Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee emerged from the GOP nomination process as the leaders of their respective GOP factions. Huckabee represents the social conservatives. He aspires to speak for the evangelicals, who reportedly make up 25% of the electorate. Romney represents the business side of the GOP. He is the consummate executive and as a former CEO is the GOP’s possible poster boy for someone to fix the economy. These two factions are warring for the chance to have someone from their camp land as the McCain VP and the fight has major long-term implications for the party.

I have learned not to be disgusted by anything the Republican Party does nowadays because they explore new depths all the time. But an announcement today really takes the cake.

On the flip.

Yesterday on NBC’s Meet the Press, host David Gregory asserted that the Republican Party "used to be the party of big ideas." Gregory then asked his guest Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), "What’s the big idea Senator McCain is campaigning on?" Jindal responded, "I think there’s several," but couldn’t provide an answer. Gregory asked again, "Where are the new big ideas of the Republican Party that John McCain is, is championing?" And again Jindal couldn’t provide an answer.

Let’s talk about ambition Senator John McCain; yours to be exact.  

After coming home a celebrity from being a POW during the Vietnam War, your extramarital affairs caused you and your first wife to break up.  You chose to go after the money instead – Cindy Lou Hensley’s.  Her estate is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.  

She was your last affair before divorcing your first wife, Carol.

It doesn't matter how many times good reporters like Marc Ambinder report that the Obama-Clinton discussions are smooth and the plans for the convention are amicable, and it doesn't matter how often Hillary stumps for Barack, the media love a good fight.

Reports of strife between negotiators for Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama are exaggerated and the two sides are nearing an agreement on how Clinton's delegates will participate in the formal nominating process at the Democratic National Convention, according to advisers to both Democrats.

The trouble is, they are missing the real feud, which unlike the made-for-TV stuff on the D side has serious bad blood potential .

"I think that there are better choices for Sen. McCain [than Mitt Romney] that will have the approval of values voters," [Mike Huckabee] added.

Huckabee denied an earlier media report in which he seemed to suggest that it was Romney's Mormon religion that should be a disqualifying factor.

"There is absolutely no issue about Mitt Romney's religion. I have never said that," Huckabee said.

But his comments renew what had become a nasty spat between the two politicians during the Republican primary. Huckabee's come-from-nowhere victory over Romney in the Iowa caucus was a big reason that Romney lost the nomination.

and

Yet as Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, is said to have emerged as a top contender to be Senator John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, a vocal segment of conservative leaders and grass-roots activists have mobilized against him, with some going out of their way to block his path to the Republican ticket.

and

"I think when you look at Mitt Romney, he's not in the totally uncomfortable column, but he's not in the completely comfortable column," said Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council. "Those that do have opposition to him, they're pretty adamant in their opposition."

The social conservative wing and the Club for Growth wing really dislike each other, to the bone. When McCain sent up that trial balloon about pro-choice Ridge and Lieberman as VP, it sank like a stone.

That thud you just heard was the Ridge/Lieberman VP trial balloon that social conservative activists quickly popped. They couldn't find reporters fast enough to denounce the prospect of McCain adding a pro-choice pol to his ticket. "It absolutely floored me," Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values, told the Politico’s Jonathan Martin. "It would doom him in Ohio." Home School Legal Defense Association President Mike Farris said to the Washington Times: "If Tom Ridge is on the ticket, I will not be voting Republican." Then again, if this was a trial balloon, wasn’t this the response McCain is looking for?

So where are the rest of the divided GOP stories? Oh, sorry. With our media, that narrative only applies to Democrats. I forget that, sometimes.

The bitterness between Governor Mitt Romney and Governor Mike Huckabee never really died.  Romney, favored by Bush, was the poster-child of the Club For Growth(which Huckabee called the Club For Greed).  Huckabee was the champion of the "value voters" and the Fair Tax.  Somewhere in between them was John McCain, ceding Iowa to the Romney/Huckabee struggle while he focused on Iowa.  Then the Huckaboom of Iowa happened, that night of the underdogs(can't forget Obama), and then the resurgence of "the Maverick" in his beloved New Hampshire.  Out-maneuvered, Romney would cut his loses after Super Tuesday at CPAC and move to set himself up as the team player.  Mike Huckabee fought on for another month, setting himself up as the winner of the silver medal, and then ambushing Mitt Romney's Veep-prospects when the timing was right.

And Huckabee is just getting started on solidifying his place in American politics.

Dearest Diary,  

Just had a chat with Cheney.  God he’s freaky.  He said he was pushing me to McCain’s folks for VP.  Somehow he made it sound… scary, like he’d pack me off to Gitmo if I didn’t get picked.  “It’s yours to lose,” he said, glowering.  Something’s wrong with that guy.  His face doesn’t work right.  I don’t think it smiles.  I wonder if he has teeth.  Prob’ly just fangs.  Brrrrr!

But he made his point.  I better get it.  Trying to think if there’s anything else I could do.  I put out the statement, “I would be honored, blah blah blah.”  Hit all the right patriotic notes.  Rove supports me; Bush supports me; now even Cheney.  All they have to do is convince that whiny old midget..

McCain's new strategist draws on Barack Obama's supposed smear of Bill Clinton as a racist to attack Barack Obama's supposed smear of John McCain (The Original Maverick!) as a racist (seeing as it's not as though the McCain campaign actually created an ad warning that Barack Obama would put a scary picture of himself on the dollar bill or anything):

"Say whatever you want about Bill Clinton," Schmidt said, "but it's deeply unfair to suggest his criticism of Obama was race-based. President Clinton was a force for unity in this country on this subject. Every American should be proud of his record as both a governor and president. But we knew it was coming in our direction because they did it against a President of the United State of their own party."

This reminds me of one of the fun angles of a McCain-Romney ticket: The chance to make John McCain eat his words about Mitt Romney being a feckless French surrender monkey for using the word "timetable" once regarding Iraq.

Not looking good for his veep chances...

WOLF BLITZER: Can you cite one legislative accomplishment that Senator McCain produced during those 26 years in Washington in order to achieve energy independence?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Well, I'm not a historian that goes through all of the pieces of legislation John McCain has worked on.

No one asked Romney to take a look at McCain's late-18th century accomplishments. Those are legitimately a historical question. It was his more recent actions that were the subject of Blitzer's query. But in any case, Romney's response, translated into English, was essentially "I didn't get that talking point today."

Bottom line, the answer to Blitzer's question about McCain's accomplishments toward energy indepdence is "There aren't any."

    DKOS readers are now familiar with the Obama inevitability argument. If Obama carries the Kerry states plus Iowa and New Mexico, then he only needs one more battleground state to top 270. That can either be Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, Indiana, or Florida. Therefore, Obama can't lose. Yada, yada, yada.

    The problem with this line of thought is that it treats the election as a machine running by statistical dynamics. What are the compounded odds of Obama losing all those independent contests? Pretty damned slim.

    But the election is not a machine, it's a chess game. Each side employs strategy, and that strategy includes elements of psychological warfare and tactical surprise. McCain is not going to just stand still while all the applesauce falls around him, if you can imagine that. No, he's going to make his moves, and he's already pulled dead even in the national tracking polls. So what is McCain's winning move?

[From the Frog Pond]

Monica Langley, of the Wall Street Journal, is reporting on the short-lists for vice-presidential nominees:

Obama: "His focus now includes five colleagues in the U.S. Senate — Joseph Biden, Evan Bayh, Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton and Jack Reed — and two governors, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, according to Democratic operatives, though he could still make a different pick."

McCain: "They include ex-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a rival during the Republican primaries; Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, with whom he has a strong friendship; and former Rep. Rob Portman of the battleground state of Ohio. Republicans also are touting Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, and campaign adviser Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co., among others."

I'm going to make a few observations about these picks.  

In no particular order, starting with Senator John McCain's choices.

In past elections, the Bush/Rove team undercut, back stabbed and push polled John McCain's campaign without mercy, limits nor reservations.  Now, we are supposed to believe that they are "good friends"?  Mr. McCain has attempted to become the nominee in past elections and has been viciously attacked by his own party's hard core base.  The primary leading to his nomination this election cycle was no exception to that historical precedent.  Right wing talk radio and pundits were seen to join Mitt Romney's campaign and Mike Huckabee's campaign in attacking the authenticity of McCain's conservative credentials, his "Republicaness" if you will.  Once again, completely out of touch with the average voter and America at large (even the average Republican voter, perhaps), the far right wing of the Republican party pushed McCain and the other candidates as far to the right as possible to appeal to the base. This is fairly typical of a primary fight, one must acknowledge, and McCain, of course, managed to win the nomination despite these attacks from within.

In response to NathanRudy's diary, Totally Selfish Request: No Mitt Romney!!!!! I just have to say...

sigh I need a drink.  There are more and more rumors of Mitt being named Veep for McCain and this disturbs me, and not just because he tied his dog to the roof of his car.  This changes a lot of races in my area.

I am FAR more selfish then NathanRudy in proclaiming "NO MITT ROMNEY!!!!"

Mitt Romney wanted badly to be president, but he didn't get his pony. However, it turned out that he is so eager to settle for a rocking horse that the Boston Globe is reporting that Willard is prepared to eat his $45 million campaign debt.

So Hotline says Robert Novack says sources say (it's like middle school dating, huh?) that McCain might announce his choice for VP next week, and that the name Novack is hearing is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

That'd be, by the way, a ticket of flip-floppers on choice since both men were pro-choice and went over to the dark side when they decided to seek the Presidency.

But that's neither here nor there when it comes to why I object to Mitt Romney being on the ticket.  Over the last decade, I forget when, he bought a house on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee about 3/4 of a mile down the shore from me.  I'm sure the Secret Service has been all over my past already since he was running for Pres, but it's gonna get worse if he runs for VP!

In their book "free ride," David Brock and Paul Waldman spell out how the media, while downplaying critical stories, and applying differing standards, has given John McCain a relatively free ride on many issues that otherwise require far more illumination and examination.  

This trend of skewed coverage and factually off base, pro McCain commentary, is so prevalent in the media that sometimes, even so called "media liberals" partake of it.  

The good news is the consensus is McCain will choose Mitt Romney for his running mate. Good because contrary to some conventional wisdom ( which is no wisdom at all ) Romney is not going to change the dynamics of the campaign. If he was going to he would have done fsr better than he did in the Primaries. On paper Romney should have blown McCain away. Instead Republicans yawned.