Sad Lemonade

[akirlu]

If this guy turns out to be the killer of the four police officers ambushed this morning, then that may be the end of Mike Huckabee's next run for the Republican nomination. And the one after that, ad infinitum. Huckabee granted the guy clemency over the protest of prosecutors, you see. Granting clemency to cop killers and child rapists is not going to be an easy sell on any front.

My heart goes out to the shock- and grief-stricken family, friends, and colleagues of the four slain officers. But if that's the end of any serious chance Mike Huckabee has at running this country, I will still breathe a little sigh of thanks for their sacrifice.

Comments

[angriest.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I don't think Huckabee had much of a chance for the 2012 nomination anyway, but yes I agree with you.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

It's much too early to handicap who has a chance in 2012. I would have bet money that Hillary Clinton was too smart to run against her own negatives for the Presidency, and you see how well that panned out.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's too early in some cases, and Huckabee is one of them to me. It'd kind of be like claiming in late 2005 that Dennis Kucinich had a good chance at winning the Dem nomination - not impossible, but hilariously unlikely.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I'm cynical enough to think that being "soft on crime" only matters if there's a (D) after the person's name. Huckabee will get on TV and cry, and because he's a fundamentalist preacher, the media will never mention it again.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, I don't disagree about how the media bias is likely to slant it and drop it. Capitalizing on it may well require deftness on the part of Democratic media handlers, but Republicans are currently sufficiently divided and frenzied that it's quite possible that one can count on that nugget to come out again in the primaries. Rove and politicos of his ilk have used a lot less to rat fuck an opponent, viz. John McCain's first run.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Do the Democrats have anybody as deft and conscienceless as Rove, though? I hope you're right. Huckabee reminds me all too much of Nehemiah Scudder.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

being "soft on crime" only matters if there's a (D) after the person's name.

That does seem to be the case, yep.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

>.Granting clemency to cop killers and child rapists is not going to be an easy sell on any front.<<

Particularly since this is an issue that Republicans have hammered Democrats over. Heck, they practically knocked Dukakis out of a presidential race with the Willie Horton story, and that wasn't even full clemency, just a "furlough" (or whatever it was called then).