Shat mart kose yis earimen hasrat’ im  Many men say I am yearning for my beloved.
Leyli-Mejloom el che es halov Even Medjloom of Leyla was never in such a state.
Mart piti hamasha beranet tndghe  One must always be careful with your mouth.
Khosk’ is asum arakavor-masalov You are speaking with fables and hints.

Lezoot kaghtsr’ unis shakar or shartin  You have a sweet tongue, sugar and honey.
Mazirt’ rehan e patetats’ vardin, Your hair is basil, wrapping around the rose.
Ki zardarats’ tesnim hit tsaghkazardin Let me look at you decorated at the flower festival,
Hagil elis zar-zarbaben khas alov Youwear silk with red satin.

 

Ea indzi kortsrek’, ea me ban arek’,   Either leave me or do something
Khpetsek’, me tighes me nshan arek’, Beat me, put a mark on me somewhere
Tekooz estoo hama karaspan arek’  If only for this, stone me to death.
Chim kshtanum gozali hit khosalov I am not satisfied with speaking with the beautiful one.

 

Ajab vonts’ dimanam yis eschap darin,  How can I take so much pain?
Achkemes artasunk’ doos goooka arin,  From my eyes come tears of blood.
Orn ir shabatov karot im earin,  Daily I am yearning for my beloved.
Vontsor gharib blbool vardin tisalov.  Like the wandering nightingale looking at the rose.

 

Khlkis tarav jadookarin chim tesi.  Whoever took my mind, I did not see the magician.
Bemurvatin, beighrarin chim tesi.  I didn’t see the ruthless and unfaithful one.
Sayat-Noven asats’ earin chim tesi.  Sayat Nova says, I didn’t see the beloved.
Man im gali artasunk’s husalov.  I am walking, pouring forth my tears.

Translated by Larison

For those tired of political commentary, here is a break: Mitwa from Lagaan.  As a bonus, here is Ghanan Ghanan also.

Jennifer Stec, a member of the Northside Family and Friends Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina, says she has stopped writing checks to national evangelical groups such as Pat Robertson’s 700 Club. Instead, her donations go to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee [bold mine-DL].

Stec said she is backing the ordained Baptist minister in her state’s Jan. 19 Republican presidential primary because television evangelist Robertson “sacrificed Christian principles” by endorsing the candidacy of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who supports abortion and gay rights. ~Bloomberg

So that Robertson endorsement is really doing wondersforRudy, wouldn’t you say?

The CNN national poll showing McCain with a big lead has some other interesting numbers.  Either this poll is badly wrong, or the reason why McCain and Huckabee are doing so well is that…most Republicans approve of them and many are excited about them relative to their competitors.  To this you will say, “Yeah, obviously, Larison.  That’s redundant!”  Yet to listen to conservative pundits, talk show hosts and self-anointed pulse-takers of “the base,” you would think that McCain and Huckabee are radioactive.  They are coalition-killers!  I would have assumed the same thing myself given the virtual unanimity of activists on this point, but the effect of the nomination of either one is actually better than would be the case if Giuliani or Romney were nominated. 

When asked how they would feel after the nomination of each candidate, 31% said they would be enthusiastic about McCain, 46% would be satisfied, 18% would be dissatisfied and only 5% would be upset.  It seems as if that 5% is overwhelmingly concentrated in conservative media outlets and activists in their audiences.  For Huckabee, the numbers are revealing: 20/52/20/7.  Only 7% would be upset with the huckster, whom we have been assured would rend the coalition to bits.  For Giuliani the numbers are similar: 21/49/21/8.  Romney understandably generates the least enthusiasm and satisfaction put together (14/50) and the highest dissatisfied + upset number (27/6).  The choice of many movement conservatives, the champion of the three-legged stool, Romney apparently rallies the GOP less effectively than any of the others.  These numbers have obviously changed since November and could always change back (Romney and Giuliani have lost ground in generating an enthusiastic response), but if you were designing the GOP ticket with party unity and enthusiasm as your only criteria you would, bizarrely, be pushed towards selecting McCain or Huckabee.  The last one of the four you would select would be Romney.  This intuitively makes sense to me, since I think Romney is awful, but it really calls into question the judgement that he is the most “viable” in the field.  They did not poll for Thompson, of course, since he is drawing 6% in this national poll, so we don’t if Thompson would generate more or less enthusiasm than Romney as a would-be nominee.

P.S. The Iowa and New Hampshire outcomes seem to have decisively helped the winners in changing attitudes towards them.  Not only has McCain seen a big jump in enthusiasm, but far fewer would be dissatisfied/upset with his nomination today than was the case in November.  For Huckabee, as he has become better-known, enthusiasm and satisfaction have increased, and the negatives have decreased.  That suggests that the concerted anti-Huckabee campaign has failed to damage him and may have generated sympathy for him.

It’s not a good sign that Giuliani’s senior staff have decided to work without paychecks, and there is no way to spin it otherwise. The amount of money that’s involved is miniscule: about $50,000 per month.

So the campaign must really have a cash on hand problem. Breaking News: Giuliani’s national finance chair, Roy Bailey, no longer has that position with the campaign. Bailey was not only Giuliani’s finance chair, he was one of the founding partners of Giuliani’s consulting firm. ~Marc Ambinder

There is some hubbub about Huckabee fading in Michigan, according to one source, but yesterday Strategic Vision released a Michigan poll showing Huckabee effectively tied with Romney and both trailing McCain.  The race is still very fluid, since less than a third has definitely chosen a candidate.  Strategic Vision also showed strong Huckabee support in Georgia long before the latest AJC poll came out.  This new poll shows that Huckabee has expanded the lead he already had last month.  Presumably, his win in Iowa was responsible for the increase.

Other interesting numbers from that Michigan poll: 39% of Republicans want out of Iraq within the next six months.  More remarkably, two new polls from Florida and New York show Giuliani’s lead in Florida has vanished.  He is effectively tied with Huckabee for second there right now.  His position in New York has weakened considerably.  He and McCain are now statistically tied for the lead in his home state.

As long-time bloggingheads viewers and readers of his columns know, Jim Pinkerton has been pushing for Mike Huckabee for months, and now comes the claim that he is apparently formally joining the Huckabee team.  Given how strong Mr. Pinkerton’s views on immigration and border security are, I have always been a bit perplexed by his enthusiasm for Huckabee, but with Huckabee’s recent pivot on immigration it seems as if more restrictionist and enforcement-first conservatives are openly supporting him.  Elsewhere, Rod Dreher has declared for Huckabee. 

In case any of you were worried, let me assure my readers that this is something that I will never do.  As the natural “new fusionist” candidate, the second coming of Bush, the apostle of Gersonism, Huckabee represents everything wrong with the politics of the GOP in the last seven years.  I say this not because he is a social conservative, religious or Southern–those are the least of Republicans’ problems, if they could but see clearly.  If you were disaffected and alienated by Bush, you will be driven out of your mind by Huckabee.  This is all the more serious because Huckabee really does have the best chance of winning on the Republican side.  Perversely, one almost needs to hope for a Romney or McCain nomination, since that may be the only thing now that will save us from Huckabee.  Thompson has all but eliminated himself, and Giuliani is all but finished. 

Obviously, I have also taken an interest in trying to understand and, when possible, explain the rise of Huckabee, because I have found it startling and more than a little odd.  Unlike with the other three leading candidates, I do not feel the same kind of immediate revulsion and distaste with Huckabee.  Each time I am inclined to cheer him on as an anti-establishment candidate, I have to remind myself that he really isn’t any such thing.  Despite my willingness to give his statements the benefit of the doubt, I have tried to do this in the interests of accuracy and fairness to what he has actually said, but on no account do I want this man to be President.  No doubt, some of his supporters read Crunchy Cons and like what they find, some of them could be part of those Middle American Radicals Sam Francis described long ago, and many of them are probably the people Ross and Reihan are describing in their forthcoming book, but this is exactly what is wrong with Huckabee’s candidacy.  He draws in these people from these three very different parts of the population and relies on them for his political success, but I have no confidence that he would govern in their interests or according to their views.  It’s the same con that Bush used against evangelicals and social conservatives.  Because he could claim plausibly enough that he was “one of them,” he felt that he owed them nothing and could take them for granted, and by and large they allowed this to happen and happily re-elected him anyway.  Now there is the hope that Huckabee is really “one of them” and will really govern in their interests, because he once said some mean things about Wall Street, but he won’t.  In order for politicians to dupe you, you must be willing to be duped.  This is what Huckabee is doing, just as Bush did before, and I’m afraid people are falling for it all over again.   

By all rights, everyone who cannot bring himself, for whatever reason, to endorse Ron Paul ought to come to the same conclusion as Human Events’ editors did.  If you rule out Paul, Thompson is the only one that makes sense.  It doesn’t matter that his campaign is hopeless and his stump appearances cure insomnia.  It doesn’t matter that his face reminds you of Anakin Skywalker at the climax of Return of the Jedi.  Even then he is better than these other people.  Thompson can give you plenty of phony populism, but his policy views aren’t for the most part incoherent or crazy.  His foreign policy views trouble me, naturally, but given the futility of his campaign there are no risks that he will be in any position to do much damage.  Liz Cheney will certainly never be on the National Security Council, because Thompson isn’t going to get past Florida.  

Having said that, I remain, as always, a Ron Paul supporter.  Those who prefer the ethically challenged pardoner of murderers, the serially deceitful, the associate of mobbed-up indicted crooks, the Cheney crony or the warmonger are, of course, free to support whomever they like.  Let’s just not pretend that it’s because they are somehow morally superior to the lone constitutionalist and opponent of the war.

This is not directly relevant to Michael’s post (which you should go read anyway), but it does have to do with Mitt Romney.  Daniel Gross has an interesting article on why Romney may not do all that well in Michigan, reminding us that people who voted for his father must be at least in their early sixties.  This puts Romney in something of a double bind: the people who fondly remember George Romney make up a small part of the electorate, and Mitt Romney today represents the repudiation of much of what his father represented in his moderate-to-liberal business Republicanism and his later turn against Vietnam.  In a state ravaged by outsourcing, plant closures and layoffs (and, yes, a heavily taxed and regulated business climate), Romney comes actually boasting of his experience as a corporate “turnaround” man and friend of globalisation.  It’s even worse than it might at first seem:

But these days, private equity is a dirty word for many Michigan voters—even the Republican members of the managerial class. Private equity doesn’t signify profits and fortunes. It signifies Cerberus, the new owner of Chrysler, which is presiding over huge job cuts.

Gross points to the natural aversion the state’s Arab-American population will have to Mitt “It’s About Shia and Sunni” Romney.  Not only did Romney blow off the AAI conference last year, which may be relevant to some of these voters, but the man who wants to “double Guantanamo” is hardly going to win the sympathies of voters who believe the government is already too intrusive and abusive in its anti-terrorist activities.  That may provide an opening for Huckabee, though he has lamentably also gone in for talking idiotically about “Islamofascism,” and most of the Christian Arab-Americans in the state belong to churches (Catholic, Orthodox, etc.) that Huckabee backers are specifically not targeting for GOTV efforts. 

Maybe there will be a big, unexpected surge of Arab-American votes from both parties to support Ron Paul, considering that the Democratic primary is essentially meaningless and will make it possible for antiwar and civil libertarian voters from the other party to influence the outcome?  Polling doesn’t support any realistic hopes for a Paul resurgence, but he did best in New Hampshire among secular and rural voters, and he did well among those for whom the economy was the top issue, so if he can make himself known to those voters he could do better than the current 5% he has in polls.  If Ron Paul did exceed expectations in Michigan, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising.    

P.S.  I neglected to make this point explicitly, but the really damaging thing about Romney’s disconnect with Michigan voters is that pundits and journalists expect him to do well in his “home state” and have already discounted the value of any victory accordingly, and meanwhile he is reinforcing the must-win narrative every time he says “Michigan is personal for me.”  He has set himself up as the favourite in a state where he could very easily finish third; had Giuliani not effectively abandoned Michigan for lack of funds, it could have been worse than that.  There is a difference between projecting confidence and setting unreachable goals–I wonder if Romney knows what that difference is.

My Huckabee-supporting friends keep complaining about East Coast neoconservative elites who are against Huckabee. I think we should institute a rule: Any generalization about East Coast neoconservative elites that has to make exceptions for David Brooks and William Kristol is invalid. ~Ramesh Ponnuru

This is a fair point.  In fact, it is neoconservatives who have generally expressed the fewest objections with Huckabee’s domestic policy views (or rather gestures, since he doesn’t have many things well-formed enough to be called views), perhaps because they have been open to meliorist and big-government policies in the past.  They do not have quite the reflexive opposition to Huckabee’s fiscal record that others do, though some of them do seem to find the prominence of his religiosity irritating.  He has made protectionist-sounding noises, but lauds NAFTA, so he is not nearly so “heterodox” on trade as some have feared or hoped.  It is his foreign policy, or alleged lack of it, and the possibility that he could split the coalition that have caused the greatest concern for Krauthammer, Barnes, Continetti and others, but again his ideas are so unformed that he could go either towards more realism (as his essay’s Iran remarks suggest) or towards a more aggressive, activist policy (as some of his comments on Pakistan hint).  In the anti-Huckabee backlash you mainly see traditional, nationalist and economic conservatives making the most disparaging remarks about him.  Restrictionists in particular find him simply unacceptable–hence the otherwise very odd Tancredo-Romney embrace.  Then there are paleoconservatives such as myself who see Huckabee as a natural fit for a “new fusionist” alliance between social conservatives and neocons, and therefore potentially very dangerous.  Whether for substantive or tactical reasons, the preferred candidates of many neoconservatives, McCain and Giuliani, have laid off Huckabee for the most part.  To the extent that Huckabee would essentially be a modified George W. Bush, another iteration of the war-supporting “compassionate conservative,” as I think he would be, I think neoconservatives might see him as the most malleable and their best fallback candidate if both McCain and Giuliani fail to advance.  It is Thompson and Romney who have been going after him hammer and tong, because they see him as a more direct competitor and because they are seeking to position themselves as guardians of the old-time Reagan coalition, which Huckabee’s camaign chairman has famously declared dead.  There are many East Coast conservative elites attacking Huckabee (and many conservative elites in general, wherever they may live), but they are not neoconservative ones.