Huckabummer

Here's the article, apparently the Huckabee campaign created an attack ad against the Romney campaign and at the last minute decided to pull the ad in an attempt to keep the the campaign focused on the issues (so they're saying anyway).

Ok that sounds good, right? seeing your mistakes responding to them...the only problem is they had a press conference, where they told the reporters there what they were doing, and then they played the ad for the reporters...

There's no way to see this other than being cheap and childish and manipulative. I'm going to give Huckabee to the end of the week, but he may have just lost my support with this stunt.

All he had to do was stick to the message...he didn't even have to mean it, but he couldn't deviate from it, and now he has...

Looks like it's over for Huckabee. We'll see what happens. I think I might go on over to http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ and see what's going on there, I think they might still be on message....sigh...

[UPDATE]
There may be hope yet, here is an excerpt from another blog, quoting Mike talking to Wolf Blitzer. I like it...seems genuine...risky, honest, sincere...that is good...maybe it's just damage control, but he needs to do something...

Mike Huckabee’s comments to Wolf Blitzer a moment ago, about the ad he decided not to air.

“A lot of cynics are going to say this is all contrived and planned. I don’t care what they say.”

“If it costs me the caucus, it does.”

“I don’t want to run an ad where I feel like have to take a shower when I’m done.”

“We didn’t give out DVDs, which we were prepared to give out. We said ‘we’re just not gonna do it.’ …The video didn’t work, so it’s not usable anyway.

“If we’re going to wrap ourselves in the mantle of Ronald Reagan, let’s wrap ourselves in the tone of Ronald Reagan. Let’s remember his 11th Commandment, which said, ‘Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.’

Asked by Wolf Blitzer if he has a message to Mitt Romney: “He’s free to run his campaign any way he wishes. He can say anything he wants about his record, and.. he can say anything he wants about my record. We’re going to run a positive campaign.”

Smooth. I didn't see anything of the anger or wackiness in Huckabee that others described in his press conference appearance earlier today. And I think the "no negative ads" pledge will be catnip for exhausted Iowans. His rivals had better bring their A-game, because this guy isn't going to drop the ball as the clock winds down...

Here's some insight from Rick H:

Huck's stock is in his pragmatism. Unless he loses that, he will still attract voters. People are sick to freaking death of the bitter partisanship that has denominated American politics for so long. They want someone that can speak in a manner that people relate with and give answers that are at least defensible to the average person. I guarantee you that not every Huck supporter believes everything the same way he does. They support him because they LIKE him. If he continues to give well-thought-out responses, is honest (which he needs to be very careful about) and is positive in his vision for leading this country then he cannot fail.

I think he's right on, however I still think that integrity is key and that there is going to have to be some major damage control done here in order to fix this. Mike's gonna have to do some work to earn back my trust.

We interupt campaign coverage to bring you this garbage...

The house of representatives just passed a ridiculously ignorant bill, HR 3791, that would fine free wifi internet providers up to $300,000.00 if a customer on their system browses porn or other illegal material. This is nothing more than a push by the telcos to basically "outlaw" free wifi because it is a threat to their ISP business. This could put anyone from a coffee shop to a hotel who offer free wifi to their customers at risk of this fine based on their customers activities, and probably just make it to cost prohibitive and risky to provide the wifi service.

The only way for free wifi operators to control or monitor what content their customers are accessing would be to implement content filtering software which is in general either costly or difficult to manage, and at best it is not very reliable anyway, especially the systems that a small business could afford to implement. Many of these free wifi operators are simply coffee shop owners and people who operate hotels or offer it in their businesses, heck it could even apply to a wifi router in a church. They generally don't have the technical expertise to do any more than set up the wifi router and offer the service to their customers, and with this bill the action of setting up wifi for their customers now opens them to the risk of a $300, 000.00 fine based on activity of a person on thier network that they have limited technical or economic way of monitoring, this is ludicrous!

The bill also gives the government sweeping powers to force ISPs and other businesses to hand over personal information of their customers. This is very big brother-ish and scary!

This bill is equivalent to prosecuting the owner of some property for a crime committed by another person on that property. How would you like to be fined $300,000.00 because some criminal mugged someone on the sidewalk outside your house or business?

You're not going to believe this but the bill passed the US house of representatives with only 2 votes against it! This shows how ignorant our representatives are about technology and how beholden they are to the Telco lobbyist. This kind of legislation can put the future of the freedom of the entire internet at risk as they continue to try to regulate and legislate the free transfer of ideas and connectivity over the internet.

I'm not advocating for pornography here, but we can't go after business owners and regular people who just want to use the affordable wireless technology that is available to offer wifi internet to their clients and customers. This is not the domain of the government, get them out of it and let them know.

Here is a news article about the bill:

http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9829759-38.html?tag=nefd.top

It is HR 3791
Contact you senator:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

and reprimand your Representative:

http://www.house.gov/house/MemStateSearch.shtml

This is a big deal, it is a direct attack at the freedom of the internet, not just for wifi but this will reach further into what information we are allowed access to.

Do something about it!, or at least forward it to a friend who will!

BTW, hats off to congressman Ron Paul, who was one of the only 2 congressmen to vote against this legislation. I'm not a Ron Paul supporter, but I do respect many of his ideas (I can't get over his views on the war however).