Friday Afternoon ~ The Front Page Cover

 The Front Page Cover 
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
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Featuring:
Republican Field, Mellow Edition
Peggy Noonan
 
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"Rise up together as one voice"
"Be careful where you stand"
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  FRANCE FAULTS IRAN NUKE DEAL 
“A day after President nObama told an Israeli reporter, ‘The best way to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon is a verifiable, tough agreement’ and a day after Secretary of State hanoi John Kerry called into new Iran negotiations before being rolled into surgery for a broken leg, there is a new development. The French are vocally skeptical and concerned about any Iran nuclear deal that doesn’t allow international inspectors access to Iran’s military sites and other secret facilities – something opponents on Capitol Hill have repeatedly mentioned. The French foreign minister went on to say in an interview with the WSJ that the nuclear deal, as is, would likely spark a nuclear arms races in the Middle East – another point opponents often mention.
          The White House insists that Iran has agreed ‘in principle’ to inspections of military facilities, but Iran’s leaders have publicly contradicted that claim. In 2013, the same French foreign minister warned that Washington risked being ‘suckered into a fool’s game’ in the Iran talks. While Secretary hanoi Kerry is on the sidelines now trying to fix up a wobbly broken leg, it appears the French are the ones standing strong on the international stage when it comes to Iran.” –Bret Baier
          “For the president to use a legalistic definition, to say because he ordered major combat operations to be over that we’re not at war – that this is supposed to encourage us at tee-ball practice – is not going to cut it and the polls continue to tell us that Americans feel very unsafe, in some cases as unsafe as they were in the shadow of 9/11.” – Chris Stirewalt on “The Kelly File.” Watch here.  -Fox News  
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 WITH YOUR SECOND CUP OF COFFEE 
What about your first cup of coffee? For those trying to limit their caffeine intake to something under radioactive levels, the secret may not be stopping earlier but rather starting later. WaPo looked at the evidence and found that the habit of gulping down coffee first thing in the morning may diminish the effect of the caffeine and actually reduce energy levels. The right times appear to be the parts of the day when your body’s production of cortisol, a hormone that helps us to feel more awake and alert, typically lags. Your sunrise coffee might actually interfere with cortisol production and take you straight from a temporary chemical high right into a late-morning cortisol crash. But could you really wait until 10 a.m. for your cuppa?  
 -Fox News  
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 Walker ready to sign late-term abortion ban -  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Gov. Scott Walker said Monday he’s prepared to sign a 20-week abortion ban bill that has no exception for cases of rape or incest. Asked Monday about the bill following a speech at a Boys & Girls Club event in Delavan, Walker said he would sign the measure banning the procedure after 20 weeks whether or not it had those exemptions. The Republican governor and likely presidential candidate made his comments before a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday on the fast-moving bill before committees of both the Assembly and Senate… [the bill] could reach Walker's desk before the Senate and Assembly begin floor debate on the state budget this month.”   -Fox News  
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 GOP STILL SEARCHING FOR BENNET FOE 
The Hill: “Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) will seek reelection to his House seat in 2016, depriving Republicans of their top recruit to take on Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) in a swing state the GOP might need to protect its majority in the upper chamber…National Republicans had been giving Coffman a hard sell to enter the race. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McCon-nell (R-Ky.) met with Coffman recently to discuss the opportunity.”  
-Fox News  
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 WHAT COULD GO WRONG? 
(Minneapolis) Star Tribune: “Some parents are outraged after the leader of a small Minneapolis private school took about a dozen middle- and high-school-aged students on a sex education field trip to an adult novelty store late last week. ‘It’s just a major breach of trust,’ said Lynn Floyd, whose 11- and 13-year-old daughters were part of the outing to the Smitten Kitten. ‘You just can’t erase those images.’ A leader of Gaia Democratic School and the host of the field trip defended the outing, saying the visit capped a monthslong sex education class. Director Starri Hedges, who also teaches the school’s sex education class, said she wanted to provide a safe and welcoming environment for students to learn about human sexual behavior. … Gaia is a K-12 school with a motto promising academic freedom, youth empowerment and democratic education. Parents say the school has about 25 students, including several described by administrators as transgender.”  
-Fox News  
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foxnewsfirst.com
 
 
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 EPA’s Useful Idiot McCarthy Won’t Answer A Direct Question  
(rickwells.us) ~ EPA Chief Gina McCarthy is an average alarmist and a mediocre propagandist. She’s not a scientist nor does she profess to have any familiarity with climate science other than memorizing UN talking points and knowing “some great scientists” who share her supposed belief in our impending doom... McCarthy’s incomplete and vague answers to simple questions expose her duplicity. It’s clear that she’s protecting the hoax and doesn’t want to get into specifics. Specifics destroy the weak alarmist arguments. Vague hysteria and declarations that we must obey the anonymous “scientists” who have spoken are much safer paths to tread, but they do have their risks. Senator Sessions demonstrated that in no uncertain terms in the video below. Blind trust of the “benevolent government” is a common theme for the EPA and McCarthy. The Daily Caller referenced a recent interview with Big Think in which McCarthy equated her job at the EPA to that of a science interpreter. Her agency translates the “complicated” climate science into terms that simpletons such as the population of the United States can understand.        http://rickwells.us/epas-useful-idiot-mccarthy-wont-answer-a-direct-question-just-trust-her-and-believe/
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 ISIS Secretly Communicating With 1,000’s Of U.S. Followers Daily  
(rickwells.us) ~ Rep Mike McCaul (R-TX), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, gives his take on the current situation with domestic terrorism and the ability of ISIS and their like-minded followers and others to communicate and coordinate their attacks... He addresses the level of sophistication of our enemy and notes that it is a problem unlike the terrorists of the past. He addresses the levels of communication, the threat posed by their communication on social media, as well as the encryption and other platforms that make it impossible for authorities to know what is being plotted and to take preemptivemeasures.        http://rickwells.us/rep-mccaul-isis-secretly-communicating-with-1000s-of-u-s-followers-daily-we-cant-listen/
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 Illegals Don’t Need To Have Filed Returns To Access Tax Credits  
(gopthedailydose.com) ~ Illegal immigrants granted executive amnesty can claim back tax credits for work they performed illegally, even if they never filed a tax return during those years... IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has confirmed to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). In a written response to questions Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked Koskinen following a February hearing on the IRS budget, the IRS commissioner clarified his earlier assertions that illegal immigrants granted executive amnesty — and Social Security numbers — can access Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) for years they were working in the country illegally. http://gopthedailydose.com/2015/06/03/irs-amnestied-illegals-dont-need-to-have-filed-returns-to-access-tax-credits-for-illegal-work/
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 Iranian Nukes, the Arab Gulf, and nObama's Seductive Summitry  
(Steven J. Rosen) ~ From Mr. nObama's point of view, the summit was a success, in spite of the snub by Saudi King Salman and the other key Gulf leaders who declined to attend... Putting aside their doubts, the GCC leaders in the end signed a joint statement endorsing "a comprehensive, verifiable [Iran nuclear] deal that fully addresses the regional and international concerns, " saying it would serve "the security interests of GCC member states." At least some of the council leaders thought their side did well at the summit too. GCC Assistant Secretary-General Abdel Aziz Abu Hamad Aluwaisheg told a press conference May 15 that the Camp David summit "exceeded the expectations of most of us" by reassuring GCC states of an "unequivocal" commitment to their security. They were impressed when Mr. nObama described his commitment to their security in expansive language: "First, I am reaffirming our ironclad commitment to the security of our Gulf partners." Perhaps they did not look too closely at what the president actually promised, because the specific terms of the commitment he made, in fact, fell far short of the security guarantee the GCC partners were seeking and may have thought they received. The joint communique limits Mr. nObama's security guarantee to "an external threat to any GCC state's territorial integrity that is inconsistent with the U.N.        http://www.meforum.org/5289/obama-iran-gcc-summit
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 Shameful Americans Rely on Wikileaks To Be Informed  
(rickwells.us) ~ While he’s arguably a less-than-admirable character within the United States Congress for a variety of reasons, Rep Alan Grayson (D-FL) is willing to be vocal when he sees a need and he’s speaking out against the TPP... and the process of secrecy that surrounds it as well as the lack of debate over dictatorial fast-track authority being seized by our would-beemperor. Grayson notes that we don’t have star chambers in America, nor do we pass laws in secret. The secretive nature of the TPP is a strong indicator of the nature of its content. He decries that fact that in the United States, the American people have been forced to rely upon WikiLeaks for a window into the activities of our “government.” Wasn't it the same way nObamacare was passed.     http://rickwells.us/on-tpp-shameful-that-americans-must-rely-upon-wikileaks-to-be-informed-about-our-own-govt/
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 Look What’s Happening to a Special Forces Vet who Dared...  
(Lt. Col. Allen West - Retired) ~ We’ve been a loud advocate for 1LT Lorance, and his mother has been featured on radio and TV news programs – nah, not MSNBC or CNN, mind you... And even with the knowledge that the Army withheld evidence – just as they did in the case of 1LT Michael Behenna, young Clint remains incarcerated in the same facility as Nidal Hasan. Have y’all noticed that even with a petition that collected more than the necessary 100,000 signatures, there’s been no word from the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, and certainly not the White House? We live in a time when the family of a deserter is celebrated but ask yourself, has Clint Lorance’s mom been invited to the White House? Of course not.        http://www.aim.org/guest-column/look-whats-happening-to-a-special-forces-vet-who-dared-to-be-a-whistleblower/?utm_source=AIM+-+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=email060415&utm_medium=emai
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 State Dept FOIA Chief – We Blindly Accept Hilly Clinton’s Assurance  
(rickwells.us) ~ Why wouldn’t she trust the distinguished public servant Hilly Clinton? Why wouldn’t Joyce Barr, the State Department Chief FOIA Officer just accept Clinton’s word... that either there was nothing damning in her secret emails and that the only things that were deleted from her hijacked government records were strictly personal in nature? The reason she shouldn’t is because that would be a naïve and ridiculously foolish acceptance of a prejudiced assurance from a self-serving, manipulative and corrupt lifelong political parasite. But naïve and foolish are exactly what this woman is, asserting that she has to take Clinton’s word for it that everything she worked so hard to hide was included in the records that were turned over. Rep Trey Gowdy had some questions, including “What assurance can you give the public that State Department has everything that would be considered a public record from her tenure as Secretary of State?” Barr replied in part, “We’ve accepted her assurance that she’s given us everything that she had that should be a part of our official records.”        http://rickwells.us/state-dept-foia-chief-we-blindly-accept-hillary-clintons-assurance-we-have-everything-we-should/
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 ISIS threaten Hamas being too liberal and failing to impose Sharia law 
(Cristina Silva) ~ Islamic State group supporters in Gaza have given ruling Hamas leaders a 48-hour deadline to stop a crackdown on them. The militants also claimed responsibility for a rocket fired at Israel from Gaza last week... The rocket landed near Gan Yavne in southern Israel, Israeli military officials said. The threat to Hamas sent to Middle East reporters on Monday did not specify what would happen if the crackdown continued. Hamas has targeted Islamic State radicals in recent weeks after a series of unclaimed bombings. The crackdown resulted in the arrest of dozens of Salafi-jihadists who are affiliated with the Islamic State group, local media reported. Hamas also destroyed in May a mosque belonging to a group known as the “Supporters of the Islamic State in Jerusalem.” The Salafi group said Hamas had demolished the mosque “in a manner that even the Jewish and American occupation has not done,” the Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm reported.       https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/palestine-isis-supporters-in-gaza-threaten-hamas-for-being-too-liberal-and-failing-to-impose-sharia-law/
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 Egyptian president’s visit to Germany ends in chaos  
(hemuslimissue.wordpress.com) ~ A Muslima who apparently loves male abuse and barbarity – clearly an Isis and Muslim Brotherhood supporter – called Abdul Fatah al-Sisi a “nazi”. What a delusional hater these women can be. Germany needs to deport this burka terrorist asaps... Sisi is no Nazi. Far from it. Sisi is a true hero of historic proportions. It’s almost unreal how he managed to quickly take control of Egypt while it was quickly descending into the hands of the mothership of all Islamic terrorism: the Muslim Brotherhood. The man is a saint. In addition, he has demanded that Muslim clerics take a deep look at themselves for what they teach in mosques, accusing them of breeding terrorism. One can only wonder how far it will be before we hear of murder attempts on Sisi.       https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/egyptian-presidents-visit-to-germany-ends-in-chaos-as-mb-supporters-crash-press-conference/
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 This BOLD Move by House Republicans...  
(Wayne Dupree) ~ Most of the Republicans in the U.S. House endorsed Iowa Congressman Steve King’s latest attempt to block President nObama’s executive actions that shield some undocumented immigrants from deportation... King’s amendment to a bill that outlines spending for the U.S. Justice Department forbids the agency from using federal funds to defend legal challenges to the president’s action. You have to admire Rep. King. I wish he could get some comprehensive ENFORCEMENT reform going to free this country of all the illegal aliens. They are destroying this country and if something isn’t done about it now, we WILL soon be a third-world country. They say the immigration system is broken. No, what is broken is the ENFORCEMENT.        http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/amnesty-supporter-will-not-be-happy-with-what-the-house-just-did/
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Republican Field, Mellow Edition
Peggy Noonan
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     (peggynoonan.com) ~ I find myself feeling mellow on the subject of 2016. I have nonspecific affection and sympathy for everyone. Actually when I think of the Republican field the picture that comes to mind is of Cloris Leachman in the movie “Spanglish.” Merrily: “I love you. I love everybody, that’s what killed me.” I am interested that wherever I go people say “Who’s going to win?” and when I say I have no idea they say, “No, really?” There are many Americans these days who think there are other Americans who have the lowdown inside scoop and should share it. I told a woman the other day that when I ask 20 Republicans who they like I get a lot of different answers including, often, “I don’t know.” She looked skeptical. Who do you like, I asked. She said, “I don’t know—any of them!” Republicans strike me right now as both chipper and dour. Chipper: Whoever we get, it will be better than the guy in the White House. Dour: But maybe America will just go for Hilly. They all follow the polls. They should take heart from the terrible pre-election polls in Britain. There may be a lot of shy Tories in America, too. Slay me, Nate Silver.
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     Having listened a few times to to Megyn Kelly and Jeb Bush on Iraq, I have to think he misunderstood the question either honestly or conveniently.
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     Kelly: “On the subject of Iraq . . . knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?”
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     Bush: “I would have, and so would have Hilly Clinton, just to remind everybody, and so would have almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got.”
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Kelly: “You don’t think it was a mistake?”
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     Bush: “In retrospect the intelligence that everybody saw, that the world saw, not just the United States, was faulty.”
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     Bush seems at first to be answering the question, “Would you as president in 2003 have invaded Iraq as your brother did?” And he seems to answer in the affirmative: Yes, because of the intelligence, and Hilly Clinton would have done the same.
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     But that isn’t what Kelly asked. She said: Knowing what we know now would you have invaded? Meaning, knowing how it turned out—knowing we would not find weapons of mass destruction, knowing a destabilized Iraq would produce many bitter outcomes, knowing 12 years later the war would be unwon, knowing we had illusions about Iraq’s ability or willingness to transform itself into a peaceful constitutional democracy—would you have invaded? He doesn’t answer that question.
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So he’ll be asked it again, and should be prepared.
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     If his honest answer is, “No, knowing what we now know I would not have invaded,” it will be a big story for a while, with headlines like “Jeb: Iraq Was a Mistake—Breaks With Brother on Most Consequential Decision of Presidency.” But as an answer it will be in line with the thinking of the majority of Americans. If the answer is “Yes, I still would have invaded even knowing what we know” that will likely set off a firestorm, and last longer.
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     It is hard for me to believe he doesn’t think invading Iraq was a blunder. I wonder if he feels he can say it.
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     In any case he’ll be asked again. There was never going to be any dodging of this question.
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     A friend this morning sent a note, jeering at Scott Walker for having significant personal debt. He linked to this story. My friend’s tone suggested the debt makes Walker look less impressive as an individual and less viable as a presidential candidate.
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     My reaction was the opposite. To me the story made Walker look normal. (That in fact was my impression of him when I met him about a year ago for coffee at a New York restaurant. I was late. He was at a small table alone, reading some papers. No aides, no staff, no security, just a guy at a table, a Midwestern businessman having a cup of coffee between meetings. He also acted normal. This was so startling to me—politicians now are so often weird, outsized, faintly deranged—that I couldn’t stop thinking about it.) According to the piece Walker owes up to $50,000 to Sears and some perhaps similar amount on another card. His spokeswoman said well, yeah, he’s got two kids in college and his parents live with him. His yearly salary is $144,423. More jaw dropping: his net worth is minus $72,500. Meaning he has done a great deal of work and accomplished many things over the years and never bothered to make himself rich. This is so refreshing—public service that is not, apparently, a self-enrichment project—that I can’t help but think we should tip our hats. Good for him for doing it the old-fashioned way. As for its impact on his appeal, unless I’m very wrong, a lot of Americans will feel not derisive about his financial condition but almost touched. “Harry Truman had no money either.”
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     My friend said Walker’s lack of wealth suggests he can be bought. I’m seeing it the opposite: if he hasn’t sold himself yet, it suggests he is not for sale.
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     The other day I spoke to Mike Huckabee. He’d announced just the day before. I liked his speech, kind of warmly fiery. He’s under great pressure for not joining the call to cut entitlement spending. But the way he argued for his position cut through, had a certain moral force, and will have plenty of appeal:
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     “Some propose that to save safety nets like Medicare and Social Security, we need to chop off the payouts for the people who have faithfully had their paychecks and pockets picked by the politicians promising that their money would be waiting for them when they were old and sick. You were forced to pay for Social Security and Medicare for 50 years. The government grabs money from our paychecks and says it will be waiting for us when we turn 65. If Congress wants to take away someone’s retirement, let them end their own congressional pensions—not your Social Security. As president, I promise you will get what you paid for.”
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     That’s written in a way—you’ll get what you paid for—that might give him room to maneuver as president. Here I note that it is the politician who has a natural, visceral and well-known opposition to something who is best situated to do it and get away with it. Nixon could go to China because he was rather on record as not liking commies; Reagan could raise taxes in 1983 because he hated them, so if he did he probably had to. I suspect it is an amnesty foe who will be best situated to down the road get some form of immigration reform through. Huckabee, viscerally opposed to reform that comes on the backs of the people, and with a reputation as a spender as governor, could be well-positioned to get some sort of entitlement deal through.
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From our telephone interview:
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     What is Huckabee conservatism? “Taxes ought not to punish productivity and reward irresponsibility. That’s why I’m a proponent of the fair tax. Second, that we would turn loose true capitalism but not crony-insider capitalism that dominates the American economy today.” He referred to “the Washington-to-Wall Street axis of power.” He said: “Outside that loop there’s no sense of recovery.”
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     That sounds pretty populist. Is he a populist? “People say ‘Huckabee is a populist.’ If it means I have a connection to those who do not have any connection to that axis of power than yes.”
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     What is the American mood right now? “I think the mood is frustrated with a dysfunctional government that is so disconnected with the lives people really live. . . . The economy isn’t in recovery. You need to talk to the people I talk to each day. Their economy is stumbling. No one in Washington cares less about what’s going on in their lives, across all the demographics of race, gender, age, religion.” You see the detachment from real life in the “inane questions from journalists” who obsess on polls and process. “I’m thinking seriously, there are millions out of work, high rent, foreclosures.” It is producing a national “loss of dignity of which Washington, D.C., is not aware.”
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     What is the biggest misconception about you? That he’s “a big government guy.” He feels he governed effectively “in a hard-core Democratic state . . . with a structure that was far more partisan. . . . A lot of the think tanks that evaluate states have a template that does not account for the political dynamics (in those states), who has power to do what. They compare Arkansas to Texas or California. They’re not applicable.”
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     I asked if he thought the impact of his popular Saturday-night show on Fox, and his radio broadcasts, might be comparable in effect to the television and radio work of Ronald Reagan. Does he think the impression he made might have a residual power that isn’t sufficiently appreciated? “Gosh, I hope it does.” He thinks it will help protect him from attacks. “One of the things that was very evident was where I was easily defined eight years ago by opponents, now when people throw the nastiest stuff . . . people being polled say, ‘No, I like Huckabee, I see him on TV, hear him on the radio.’”
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     There’s a “misguided narrative” of the 2008 campaign that says he had only evangelical support. “Where I had most support was working-class people disconnected from the political elite, and some were evangelical and some not.” He sees “disaffected, struggling” working-class people as his natural base. “I wanna be faithful, speak not just to them but for them.”
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     Are you too kind of Southern/hokey/cornball to get the nomination in a party that after eight years of nObama is feeling tougher, hungrier, maybe harder? You can’t see someone bridle over the phone but I sensed bridling. “What people want more than geography, region or accent is a history of leading. I went into a harsh Democratic environment as governor of Arkansas and got 95% of my record passed. If they really want to win they need someone not only with a history of fighting but winning.”
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     He ended with political philosophy. “Elections are won vertically, not horizontally. Horizontal politics is liberals versus conservatives, Democrats versus Republicans. But the people in the middle who swing the election, they don’t think or vote horizontally. They are not left and right, they are ‘Are you taking me up or down?’ If they see your optimism and record they’ll vote for you. People perceived nObama vertically, not horizontally.”
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