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Surging Huckabee
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Is Mike Huckabee “the bastard child of Lou Dobbs and Pat Robertson,” as LA Times and National Review stalwart Jonah Goldberg contends? Such rhetoric indicates that, to the conservative establishment, Huckabee as GOP presidential contender is the sum of all fears.
In 2000 George W. Bush flashed his evangelical beliefs at times but was not seen as obnoxious because of his own establishment blood lines and his difficulty in articulating what he believes. Huckabee is a talking Bush from – gasp! – Hope, Arkansas.
How do the non-evangelical components of the Republican coalition disdain him? Let me count the ways.
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan is now a GOP grand dame who likes genteel religion and decrees (italics) above all, no enthusiasm. She worries that in Iowa “faith has been heightened as a determining factor in how to vote, that such things as executive ability, professional history, temperament, character, political philosophy and professed stands are secondary, tertiary.”
(I haven’t gotten that sense from WORLD readers who like Mike. They’re asking hard questions about Huckabee’s views and his understanding of foreign policy. But they relish his ability to apply the injunction from Peter’s first epistle: always be prepared to defend biblical understanding, yet do so with gentleness.)
Washington Post columnist George Will represents GOP traditionalists. He scorns Huckabee’s ”incoherent populism” and says Huckabee’s candidacy ”rests on serial non sequiturs: I am a Christian, therefore I am a conservative, therefore whatever I have done or propose to do with ‘compassionate,’ meaning enlarged, government, is conservatism.”
(There it is again, the equation of compassionate conservatism with enlarged government. But Will should understand how a theory designed to promote civil society, and in that way help people work together in non-governmental ways, can be hijacked by Washingtonians who hate relinquishing power.)
The Club of Growth, representing economics-emphasizing Republicans, is running commercials attacking Huckabee for having Arkansas taxes increase on his watch. Club spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik called Huckabee ”a serial tax hiker and a big-government big spender.” (Huckabee defenders say, accurately, that the Arkansas Supreme Court mandated four-fifths of the increase.)
Well, you get the picture. Huckabee has increasingly intense support from a Republican minority and increasingly intense opposition from those representing fragments that together probably make up a majority. He’s come a long way; now comes the hardest task.
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Less is more
Conservative talk radio in Massachusetts has been a non-stop Huckabee bash fest. Even though I like the guy, I realize he is unelectable. Of course the same was said for the last Baptist Huckster from Hope, Arkansas who along with his wife are now the poster children for the Democratic party.
I began to wonder several years ago, if there weren’t something seriously wrong with anyone who wanted to become president. The ensuing years have not alleviated this query.
I am a baptist and a proud member of the right wing christian republicans yet I do not support Huckabee because not only did he raise taxes like crazy and it was not because of the suprmeme court. Time and time again he sold the Republicans in the House and Senate out (who were offering reducing the size of government and more fiscally sound principals to balance the AR budget) he would side with the Democrats and push for tax increases and expanded government. He also was weak on immigration in every way and told our DMV’s to not ask questions about false documents but to just give them drivers licenses. He also was extremly weak on crime with pardons clemencies and he tried to get rid of our 70% law. He has also lied about his record time and time again and now reports are he took money for clemencies.
If Mike is the nominee, I will not have to hold my nose to vote for him, even though he has negatives. He would be a far better choice than the other front runners, except maybe Thompson.
Count me as one moving from support to opposition to gov. Huckabee.
Still, it’s not Huckabee who is calling for a theocracy–it’s Barak Obama, who during this campaign (Oct. 7, 2007) spoke of bringing in “the Kingdom here on earth” and he asked for prayers that he could be “an insturment of God…”
If a Republican ever said such things during a presidential campaign (especially inside a church building), there would be practically no other story in the news, for weeks.
Dittos to what Joel Mark wrote in post #5. In spite of my opposition to Huckabee during this primary, I would fully support him during the general election (even over Ron Paul, if he chooses to run as a third-party candidate).
And kudos to what Joel wrote about Mr. Hussein Osama. I’ve heard him speak firsthand, and the liberal religious rhetoric he utters scares me to death.
Fortunately, Obama doesn’t have a prayer of winning in 2008 . . . no matter the GOP candidate.
All I can say is, I’m lovin’ it! In my dreams, I imagine a hopelessly divided Republican party, handing out their votes to 3 or 4 candidates, so that no one of them has enough votes to claim the nomination outright. Then it would be on to the Republican Convention in MN! It might make the Convention relevant and worth watching for a change. Can you imagine what a knock-down, drag-out fight the Convention would be? It would keep the Republican Party self-occupied until Labor Day of ‘08.
Well, that would all be good news for the Democrats if it unfolded that way. It might be enough to deliver a knock-out blow for the Democrats in ‘08.
The first blow has already been delivered - George Bush.
The second blow would be a divided Republican Party.
I hope Huckabee, Paul, McCain, Romney, and Guiliani all go to the convention with a nice slate of delegates.
You’ll get a nice slate of delegates, Anlir, and I bet you one of them will be the next POTUS.
Whatcha gonna do — call the FBI?
Yes, Huckabee has dropped to the bottom of my list of candidates (above Guliani, but below all other Republicans) due to his inability to stick to a limited government. Like Guliani, he appeals to only one wing of the Republican Coalition, and would be a poor general election nominee.
I oppose his candidacy now, although if is in the general I will support him as the lesser of two evils.
The same folks who are all aghast at Huckabee’s Merry Christmas message were totally mute when other ministers like Jackson or Sharpton claim to offer a theological interpretation of US politics.
“Huckabee defenders say, accurately, that the Arkansas Supreme Court mandated four-fifths of the increase”
Sorry, but that’s just not true. It is true that Arkansas school systems waste a lot of money, by order of the supreme court.
But the court did not, nor can it madndate a tax increase. This is the problem. Huckabee was willing to offer tax hikes every time some budget short-fall came up. A conservative would have at least thrown the prospect of reducing spending in the mix. Where is the video showing him asking congress for spending cuts? The amount of money we waste in this state is obscene.
I type this from my home, which is about five miles from the Mike Huckabee Delta River Nature Center.
Huckabee is a typical liberal. Build a useless pork project in a overwhelmingly “blue” city, put your name on it, and maybe pick up a few votes.
I have no reason to think he’ll act any different as (cough,cough) president.
Oh, I guess in the interest of fairness, I should mention the $3.7 million Janet Huckabee Arkansas River Valley Nature Center, that sits a couple of hundred miles up stream.
What conservative, frugal people.
BTW, 90% of the time, the nature center is empty.
Right now, after a period of favoring Romney, I’m back to John McCain. Romney is a very bright guy; however, it becomes increasingly clear that he will not be able to overcome his Mormon background along with past flip-flopping.
McCain is coming around to more solid Republican ideas on both economic and social issues. He is a proved war hero and someone who puts country above party. I’m hoping just now for a McCain-Lieberman ticket that might just win an election and deal with the country’s problems with far less politiucal rancor.
I like Mike Huckabee’s religious background but don’t trust him on international and economic policy.
This will be the coup de grace for Huckabee.
While all the other candidates are on the -10 scale to me (at least or negative most), he was creeping up to -2 or so.
Once the word gets out that the infamous Radical Agnostic was thinking of casting a vote for Huckabee (as the least obnoxious of the fairly obnoxious candidates from both parties), no sensible person would even consider him at all.
My vote of death is freely offered. I can’t be bought. Though perhaps I can be sold.
So Peter Leavitt, Mr. Pro-Life Himself, is hoping that pro-abortion Joe Lieberman is elected to the White House.
Let’s see…Bush has spent like a “drunken sailor” the last 7 years (kudo’s McCain!) and drove our government from a surplus to record deficits. He never met a budget increase that he didn’t like or would veto. Yet he retains staunch conservative support (75%). Huckabee, on the other hand, is being raked over the coals for far less egregious behavior. Methinks it’s politics, not principle, that’s driving the criticism.
Bush’s spending has been criticized quite a bit by Conservatives - he is however our president, and thus garners the support.
Huckabee is a former Arkansas governor, and (unlike others) we prefer to keep him that way.
ANLIR,
The reason Huckabee scares us so much is we have had to deal with Bush and his exanding government ways. With Huckabee we will see government expanded and tax increases as well. So he is worth fighting