Huckabee

"I feel like Seabiscuit," Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said today after the Iowa Caucus, National Public Radio reports, likening himself to the underdog racehorse that became a champion. But maybe he meant "I feel like eating Seabiscuit"?

While stumping in Iowa in December, Huckabee admitted to eating horses, and Huckabee and other candidates seem to have a real problem with puppy love (or the lack of it).

Diet-conscious Huckabee's horsemeat eating was revealed when responding to a reporter from a Dutch television station. He informed her of how much he liked the Netherlands: “It’s one of my favorite places.” He then went on to comment on the food, horse flesh in particular.According the Wall Street Journal’s blog Washington Wire “He named a couple of his favorite Dutch foods, including one made from horsemeat. Asked if it tasted like chicken, he confirmed: ‘Tastes like chicken.’”

Reuters New Service reports that United Animal Nations has asked Huckabee to reconsider eating Trigger and Mr. Ed citing a statistic that says 70 percent of Americans disapprove of eating horses.

Interesting to note here is the fact that most people who have eaten horse meat liken the meat to beef, begging the question of exactly what chicken-like substance was Huckabee eating when he thought he was munching on Seabiscuit?

Huckabee strikes out with dog lovers too, as do his fellow Republican candidates. In a story entitled “Why do Republicans Hate Puppies?” Salon.com reports that Huckabee’s son David killed a dog in 1998 by hanging it from a tree (a la Michael Vick) and “John Bailey, then-director of the Arkansas State Police, told Newsweek that a local prosecutor asked him to investigate, but that the governor's chief of staff and personal lawyer both pressured Bailey to keep away.” Utopia Rescue Ranch alleges that David Huckabee not only hung the dog but slit its neck and stoned it to death.

Rudy Giuliani’s contribution to the puppy problem comes via his wife Judith, who used to sell medical staplers to doctors by demonstrating them on live sleeping dogs, who were then later killed. When asked why it was necessary to staple live dogs, the president of the company Judith Giuliani worked for, U.S. Surgical, said “A dead dog doesn't bleed . . . You need to have real blood-flow conditions, or you get a false sense of security,” in a 1988 Time Magazine article.

The final Republican in the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy list is Mitt Romney. The Boson Globe reports as an example of Romney’s “emotion-free crisis management” an incident in which he put the family dog, an Irish Setter named Seamus, into a dog carrier and strapped him on to the roof of his car for a 12 hour drive to Canada. He only stopped when one of his sons noticed a “brown liquid dripping down the back window,” a sign animal lovers say that the dog was terrified and a sign that PETA president Ingrid Newkirk told Time Magazine “the dog was, basically, being tortured.”

If a Republican wins, the puppies and ponies of America better watch out, or they may find themselves strapped to a roof and Kentucky Fried. After all apparently these guys eat the underdog.