Republican Primary News

Another Republican presidential candidate drops out of the race: Duncan Hunter.  This actually happened over the holiday weekend (and the fact that I totally missed it shows you how much media coverage Hunter drew), so I apologize for not bringing it up sooner.  The only true conservative candidate in the race, Hunter's departure leaves a gaping ideological hole that none of the other candidates will be able to fill completely.  But, facts are facts, and he didn't pull any more than 2% of any of the early states' primaries/caucuses, so there was really no point in continuing.  Hopefully he'll be back in the future - he's a great man of character and conservatism, and he has demonstrated his leadership in California.  He's just not quite ready for the national stage yet.

As a follow up, Hunter has inexplicably endorsed Mike Huckabee:

"I got to know Governor Huckabee well on the campaign trail," Huckabee said in a statement. "Of the remaining candidates I feel that he is strongly committed to strengthening national defense, constructing the border fence and meeting the challenge of China's emergence as a military superpower that is taking large portions of America's industrial base.

"Along with these issues of national security, border enforcement and protecting the U.S . industrial base, I see another quality of Mike Huckabee's candidacy that compels my endorsement," he added. "Mike Huckabee is a man of outstanding character and integrity. I saw that character over the last year of campaigning and was greatly impressed. The other Republican candidates have many strengths and I wish them all well."

HUH?!  Border enforcement and national security?!

As Michelle Malkin says:

Let's review:

Duncan Hunter - Keep Guantanamo Bay open
Mike Huckabee - Close Gitmo

Duncan Hunter - Staunch border security advocate
Mike Huckabee - Open-borders ethno-panderer

Her conclusion: "Maybe Huck promised him a Cabinet position. Nothing else makes sense."

I agree, nothing else makes sense.  Huckabee is apparently very persuasive, even with people who know better...I mean, people who know the behind-the-scenes jockeying of politics.  I have to admit that if a Huckabee presidency came with a Department of Homeland Security headed by Hunter, that would take a lot of the sting out of Huckabee's awful track record, but one still has to wonder what's going on...

In other Republican candidate news, Amy D. Goldstein writes at American Thinker why the other candidates hate Mitt Romney .  Read the whole article, but here's the short version:

1. He can win - he has the best cross-party appeal and 'gets' the issues the best
2. Jealousy - he looks good and is rich
3. Interest groups - in particular, he doesn't owe any (partly due to his own personal wealth)
4. His brains - he's very smart ( earned a Harvard MBA and JD simultaneously), and understands economics better than the other guys
5. His wealth - while he doesn't need to raise money, he has done so successfully, meaning he's getting Americans on board with him
6. His experience - very successful in private sector, not a long history of Washington politics
7. His vision - he believes America's best days are ahead of us, not behind us, and is infectiously optimistic
8. His beliefs - believes in the common American faith of democracy and religious freedom -- just as the Founding Fathers did -- and communicates that belief well

Food for thought.  Regardless, the field is narrowing, and Super Tuesday could blow the race open, or even -- for all practical purposes -- finish it.

There's my two cents.