All Blog Posts from Horserace

With the GOP washout and 2008 drawing to a close, the beginning of the 2012 presidential chatter was inevitable. Of course, it was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin who dominated it in the days following the election, with a series of national interviews and a heavily covered trip to the Republican Governor’s Association meeting in Miami last week.

But some other potential contenders are hardly wasting time and the Senate runoff in Georgia is shaping up as a showcase for them. Mike Huckabee, who won more delegates in the Republican primaries than anyone besides John McCain, stumped for Senator Saxby Chambliss over the weekend and used the opportunity to talk about his support for the Fair Tax.

Today, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney announced that he will head to the state this Friday and that his Political Action Committee is donating $5,000 to help Chambliss keep his seat. Romney will appear at political rallies and at fundraisers. “This is a critical election whose outcome will be important to maintaining a balance of power in the Senate,” Romney said in a statement. “It is critical that Republicans safely retain the ability to filibuster in order to prevent the worst abuses of single party rule.”

And not all the action is in Alaska or Georgia. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will be in the state of Iowa this Saturday to speak at an event for the Iowa Family Policy Center. Iowa, of course, is the traditional kickoff state for the presidential primary season.

The Republican Party has released advance excerpts from several of the big speakers tonight, including vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and three of McCain's former rivals for Republican nomination -- Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.

You can watch the video and read the text from more speeches at the convention here.

Sarah Palin

On her experience as a public servant:

"I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids’ public education better. When I ran for city council, I didn’t need focus groups and voter profiles because I knew those voters, and knew their families, too. Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities."

On why she is going to Washington, D.C.:

"I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. But here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country."

On energy policies that the McCain-Palin administration will implement:

"Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America’s energy problems - as if we all didn’t know that already. But the fact that drilling won’t solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all. Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we’re going to lay more pipelines...build more nuclear plants...create jobs with clean coal...and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources. We need American energy resources, brought to you by American ingenuity, and produced by American workers."

On John McCain:

"Here’s how I look at the choice Americans face in this election. In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change."

Read full post…

CBS News’ Joy Lin reports:

(NEW YORK) As rumors swirl about John McCain's VP pick, there are reports out that former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee may be in the mix, despite his statements to the contrary. Asked about his whereabouts, Mike Huckabee told CBS News: "Same place tonight and tomorrow. In Arkansas. What’s funny is that networks are reporting that I’m ‘on my way to Dayton.’ None of them bothered to ask me."

Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee today commented on the efforts of some of his supporters in Michigan and Ohio to convince presumptive GOP nominee John McCain not to ask former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney to be his running mate.

"I think a lot of people, not just social conservatives, but a lot of the Republicans I know are not necessarily comfortable with Romney," Huckabee told CBSNews.com. "But it has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with inconsistencies in positions he's held, and that's it."

In response to buzz about the former Massachusetts governor becoming McCain's running mate, an alliance of Ohio social conservatives, many of whom are former Huckabee supporters, have formed a group called "Social Conservatives Against Romney." Romney had moderate positions on many hot-button social issues, including abortion, before his run for president.

Huckabee has also been discussed as a potential running mate for McCain, though he is seen as a long-shot possibility.

Evangelical leader Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told CBSNews.com last week that Romney "would be an excellent choice" for McCain.

"There are people in the evangelical community who would have a problem with his Mormonism," he added. "I am not one of them. I mean, I'm very clear that I do not believe Mormonism is a Christian faith. But that does not disqualify someone from being President or Vice President. And my guess would be that, probably, about 15 to 20 percent of the evangelical community would have a problem with his Mormonism."

He may have been something of a long-shot to get on John McCain’s ticket for the general election in the first place, but news that former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has signed a one-year deal with Fox News as a political commentator may mean at least he thinks there’s little chance. The Washington Post reports on the deal that will have Huckabee transition to a talking head throughout the rest of the campaign and into the next administration.

During the primary campaign, Huckabee used the free media opportunities wherever he could find them to help boost his little-funded campaign. His communication skills and use of humor in those appearances – and in the televised debates – helped boost him to a win in Iowa and made him the de-facto runner-up to John McCain in states and delegates won during the primaries. Such an achievement usually results in a candidate being given a long look as a potential running mate but Huckabee appears to have different thoughts about that.

Hillary Clinton has said more than once that if the rules in the Democratic primary were similar to the rules under which the GOP picks its nominee, she would already be her party's candidate.

Now Mike Huckabee is making the same argument – in reverse – and backing Clinton's claim in the process.

"If you do an analysis of the election, if we had played by the rules of the Democrats, I would have won, and if the Democrats have played by the rules of the Republicans, Hillary would have won this long ago," Huckabee told the Huffington Post.

He continued:

If you look at the process, and I'm not bitter about and it's nothing that I'm complaining about. It is what it is. But the Republicans had a front-loaded system with winner-take-all states, and the front-load was largely states that were states that are not Republican states, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California. They were winner-take-all states, but they were big states and delegate-rich. Those were the states John McCain plays very well in. I've won the states in the South. I won Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia and Arkansas...

But those were all proportionate states. So I won them, but I didn't get all the delegates. But if you had taken that whole system and reversed it, it would have been a very different outcome.

Huckabee also weighed in on the situation Clinton now faces.

"Whether she likes it or not, the perception is that it's over for her," he said. "She can argue that she could take it to the convention. I could argue the same thing. The convention is where the process really does happen. But once every day, the media pounds it in that the elections over, then at some point it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy... if every day for weeks on end, the people of Ohio or Wisconsin or Texas or Rhode Island are told that it really doesn't matter how they vote, it's already done, then first of all, some of the people just don't even bother to go vote, and others don't want to vote if they don't think they're going to win, so they go vote for whoever everybody says is going to be the winner. There's just a certain psychology about that."

This weekend, three potential running mates for John McCain – Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney – will be spending time with McCain at his Arizona retreat.

Not on the list: Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, who, along with Romney, was McCain's toughest challenger for the GOP nomination and who has said that he would like to be on the Republican ticket.

A snub? Not according to Huckabee's daughter Sarah, who said in an email to the Associated Press that her father turned down an invitation to the retreat, opting instead to travel and celebrate his 34th anniversary with his wife.

The AP notes that McCain aides "have said more than two dozen people were invited for the social event and that it's not intended for vetting potential running mates," though it is widely seen as an opportunity for the presumptive GOP nominee to get a better sense of some of his top vice presidential candidates.

Last week, mikehuckabee.com featured a “Doomsday clock” apparently designed to drum up excitement for the former presidential candidate's next project. Now the wait, as it were, is over: Ladies and gentlemen, it's Huck PAC.

Huckabee's political action committee is "committed to supporting Republican candidates who are passionate advocates for tax reform, a strong national defense, real border security, life, the family, less government and individual liberty," according to Huckabee's introductory blog post.

Among those whom Huckabee is supporting is presumptive GOP nominee John McCain. "Huck PAC is committed to helping Republicans regain control of the House and Senate, regain a majority of governorships and elect John McCain as the 44th President of the United States,” says the site's mission statement.

The former Arkansas governor, who is writing a book and giving paid speeches, told supporters during a Thursday conference call that he could run for president again in four years. He also criticized religious leaders who failed to rally around him in his recent presidential run.

"Some people really worshipped at the altar of electability rather than to be faithful and loyal to the principles they were supposed to be committed to," he said, according to The Morning News. "When it gets to their own political realm, they think more secularly than even the secular people. That was very troubling."

You can listen to the conference call here.

A quick glance at this afternoon's Doppler radar map of Ohio shows a rainbow of snow, ice and rain across most of the state. So, what does that mean for the primary? Who knows.

As CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield pointed out on The Early Show this morning, it can be a futile endeavor to guess who (if anyone) might benefit at the polls when Mother Nature has a bad day.

Whether or not any candidate has benefited, the 2008 campaign has seen its fair share of strange weather on voting days.

New Hampshire voters who typically bundle up in layers on primary days were greeted by temperatures topping 60 degrees this time around.

And when it was South Carolina's turn to vote later in January, the kind of wintry conditions New Hampshire voters are more used to prevailed.

But the weather is one of those variables that candidates know they simply can't control. Whatever happens in Ohio today, don't expect the loser—or for that matter, the winner—to complain about conditions on the ground.

Sometimes the headlines tell the story. Here's a sampling of what's topping the news today in the Democratic race:

"Clinton Team Seeks To Calm Turmoil" – The Wall Street Journal.

"Clinton Scrambles to Try to Reverse Obama's Momentum" – The Washington Post.

"Knocked Off Balance, Clinton Campaign Tries To Regain Its Stride" -- The New York Times.

"Clinton Seeking Traction In Texas" – The Houston Chronicle.

"Obama's 'Big Mo' Could Capsize Clinton's Ship" – The San Francisco Chronicle.

"Clinton Campaign Remains Upbeat" – The Los Angeles Times.

Barack Obama Fans Fill Arenas With Eye On 'History'" – The New York Daily News.

"Is It Too Late For Hillary?" -- Time magazine.

"Too Early To Panic, Clinton's Colorado Super Delegates Say" – The Rocky Mountain News.

"Bill Clinton's '92 Campaign Chief Backs Obama" – The Atlanta Constitution-Journal.

Read full post…