specsaregood
06-27-2010, 09:11 AM
So it wasn't enough that Huckabee had to plagiarize much of Dr. Paul's platform and talking points; but now the press wants to give him the infamous "quixotic campaign" tagline too.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/06/mike_huckabee
PRAISE the Lord, Mike Huckabee is back in the news. Ariel Levy catches up with the former Arkansas governor in a long profile in this week's New Yorker. Apparently he's had a talk show on FOX all year. Must have missed it. But as 2012 approaches, the question must be whether Mr Huckabee, who held on for months on an underfunded, quixotic campain in 2008, is going to run again. A few days ago his PAC sent out a fundraising email harrumphing that he wouldn't make any decision about 2012 until after this year's elections, so it's on the table. Ms Levy writes:
In some ways, Huckabee seems like a promising candidate for 2012: a squeaky-clean family man and bona-fide Christian who loves to talk. His communication is folksy but fluid; he never seems flummoxed, like George W. Bush, or befuddled, like John McCain, or unprepared, like Sarah Palin. “If we’re running a race against their most articulate guy,” Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s former campaign manager, told me, referring to President Obama, “we should put our most articulate guy. Huckabee’s that guy.” Schmidt, who has traded barbs with Palin since the election, said, “There’s no one who really provides a better contrast to Sarah Palin, showing her as an entertainer instead of a serious thinker—and there’s not enough oxygen for both of them.”
Mr Huckabee's chances were presumably better in 2008 than they will be in 2012. His firmest supporters are social conservatives, and that segment of the Republican primary electorate had nowhere else to turn in 2008, with John McCain the front-runner and the viable alternatives including Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul, all of whom were expressly socially conservative, but none of whom had it first on their mind. In this race it's likely that there will be at least one other social conservative running, perhaps Sarah Palin, and it's also likely that the social conservative questions will take a backseat to ongoing questions about the economy. Neither factor is good for Mr Huckabee. But him running would be good for the party, for both parties, by presenting a contrast to the embittered populism of Sarah Palin, and a hedge against the embattled Southerner as represented by someone like Haley Barbour, who is also likely to run. I wouldn't vote for Mr Huckabee myself—his views on homosexuality, as Ms Levy delineates in the piece linked above, are antique, and his economic ideas aren't very well thought out—but I hope he gets in the race, and stays in for a long time.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/06/mike_huckabee
PRAISE the Lord, Mike Huckabee is back in the news. Ariel Levy catches up with the former Arkansas governor in a long profile in this week's New Yorker. Apparently he's had a talk show on FOX all year. Must have missed it. But as 2012 approaches, the question must be whether Mr Huckabee, who held on for months on an underfunded, quixotic campain in 2008, is going to run again. A few days ago his PAC sent out a fundraising email harrumphing that he wouldn't make any decision about 2012 until after this year's elections, so it's on the table. Ms Levy writes:
In some ways, Huckabee seems like a promising candidate for 2012: a squeaky-clean family man and bona-fide Christian who loves to talk. His communication is folksy but fluid; he never seems flummoxed, like George W. Bush, or befuddled, like John McCain, or unprepared, like Sarah Palin. “If we’re running a race against their most articulate guy,” Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s former campaign manager, told me, referring to President Obama, “we should put our most articulate guy. Huckabee’s that guy.” Schmidt, who has traded barbs with Palin since the election, said, “There’s no one who really provides a better contrast to Sarah Palin, showing her as an entertainer instead of a serious thinker—and there’s not enough oxygen for both of them.”
Mr Huckabee's chances were presumably better in 2008 than they will be in 2012. His firmest supporters are social conservatives, and that segment of the Republican primary electorate had nowhere else to turn in 2008, with John McCain the front-runner and the viable alternatives including Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul, all of whom were expressly socially conservative, but none of whom had it first on their mind. In this race it's likely that there will be at least one other social conservative running, perhaps Sarah Palin, and it's also likely that the social conservative questions will take a backseat to ongoing questions about the economy. Neither factor is good for Mr Huckabee. But him running would be good for the party, for both parties, by presenting a contrast to the embittered populism of Sarah Palin, and a hedge against the embattled Southerner as represented by someone like Haley Barbour, who is also likely to run. I wouldn't vote for Mr Huckabee myself—his views on homosexuality, as Ms Levy delineates in the piece linked above, are antique, and his economic ideas aren't very well thought out—but I hope he gets in the race, and stays in for a long time.