Ouch! The GOP Presidential Race Is Already Getting Sharp

The race for President may be slow to start but one candidate for the Republican presidential nomination who is not letting any grass grow under his feet is Fred Karger. At this early stage in the still evolving presidential race, Karger has come out punching and he is looking for a knockout. His two most recent victims are Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. In a very hard hitting piece for the UKs Guardian, Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger set his sites on the religious rights darling candidate, Mike Huckabee, and outlined reasons why Huckabee is unfit to be President.

In Kargers column, he points out the problem that Huckabee will have with his granting of clemency to a criminal who later went on to kill four police officers, while they were sitting in a diner. This situation is very reminiscent of the Michael Dukakis furlough of Willie Horton, an event that went down in the annals of political campaign history and ultimately played a large part in Dukakis landslide, 1988 defeat. Interestingly Fred Karger was working for the opponent of Mike Dukakis, George Herbert Walker Bush, and he played an instruemental roll in the infamous Willie Horton ad. Now, more than two decades later, Karger sees history repeating itself, but this time against a Republican.

In September of 2010 White House 2012 addressed the very same issue that Karger has written about. In a piece called Huckabees Record Will Haunt Him in 2012, I maintained that the clemency problem facing Huckabee is even worse than it was for Michael Dukakis regarding his furlough program. In it,the I describe how that there are several instances where, as Governor of Arkansas, Huckabee granted clemency to a few criminals who went on to commit greater crimes. There was Wayne DuMond who Huckabee granted clemency to and after he was released, raped and killed two women. But it is clemcy of Maurice Clemmons that will probably hurt Huckabee the most. Clemmons killing of four police officers in Lakewood, Washington is enough to keep Huckabee out of the race. And I maintain that despite Huckabees recent meeting with financial bundlers in New York, the clemency problem that Huckabee will inevitably have to confront, will in fact keep him from running.

In another White House 2012 article entitled Can Republicans Pardon the Pardons, Jsmashmouth articulates similar sentiments but he adds that Tim Pawlenty may also have a problem in this area.

However; in Kargers column, he does not stop at the pardon problems of Huckabee. Karger also attacks Huck for his un-Christian remarks about homosexuals and he calls Huckabee out for casting aspersions and being a bully.

And this week, while Karger is chopping at the reputation of Mike Huckabee, he also took the opportunity to use an MSNBC interview to confirm that Huckabee is not his only target. When asked if his campaign was specifically trying to throw a monkey wrench in to the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, Karger stated that such a thing is a welcome sidebar note.

Karger was a key player in trying to pass legalized gay marriage in California and the most aggressive opponentof the proposition which would have made it legal was the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints. As a Mormon himself, Mitt Romney is seen as a leader in the LDS community and as such, it is Kargers hope to influence Mitt Romney to appeal to his religions leaders and put an end to their persecution of homosexuals.

So far, this has been a good week for Karger who is still a relatively unknown candidate and while he may not exactly be making friends, he is making news and in politics. And while some might say that Kargers attacks will be short-lived, I say think again. First of all, Karger is an experienced political strategists and consultant. That means he knows how to get some beneficial mileage out of an argument. And secondly, as a gay man, I can tell you that fellow gay men like Fred Karger can be, excuse the language,…….. relentless bitches. We can teach courses on it. So I would suggest that those who Karger sets his sites on, address the issue he puts on the table or else they will get no rest.