It doesn't matter how many times good reporters like Marc Ambinder report that the Obama-Clinton discussions are smooth and the plans for the convention are amicable, and it doesn't matter how often Hillary stumps for Barack, the media love a good fight.
Reports of strife between negotiators for Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama are exaggerated and the two sides are nearing an agreement on how Clinton's delegates will participate in the formal nominating process at the Democratic National Convention, according to advisers to both Democrats.
The trouble is, they are missing the real feud, which unlike the made-for-TV stuff on the D side has serious bad blood potential .
"I think that there are better choices for Sen. McCain [than Mitt Romney] that will have the approval of values voters," [Mike Huckabee] added.
Huckabee denied an earlier media report in which he seemed to suggest that it was Romney's Mormon religion that should be a disqualifying factor.
"There is absolutely no issue about Mitt Romney's religion. I have never said that," Huckabee said.
But his comments renew what had become a nasty spat between the two politicians during the Republican primary. Huckabee's come-from-nowhere victory over Romney in the Iowa caucus was a big reason that Romney lost the nomination.
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Yet as Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, is said to have emerged as a top contender to be Senator John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, a vocal segment of conservative leaders and grass-roots activists have mobilized against him, with some going out of their way to block his path to the Republican ticket.
and
"I think when you look at Mitt Romney, he's not in the totally uncomfortable column, but he's not in the completely comfortable column," said Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council. "Those that do have opposition to him, they're pretty adamant in their opposition."
The social conservative wing and the Club for Growth wing really dislike each other, to the bone. When McCain sent up that trial balloon about pro-choice Ridge and Lieberman as VP, it sank like a stone.
That thud you just heard was the Ridge/Lieberman VP trial balloon that social conservative activists quickly popped. They couldn't find reporters fast enough to denounce the prospect of McCain adding a pro-choice pol to his ticket. "It absolutely floored me," Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values, told the Politico’s Jonathan Martin. "It would doom him in Ohio." Home School Legal Defense Association President Mike Farris said to the Washington Times: "If Tom Ridge is on the ticket, I will not be voting Republican." Then again, if this was a trial balloon, wasn’t this the response McCain is looking for?
So where are the rest of the divided GOP stories? Oh, sorry. With our media, that narrative only applies to Democrats. I forget that, sometimes.