Thoughts about Huckabee
On January 3rd Governor Mike Huckabee shocked the Republican establishment by winning the Iowa Caucuses by a very strong margin. Outspent and outgunned on air time and party favoritism, Huckabee nevertheless proved he can connect with the one group that matters: the voters.
For several months I have considered openly tossing my hat into the ring in support of the second man from Hope, Arkansas. To date, my support has been limited to private e-mails and vigorous discussions with friends and fellow politicos.
January 5th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Brian, don’t. That’s all I can say.
Although I too was excited to see an evangelical with an attitude and personality do well, on Leno and in the Iowa caucuses. I don’t think he can beat Hillary.
Be careful, that’s the key.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Thanks for the view, Dalton.
Whether or not he can beat Hillary is subject to whether or not Hillary gets the nomination.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
More important than electability are his positions and history on anything except abortion and gay marriage. His history on illegal immigration is very poor. His taxing record is very bad. His spending record is very bad. He is using support of the “fair tax” to hide his taxing history. Aside from having no foreign policy knowledge, he supports closing Gitmo and normalizing relations with Cuba. He handed out pardons like they were candy.
Add to that several ethical lapses and outright lies on the public stage in this campaign. Some of those ethical lapses included giving pardons to people who gave money to the Arkansas GOP and hiding the fact that he was paying himself from his campaign funds and taking excessive gifts (over $130,000 in one year).
Forget if he can be elected. If he is elected or even nominated he will do more damage to the Republican party that another drubbing by the Democrats. But electability is an issue as can be observed by watching Susan Estridge on Fox News when Huckabee was declared winner of the caucus.
If you are looking for an evangelical on the public stage, please keep looking. Huckabee is truly a severely flawed candidate.
January 5th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
All the more reason why Fred Thompson should be given more consideration. If you’re using a religious test, and you think Romney is “your guy” keep in mind he’s flip-flopped about as often as Jon Carry.
Rudy is as liberal of a Republican as you can be, and still be a Republican. I tell you the more you look at Fred Thompson the more you’ll like him. See, not everyone from Tennessee is an envirokook like Algore.
January 5th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
When did Hillary win the nomination? Being “smart” and having all the connections helps, but you still have to be LIKED and trusted. Beside the Dems don’t like the media picking thier candidate for them any more than we do.
January 5th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I don’t think I could ever support Huckabee. I did seriously consider it, but after really digging into Huckabee and finding all the info Joel mentioned above, I realized that Huckabee is to fiscal conservatism what Guiliani is to social conservatism.
That’s not a good sign.
January 5th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Brian, you should also look into why Huckabee is losing his trust amongst homeschoolers. His record while Governor was horrible with homeschoolers to the point that HSLDA (yes, the almighty HSLDA) came out against him while his was Governor. Why they support him for President is beyond my imagination. The only thing I can think of is that he is a devout Christian who wears his faith on his sleeve. That’s hard for Mike Farris to ignore.