Cackles, UFOs, fried squirrels: A look back at 2008 primaries

There were gaffes, flip-flops and dirty tricks. But the 2008 presidential primaries had so much more.

Bad singing. Plagiarism. Cackles. “Unremarkable” buttocks. Cleavage. Fried squirrels. UFOs.

{mosads}Unlike the 2004 Howard Dean scream, no single event in the 2008 primary season will be forever ingrained in political memory — perhaps because there were so many bizarre moments.

The primaries started when gas prices were a drop over $2 a gallon, “Borat” was hitting theaters and Americans were happily unfamiliar with Sen. Larry Craig’s (R-Idaho) wide stance.

There were man-bites-dog stories, such as when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) waged battle against the allegedly liberal-leaning MSNBC while former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) claimed that conservative favorite Fox News was out to get him.

Conventional wisdom took long vacations as Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a 72-year-old ob/gyn doctor, attracted an army of youths as well as tens of millions of dollars. Pollsters and pundits wrote off Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) last summer and declared Clinton dead before the New Hampshire primary.

Rudy Giuliani had no chance to win the GOP primary, experts said, then they anointed him the nominee, and when he failed to win a state, they said, “I told you so.”

In the way-too-much-information department, McCain’s campaign released over 1,000 pages of the senator’s medical records. Nothing was hidden; his doctor judged McCain’s buttocks “unremarkable except for some very light tan freckling.”

White House hopefuls all said they opposed torturing terrorism suspects, unless the detainee in question was a registered lobbyist from someone else’s campaign.

Washington took it on the chin. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) won by talking “change,” while McCain pulled through after restoring his reputation as a maverick. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) mantra (one of them) was that “Washington is broken.” Most Republican insiders in Washington didn’t take it personally, and endorsed the man they felt could put it back together again.

Even President Bush, whose name was shouted by Democrats and whispered by Republicans, denounced Washington as “an ugly town, too ugly, as far as I’m concerned.”

Iraq served as a clear contrast between the parties. McCain said he was comfortable with American troops being in Iraq for 100 years! 1,000 years! 1 million years! Democratic candidates, meanwhile, tried to outdo each other by promising to be out in six months! Three months! Tomorrow morning!

Clinton and Obama promised in the spring of 2007 to keep it civil and focus on Bush. But they turned flamethrowers on each other as Obama’s camp mocked Clinton as a Democrat from Punjab and the former first lady faulted the Illinois senator for befriending a “slumlord” and plotting his presidential bid back in kindergarten.

Paradoxes were everywhere. After his weak performance in South Carolina, Thompson told supporters, “Stay strong!” — then bowed out three days later.

The Clinton campaign, after losing 11 contests in a row, brought spin to a whole new level by asserting that the next four were “must-wins” for Obama.

Front-runners got cocky. Obama smugly told Clinton during a debate that she was “likable enough” to become president and later patted himself on the back for how good his speeches are.

States wanting more nominating power rushed legislation through to have earlier primaries, but the train went right past them and slower states benefited.

Clinton’s tears were the most memorable event of the Democratic primary. Former Sen. John Edwards’s (D-N.C.) $400 haircuts weren’t far behind.

In the unlikely department — Vice President Cheney and Obama were deemed cousins, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh urged his listeners to vote for Clinton, a snowman asked a question at a presidential debate, Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert mulled a presidential bid, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) admitted seeing a UFO.

Clinton gave a harrowing account of how she dodged sniper fire in Bosnia, but forgot to add the caveat: “This story is fiction.”

In another head-scratching moment, Clinton explained her staying in the race for so long by pointing to Robert Kennedy’s assassination.

Longtime Clinton loyalist James Carville called New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) “Judas” for backing Obama. Clinton called Cheney Darth Vader. Cheney didn’t take offense, having compared himself to Vader before.

Clinton likened herself to Rocky, which was dead on if she was referring to the original “Rocky” — Clinton recovered from early knockdowns, went the distance and narrowly lost.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor for two decades, could not have been more riveting. He called on God to damn America and informed Obama that if he’s elected in November, “I’m coming after you.” Obama distanced himself from Wright and from the Rev. Michael Pflegler, a white priest who defended Wright in an animated sermon mocking Clinton, saying, “I’m white, I’m entitled. There’s a black man stealing my show!”

Samantha Power, an Obama aide, called Clinton a “monster,” while Clinton backer Billy Shaheen said Republicans would talk about Obama’s drug use.

Many people won 15 minutes of fame. There was the shadowy Clinton contributor Norman Hsu, and Obama land-deal buddy Tony Rezko, who got the attention of reporters as well as law enforcement officers.

Apologies and regret were constant. Edwards bemoaned nearly all of his votes in the Senate. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) told Romney he was sorry for asking, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”

Obama apologized for saying U.S. troops were wasted in Iraq. McCain said something similar but didn’t apologize. And neither did Geraldine Ferraro, who suggested that Obama is “lucky” to be black and later said he was “terribly sexist.”

Former President Bill Clinton’s reputation sank. Initially he was seen as a masterful campaigner who would give his wife a devastating one-two punch. But his “fairytale” comment about Obama’s war position led to many African-American voters shunning the so-called first black president.

The New York Times ran with a half-baked story alleging McCain had an affair nearly a decade ago. The Washington Post tackled Clinton’s cleavage, and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews apologized for several comments about her.

McCain took out a life insurance policy to secure more campaign cash and, in a development unthinkable a year ago, Clinton went deep into her own pockets to finance her White House run.

In trying to explain the Democrats’ convoluted nomination process, Obama strategist David Axelrod said, “This isn’t ‘American Idol.’ ” McCain and Clinton, however, took their turns singing.

Clinton’s 2007 rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner didn’t get rave reviews, but did get nearly 2 million hits on YouTube.

Months later, McCain answered a foreign policy question by singing “Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann.”

Alleged Cindy McCain recipes were removed from her husband’s website after bloggers revealed that several of them were lifted, word for word, from the Food Network site. In typical Washington style, a nameless intern was blamed.

Huckabee stunned the establishment by winning the Iowa caucus, but political junkies will remember his “Merry Christmas” ad, where a bookshelf took on the form of a cross. That was minor, though, compared to Huckabee’s eyebrow-raising admission that he used to fry squirrels in a popcorn popper.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a bit player in this reality show, told The Hill his favorite campaign moment was when he and his aide were walking toward the venue for one of the presidential debates in New Hampshire and encountered a boisterous crowd of Ron Paul supporters and a man nearby dressed in a shark costume. When he was asked if he was a Paul fan, the shark guy said, “Hell, no. They’re nuts. I just wear a shark suit.”