on the wrong side of most social issues.  They are the architects of restrictions on voting meant to suppress African-Americans, Latinos and the elderly, who are largely Democratic voters.

The GOP can try to repackage their party by reaching out to all demographics.  But for many Americans the GOP is the same old party.  

Stop Whining, Republicans

President Barack Obama handily won a second term largely because he ran a superior campaign. Republicans expected a late Reagan-esque surge to propel Mitt Romney to victory. This made Tuesday's defeat an even more crushing blow.

As Romney was conceding defeat, already indignant Republicans were pointing fingers and assessing blame. They were intensely angry, overwrought, and consumed with personal animus for the president. Highly paid Republican consultants cried foul. After all, consultants must protect their reputation and future income.

Republican strategist Mary Matalin blew a fuse and personally attacked President Obama in an article for the conservative National Review. "What happened? A political narcissistic sociopath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice rather than a mandate for resurgence and reform," Matalin wrote. "Instead of using his high office to articulate a vision for our future, Obama used it as a vehicle for character assassination, replete with unrelenting and destructive distortion, derision, and division."

Her hate and bitterness toward the president oozed through every word. To call him a sociopath is to call him a person whose behavior is, "often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience." Outrageous.

Perhaps Matalin suffers from a case of Romnesia because the Republican primary was filled with negative and personal attacks on Romney. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich even called the governor a "liar" on CBS. All the Obama campaign had to do was repeat the attacks on Romney from fellow Republican candidates earlier in the year.

For Instance, last year Texas Gov. Rick Perry told the National Journal, "There is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business, and I happen to think that's indefensible." Gingrich told Mediate last December, "If Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he's earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years, then I would be glad to then listen to him." And last March Rick Santorum told CBS This Morning, "He doesn't have a core... He's been on both sides of almost every single issue in the past 10 years."

But when it comes to mendacity, Gov. Mitt Romney set the standard. Apart from the constant flip-flopping on issues, Romney regularly leveled dishonest attacks against the president throughout the campaign. The worst lie, which probably cost him a win in Ohio, was the false ad about Jeep moving its operations to China.

Matalin's vituperation was not the least of the GOP blowback to President Obama's reelection. Donald Trump's Twitter response was emphatic: "We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty... Let's fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us." The aging rocker Ted Nugent tweeted, "Pimps whores & welfare brats & their soulless supporters hav (sic) a president to destroy America... Goodluk (sic) America u just voted for economic & spiritual suicide. Soulless fools."

Tuesday's biggest loser, Republican strategist Karl Rove, who spent $365 million of donor money trying to defeat the president, had the best excuse. He actually accused the Democratic and African American president of interfering with the election. "He succeeded by suppressing the vote, by saying to people, 'you may not like who I am, and I know you can't bring yourself to vote for me, but I'm going to paint this other guy as simply a rich guy who only cares about himself," Rove told Fox News Thursday.

But the most disturbing reaction to the president's reelection may have come from Peter Morrison, the Hardin County Texas Republican Party Treasurer. "We must contest every single inch of ground and delay the baby-murdering, tax-raising socialists at every opportunity," he wrote on his Facebook site. "But in due time, the maggots will have eaten every morsel of flesh off of the rotting corpse of the Republic, and therein lies our opportunity." That "opportunity" is secession, "Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government? Let each go her own way in peace."

Everybody hates to lose. Yes, the Republican party went though a brutally divisive primary that nominated Mitt Romney. Yes, Romney was gaining momentum, while President Obama remained vulnerable because of a weak economic recovery. But somewhere along the line Republicans lost touch with reality. Their expectations blew way out of proportion. And suddenly their balloon popped on election night.

President Obama's resounding victory has exposed a core problem within the Republican Party: It is filled with anger and hatred brought on by an identity crisis. Republican leaders will be meeting over the next few weeks and months to determine what went wrong this election and what can be done to fix the problem.

Perhaps a great first step would be to stop the whining and the ridiculous personal attacks. Tantrums and snit fits will not win over any converts. Nobody likes a sore loser.

GOP: Oops

If there is one word that best summarizes some of the Republican presidential candidates, it is the one uttered by Governor Rick Perry himself: "Ooops."

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has found himself on the defensive just as he has secured a position as a frontrunner for his party's nomination. For instance, there are no more reviled institutions for conservative Republicans than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, Gingrich himself has been a most ardent critic. Then came the revelation, by Bloomberg News, that Gingrich had earned nearly $2 million from Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage underwriter, over several years ending in 2008. His campaign says he was not lobbying, he was just offering advice on how to navigate Congress.

But Gingrich has earned a lot of money from corporate clients since leaving office. The New York Times reported that one client was Gundersen Lutheran Health System of LaCrosse, Wisconsin. In July 2009, Gingrich wrote a piece on the Washington Post's Web site praising that organization's efforts to convince patients to have "advance directives" on end-of-life care that if adopted by Medicare would save "$33 billion." But not too long after his comments conservatives were attacking President Obama's health care reform bill that called for end-of-life consultations for Medicare--a.k.a. "death panels." Gingrich then joined the critics.

Gingrich supported a single-payer mandate in the 1990's, which is at the heart of President Obama's health care law and became anathema to conservatives. The Supreme Court will take up the legality of the mandate next year. Gingrich is now opposed to mandates. Maybe he is now opposed to large jewelry purchases from Tiffany's? Should Gingrich get his party's nomination he will face questions about his personal life and the fact that he is the only Speaker of the House to ever have been disciplined for ethics violations.

In the past two months businessman Herman Cain surged to the top of polls among Republican voters. But then reports surfaced that several women accused him of sexual harassment. While he has denied all the charges he has failed to quell the controversy and his campaign has been hurt.

Perhaps even more embarrassing for Cain has been his inability to correctly answer foreign policy questions. He told one interviewer that China "was trying to develop nuclear capability." China has had nuclear weapons since the 1950's. When asked by a Milwaukee Sentinel editorial board about President Obama's handling of the Libyan uprising he struggled for more than a minute and never provided a clear answer. Cain later defended himself in a campaign appearance by saying, "I'm a leader, not a reader."

Texas Governor Rick Perry has stumbled throughout his debate performances. None of his blunders is more problematic than his brain freeze when he tried to name the three federal government agencies that he wanted to eliminate. Ooops! In an effort to get attention away from his struggling campaign, Gov. Perry began airing a political ad accusing President Obama of calling Americans "lazy", which is not true. In fact, the president said that American businesses were "a little bit lazy...to attract new business into America."

By all appearances, Governor Mitt Romney should be well ahead of his opponents. He has done an effective job in his presidential campaign. But “Romneycare”, the Massachusetts health care bill he passed that served as the basis for President Obama’s health reform law, has dogged him. And his fellow candidates have attacked him for flip-flopping on abortion, gun control and the U.S. auto industry bailout. Romney's approval among Republicans has been stuck at about 25% because most people in his own party don't trust him!

Meanwhile, Representative Michele Bachmann has blown her early lead with gaffes and former Governor Jon Huntsman, President Obama's former ambassador to China, has focused only in New Hampshire, where he is still in single digits. Representative Ron Paul maintains a loyal but small following despite some of his controversial statements.

The GOP primary process has been painful and embarrassing, especially for Republicans. While President Barack Obama faces a tough reelection campaign, the Republican Party seems to be doing all it can to help him obtain his goal. Or, as Governor Perry would say, "Ooops."

Huckabee Misspeaks?

Mike Huckabee has not declared he is a candidate for president but the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows he is now the favored candidate among Republicans. 25% of those polled supported the former Arkansas governor and Fox News contributor, edging out former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who had 21% in the poll.

Huckabee, who ran for president in 2008, has always played the nice guy. In his latest book he writes, "If you've come here looking for a personal attack on President (Barack) Obama and those in Washington, you should head to another shelf in the bookstore." The book, which he is busy promoting, is called, "A Simple Government: Twelve Things We Really Need From Washington (And a Trillion That We Don't!).

Of course, Huckabee was a preacher in Arkansas for twelve years beginning in the early eighties. Television evangelist James Robinson, Huckabee's mentor, said of him, "His convictions shape his character and his character will shape his policies. His whole life has been shaped by moral absolutes." But there is one absolute that this former and future presidential aspirant will not be so moral about, the need to win the Republican base.

The other day conservative talk show host Steve Malzberg asked the former preacher about President Obama, "How come we don't have a health record, we don't have a college record, we don't have a birth certificate?" Previously, Huckabee dismissed questions about President Obama's birth certificate. Not this time!

"I would love to know more," Huckabee said, "What I know is troubling." Shockingly, Huckabee went on to talk about the president's upbringing in Kenya. "If you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau revolution in Kenya is very different than ours," Huckabee said, "because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather."

President Obama did not grow up in Kenya; he grew up principally in Hawaii, as in the U.S.A., and Indonesia. His father, who he met only briefly as a boy, did not raise young Obama. And the riff about the British appears to have been manufactured out of whole cloth. Subsequently, a Huckabee spokesman said that the former governor "misspoke" and instead meant to say, "he grew up in Indonesia." Indonesia was never British. By the way, is anyone going to talk about the president's mother and her family since they raised him? Well, of course not.

It appears Huckabee is beginning to believe he can win the Republican primary. Most of the potential candidates for the GOP nomination are flawed. Romney has "Romneycare", Newt Gingrich was kicked out of office, Sarah Palin isn't ready to lead the nation, Indiana's Mitch Daniels and Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty have no charisma, and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has made questionable comments about the Civil Rights era. Even better for Huckabee, Chris Christie, the energetic and articulate New Jersey governor, has repeatedly and emphatically said he is not running for president in 2012. Although Governor Christie now says he could win!

The former preacher and state governor from Hope, Arkansas, also President Bill Clinton's birthplace, is now making his move. He will have to win over the Tea Party, the GOP establishment and he will have to re-energize the Christian coalition. Some good old Obama bashing will play well with all of these groups. So it's no more Mr. Nice Guy!