McCain: March 2008 Archives

The very first policy position Hillary Clinton took as a US Senator was to propose the abolition of the Electoral College in the wake of Al Gore’s defeat despite winning the popular vote. In reality, if Hillary’s position ever became law, the voters of the smaller states would become largely disenfranchised, since presidential candidates would campaign only in the most populous states, since that’s where al the votes would be if the popular vote decided who was elected president.
 

Obama can score big points throughout America against Hillary on this issue, since there are far more small states than big ones.

Once the nomination is decided, there is plenty of material to use against John McCain that hasn’t been used yet. Most of his weaknesses concern his demeanor and personality, which has often been very un-presidential. This can hurt McCain at his biggest strength, his image as a strong leader.

Let me know if you want me to put that in a follow-up of this.

Should he become the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, expect Huckabee to be attacked for his flagrant use of his religion to affect his policy as governor of Arkansas.

While Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush were all elected president as open “born-again” Christians, none of them was ever hurt politically because there was no evidence that any of them ever let their religious views get in the way of their actions as public officials. 

However, as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee openly and repeatedly acknowledged that many of his policy decisions were based on his “born-again” Christianity.  The most damaging was his pushing the state parole board to parole a violent criminal who went on to murder an elderly woman.  Huckabee stated at the time that his decision was based on the murderer becoming a “born again” Christian.

This level of religious fanaticism scares most Americans, even many Republicans.  Given Huckabee’s candor with the press about his religious faith, Huckabee would not likely back down if this became a campaign issue.  As an example of his candor with the press, when responding to a New York Times Magazine reporters question regarding Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, Huckabee responded by inferring hat Mormons believed that Jesus and Satan were brothers.