† It’s A Topsy-Turvy Campaign: When Mike Huckabee decided to hang in there and help John McCain put a stake in the heart of Mitt Romney’s presidential aspirations, many pundits – including this blogger – assumed he was angling to be chosen as the AZ Senator’s running mate. And when Bill Richardson repeatedly played the knight in shining armor coming Hillary Clinton’s emotional rescue when Barack Obama and John Edwards were double-teaming her in the debates, many pundits – including this blogger – assumed he was angling to be chosen as the NY Senator’s running mate. Well, many pundits – including this blogger – appear to have been wrong on both counts.     

Having realistically calculated his chances of being tapped by McCain as less than zero (back in early February, when Tim Russert pressed, “John McCain says, ‘Governor Huckabee, I need you to run with me. Would you be my vice president?’” Huckabee told him “I see no scenario in which he asks.”), is Huckabee now cozying up to Obama?

Consider this interview with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough (video link) in which Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, explains that he can see how Rev. Jeremiah Wright could get carried away at the pulpit:

Sermons, after all, are rarely written word-for-word by pastors like Rev. Wright, who are delivering them extemporaneously, and caught up in the emotion of the moment. There are things that sometimes get said, that if you put them on paper and looked at them in print, you'd say, "Well, I didn't mean to say it quite like that." …

Then after declaring that “those were outrageous statements, and nobody can defend the content of them,” Huckabee proceeds to do just that:

As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, "That's a terrible statement," I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I'm going to be probably the only conservative in America who's going to say something like this, but I'm just telling you: We've got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, "You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. … " And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. … In fact, I may have had a more, more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

If nothing else, a crossover ticket that pairs the first black presidential candidate with a son of the South, would certainly be, um, historic - but if Huckabee is harboring a burning ambition to get to the White House by any means necessary, he’s going to have to get past Bill Richardson, who “has ridden to Obama's rescue during what has been the roughest stretch of his candidacy,” as The Washington Post’s Dan Balz put it:

Richardson sends a signal to superdelegates that they too should back Obama. … Superdelegates will decide the nomination. There is no way either Clinton or Obama can get to the 2,024 votes necessary to win the nomination without the superdelegates. …

More than any other candidate in the Democratic race, Richardson based his campaign on his foreign policy resume. … Richardson's decision to end his neutrality undercuts Clinton's argument that she alone is ready to take on the powers of the presidency. …

Richardson's support could help Obama improve his standing with Hispanic voters.

Mark Penn, Hillary’s chief campaign strategist, was dismissive of Richardson’s endorsement telling The New York Times that the time “when it could have been effective has long since passed.” But Richardson’s timing could effectively move him up near or at the top of Obama’s short list for veep.  

† Pay The Ho: In the past week or so Ashley Alexandra Dupre, Eliot Spitzer’s pricy ho, saw her potential net worth take a $1 million hit when the “Girls Gone Wild” franchise rescinded its offer to pay her to pose nude for a planned girlie mag after finding five-year old videos of her in the archives. Meanwhile, Spitzer has received a standing offer from Playgirl to doff his clothes à la Burt Reynolds and Joe Namath: “Your political career is sadly over; and you owe a lot of money to a lot of people. Hell, you may land in jail before too long. … How about strutting your sexuality, and defending your right to get down?” It’s doubtful the “luv guv” will take the magazine up on its offer, as word has it that he entered therapy to “explore whether he has an addiction to sex,” reports the New York Post quoting an unnamed source. The New York Times explores the question: “Was Mr. Spitzer’s conduct an aberrant episode, as short-lived as it was out of character? Or had the man they had served with passion and devotion been living a secret second life for years?” Reading this article, the real question is: Just how long ago did Spitzer finally snap, and how come no one noticed - except, that is, GOP political operative Roger Stone (the self-described “sleaziest man in American politics” who sports a portrait of Richard Nixon inked on his back)? Stone tipped the FBI off to Spitzer’s whoremongering after learning of the former NY governor’s nocturnal naughtiness from “a social contact in an adult-themed club” in Miami, reports the New York Daily News.

† Après Spitzer: A new Quinnipiac Poll of 1,528 registered voters in NY state from March 16 - 18, finds that 81 percent NYers say Eliot Spitzer (D) should have resigned vs. 15 percent who think he should have served out his term, and nearly half (48 percent) think he should be charged with a crime. By the way, two-thirds say that prostitution is not a victimless crime and 73 percent agree that johns and hos should face the same punishment. Although 51 percent of voters admit they don’t know enough about Spitzer’s successor David Patterson to have an opinion of him one way or the other, 46 percent know him well enough to have a favorable opinion.

† Another Fake Autobiography: British author Sebastian Horsley, whose memoir, “Dandy in the Underworld,”  is an “eyebrow-raising … detailing … of rampant drug use and voluminous encounters with prostitutes,” according to The New York Times, was detained and questioned by customs agents for eight hours about his former drug addiction, use of prostitutes and activity as a male escort and then refused entry into the U.S. Via e-mail, Lucille Cirillo, spokeswoman for the New York office of United States Customs and Border Protection, tells The Times that “travelers who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (which includes controlled-substance violations) or admit to previously having a drug addiction are not admissible.” Horsley, who was scheduled to attend several promotional and media events for his book, may actually have a good chance of making it past customs if he admits his memoir is a fake – especially as “British public records are not available” in the US so The Times was not able to corroborate “many of the details in Mr. Horsley’s memoir.” The paper notes that Horsely has been “repeatedly coy about what is real and what is contrived” and is quoted in an interview as saying, “I am a fraud. I have cobbled together my personality from hundreds of little bits. I am simultaneously the most genuine and the most artificial person you will ever meet” – though in an interview with The Times last week he insisted that his story is “completely true.”

† Educational TV: The Discovery Channel’s “It Takes a Thief” is proving popular with thieves and wannabes. Shad Joseph Griffith, a 20-year-old from Chehalis, WA, has confessed to nine burglaries and attempted burglaries, inspired by show. Griffith told sheriff’s deputies that “he would knock on doors during the day and tell people he was looking for a lost dog,” reports The Seattle Times, and would enter homes he found unoccupied and “take loose coins or pills from a bottle, leaving no sign of a break-in.” At first he just wanted the drugs, and then he needed the thrill.

† Runaway Bride Sues Ex-Fiancé: John Mason, 35, who was once engaged to Jennifer Wilbanks (AKA “the runaway bride”) got married to Shelley Martin, 34, in a quiet ceremony at his parents' home in Duluth, GA, reports The Associated Press. In 2005 Wilbanks took off days before their wedding, later surfacing in NM claiming to have been kidnapped and raped, before her story fell apart. After Wilbanks and Mason broke off their engagement, they filed lawsuits against each other but subsequently dropped them.

† Wounded Warriors Project Needs Your Vote! (last item):  ReZoom.com, a Web site for “active baby boomers,” has chosen WWP as the 2007 winner of its "A Better World" contest, and has awarded the non-profit $100,000 to further its mission to bring comfort and support to severely injured servicemen and women, and to help them lead independent and productive lives. ReZoom describes its audience as “defined by marching for freedom and marching in protest ... our causes may have changed, but our passion hasn't. We're now redefining the next phase of our lives by transforming our success into significance.”

The Stiletto thanks all her readers who voted for WWP, and applauds the folks behind ReZoom.com, who once pumped their fists in the air and shouted slogans against the Vietnam War and those who fought in it and who now hold out a helping hand and offer encouragement to those who served our country in Afghanistan and Iraq. This article from The Boston Globe about a wife’s efforts to care for her husband after he came home with severe head injuries from a suicide bombing in Baghdad in 2003 is a poignant  and pointed reminder why WWP needs ReZoom’s donation – and yours.