WTH? (UPDATED)

A glance (more or less in desperation) at the sucky Google News Feed way down on the sidebar revealed the names of some people we'd more or less forgotten: Recent but now former presidential candidates. We may just look at Romney next, but ol' Huckabee Hound is always sniffin' at it, & sometimes he even steps in it. On The View, yet.

"It's a different set of rights. People who are homosexuals should have every right in terms of their civil rights, to be employed, to do anything they want. But that's not really the issue. I know you talked about it and I think you got into it a little bit early on. But when we're talking about a redefinition of an institution, that's different than individual civil rights. We're never going to convince each other," Huckabee told Behar.

Behar reminded Huckabee that segregation was an institution, too, in a way.

"But here is the difference, said Huckabee, "Bull Connor was hosing people down in the streets of Alabama. John Lewis got his skull cracked on the Selma bridge."

OK. At a book signing Friday at the Borders in Panama City Beach, Fla., Huck said a pile of silly crap too.

"The main focus of the book is that America can be a great nation again and the Republican Party can be relevant, but it has to get back to its clear convictions," he told the crowd at the Pier Park Borders. "When we've left them we've lost our way and we've lost elections."

Huckabee said Republicans win elections when the party is true to ideals like the sanctity of life and traditional marriage.

"When we get squishy on that stuff, we lose, it's as simple as that," he said.

Huckabee also blamed the recent Wall Street bailout for the Republicans' poor showing in the November general election and expressed concern that the new administration might seek to revive the Carter-era Fairness Docterine [sic], which he called "not only unconstitutional, but unconscionable."

How much longer they can continue to delude themselves like that is any one's guess, but if they keep it up there may well be three or even four semi-major parties available for this yr.'s Republican runners-up to lead over a cliff.

There'll probably be a few hard-liners & die-hards left to leap off that cliff, if these responses are anything more than anecdotal happenstance.

Deborah Tainsh said they came because they feel Huckabee "truly understands the depth of the War on Terror and how important it is."

UPDATED (@ approx. 0420 29 November 2008) Friday was busy for the formerly heavy-set Huckabee. He arrived in Tampa at 0900 (more specifically, Inkwood Books in Hyde Park) having already worked a crowd in Sarasota. In Tampa, a Hucklebee supporter spoke to a reporter:

Kathy Sorensen came from Treasure Island to catch a glimpse of the man she says would make a terrific president — someday. "It's not that he's a man of God, because I'm a Christian," Sorensen said. "It's that he has ideas like the FairTax. It is more fair. Poor people wouldn't be buying iPods if we had a FairTax."

Now just a moment? Is she saying that the "Fair Tax" is deliberately regressive, just to keep poor people from buying iPods? Should this be brought to the attention of Megan McArdle, of the prestigious & ancient Atlantic? And two more nice Republican ladies speak to the press.

"This is bigger than the presidency," said Kathy Cox of St. Petersburg. "This is about him getting a message out that integrity matters. I like his values. I'm Christian; he's a Christian."

Cox's sister, Nancy Main, was visiting for Thanksgiving from North Carolina. She likes Huckabee, too, and said he could play the same role Pat Robertson has played for years as the proxy for religious conservatives. "He's someone the rural parts of America can relate to," Main said.

Yup. And also, you betcha. (Is Pat Robertson dead or something?)