cbs 20070102 CAUCUS3

Let me reveal to you what I cannot in good conscience reveal to you.  This is DR...

The Republican race between Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses remains too close to call.  And we all know what that means.  When a race is too close to call there is an irresistible temptation to go negative.

But a strange thing happened in Iowa this week.  Mike Huckabee made a deliberate decision NOT to go negative.  Huckabee summoned reporters in Des Moines to reveal that after examining his conscience he had decided NOT to run an attack ad against Mitt Romney.  And to demonstrate the magnitude of this sacrifice, he PLAYED them the attack ad so they could see what an effective and truthful attack ad he had decided not to run, because his conscience simply would not let him.

Some of the reporters in attendance, grizzled cynics that they are, were reported by other reporters to have chuckled.  But not me. Because I understand.  Mike Huckabee is trying to demonstrate that he would be a president who could actually recognize his dumb ideas BEFORE carrying them out.

Unlike candidates who spend all their time warning us of the bad decisions of other candidates, Mike is a man who would protect us from his OWN bad decisions.

This makes him the kind of candidate the founders could only have dreamed of, a candidate who would be his own check and balance, a President who would decisively veto his own bad ideas, and, in extreme cases, when he's stubbornly determined to go ahead with a bad idea, launch a filibuster against himself until he is forced to admit he wasn't prepared to face the intensity of his own feelings.   A president you would never have to impeach, because he would beat you to it.

Now this.