Is the GOP Launching a Ship to Go Down In?

Huck and Barack on their new adventure.

Huckacide
By Rich Lowry
December 14, 2007

The ghost of Howard Dean haunts the pundit class. As soon as a candidate of either party spikes up in the polls, he is compared with Dean, who had a spectacular boomlet in the second half of 2003 only to deflate as soon as people began to vote in early 2004.

After many false prophecies, Dean circa 2008 has finally arrived. He is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Not because he will inevitably blow himself up in Iowa. But because, like Dean, his nomination would represent an act of suicide by his party.

Like Dean, Huckabee is an under-vetted former governor who is manifestly unprepared to be president of the United States. Like Dean, he is rising toward the top of polls in a crowded field based on his appeal to a particular niche of his party. As with Dean, his vulnerabilities in a general election are so screamingly obvious that it's hard to believe that primary voters, once they focus seriously on their choice, will nominate him.


The GOP's social conservatism inarguably has been an enormous benefit to the party throughout the past 30 years, winning over conservative Democrats and lower-income voters who otherwise might not find the Republican limited-government message appealing. That said, nominating a Southern Baptist pastor running on his religiosity would be rather overdoing it. Social conservatism has to be part of the Republican message, but it can't be the message in its entirety.

Someone needs to tell Huckabee. His first TV ads in Iowa touted him as a "Christian leader," and his target audience of evangelicals has responded. But according to a Pew poll released in early December, only 1 in 7 nonevangelical Republicans support him in Iowa and 1 in 20 nonevangelicals in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Huckabee has declared that he doesn't believe in evolution. Even if there are many people in America who agree with him, his position would play into the image of Republicans as the anti-science party. This would tend to push away independents and upper-income Republicans. In short, Huckabee would take a strength of the GOP and, through overplaying it, make it a weakness.

He'd do the same on taxes. In general, the public tends to support Democratic proposals for bigger government, which Republicans counter by saying that the proposals will require higher taxes. Huckabee will be equipped poorly to make this traditional Republican comeback, given his tax-raising history in Arkansas. Huckabee tries to compensate with a sales-tax scheme that allows him to say he supports eliminating the IRS, but is so wildly implausible that it would be a liability in a general election.

Then, there's national security, the Republican trump card during the Cold War and after 9/11. Huckabee not only has zero national-security credentials, he basically has no foreign-policy advisers either, as a New York Times Magazine piece this Sunday makes clear. In a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in September, Huckabee struck notes seemingly borrowed from Barack Obama, hitting the Bush administration for its "bunker mentality" and strongly supporting direct talks with Iran. A foreign-policy debate with a Democratic nominee would be a competition over who can promise to be nicer to foreign countries.

None of this is a winning formula. Huckabee has been running his campaign out of his back pocket, and has done it extremely well. There's a reason, though, that serious candidates surround themselves with policy experts. It's necessary to running a campaign based on more than sound bites. Wherever you scratch Huckabee on policy, he seems an inch deep. Do Republicans really want to enter what is already a tough political year with a candidate apparently allergic to preparation, and who has shown no predilection for organizing or fundraising, when he can do cable TV appearances instead?

Democrats have to be looking at Huckabee the way Republicans once regarded Dean -- as a shiny Christmas present that is too good to be true.

What States Can Huckabee Carry in a National Election?

President George McGovern

Not: Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, New York, Michigan, and Florida for starters.

Huckabee basks in success
By Stephen Dinan Washington Times
December 11, 2007

MIAMI — Mike Huckabee jokes that if he's not the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, someone better tell the other campaigns to turn their fire elsewhere.

While he's not quite comfortable with the term front-runner — "I would like to say we're 'emerging,' " he said yesterday — the former Arkansas governor finds himself facing near-smothering press attention and the concentrated attacks from other campaigns. But whatever he's called, his emergence means the former two-man race between Mitt Romney and Rudolph W. Giuliani is now a lot more complicated.

Mr. Huckabee spent the morning in Miami yesterday picking up the endorsement of one of Florida's most powerful politicians, House Speaker Marco Rubio, the latest in a line of substantial backers Mr. Huckabee is amassing.

Mr. Rubio said he had planned to stay neutral in the race, but in the past few weeks had felt compelled to back Mr. Huckabee as the candidate who best communicates a pro-life, conservative-values message. Mr. Rubio said that's what helps Mr. Huckabee spar with far better-funded campaigns.

"There's a difference between a campaign and a movement," Mr. Rubio said. "When you're leading a movement, all you need is people. And he's leading a movement."

That movement, though, will have to brave Mr. Huckabee's past, which is increasingly scrutinized. From paroles issued during his 10 years as governor, to his presiding over a net tax increase to his past comments on Christianity and AIDS, Mr. Huckabee is now on the hot seat.

Yesterday, he defended his stance as governor on immigration, when he protested federal immigration authorities' workplace raids. He said his concern then was that citizen children were in effect "abandoned" because social services wasn't alerted to the raids beforehand.

"A raid is a legitimate thing to do. But what is not legitimate is to do it without the cooperation of local authorities," he said.

And in earning the endorsement of Mr. Rubio, the top-ranking Cuban official in the state, Mr. Huckabee said he was wrong five years ago when he called for an end to the embargo on the island nation.

The big-name endorsements have been accompanied by a strong surge in polls.

A new CNN poll has Mr. Huckabee trailing Mr. Giuliani nationally by only two percentage points, the tightest survey yet. And state-by-state surveys show him expanding his lead over Mr. Romney in Iowa, taking the lead in South Carolina and surging in Michigan and Florida, though Mr. Huckabee does not fare as well in New Hampshire.

Florida Senate Majority Leader Daniel Webster, a Republican who has also endorsed Mr. Huckabee, said the former governor's base of support is likely to weather the attacks because many of them chose him even before he seemed to be a viable candidate.

"They had to make a decision to say 'I'm going to take my vote, and even though this vote may not be for the winner, I'm going to do it.' So they had to make a decision, and that makes it hard to pry away his base vote," he said.

That will soon be tested.

Fred Thompson's campaign appears to be making Mr. Huckabee its chief focus, with Mr. Thompson himself questioning Mr. Huckabee's flip-flops yesterday. And Mr. Romney last night announced that he will begin running an ad in Iowa attacking Mr. Huckabee's immigration record.

"Huckabee is peaking right now," said Paul Pate, Mr. Giuliani's Iowa campaign chairman. "The longer people look, though, they obviously start picking at your warts and blemishes. I think Huckabee's going to have a few slides on his poll numbers."

He said despite Mr. Huckabee's rise, Mr. Giuliani's strategy — counting on strong showings in the big states later in the season, and hoping to capture an early state or two along the way — still looks sound.

"The run for the presidency is a long distance race, not a short one, even with all the early hurdles, the front-loading of all these caucuses and primaries," he said.

Paul Erickson, a Romney backer who was political director for Pat Buchanan's 1992 campaign, said Mr. Huckabee's ante won't carry him very far.

"It's not only that the Huckabee campaign is unprepared for what they're about to go through this month, but as a practical matter, there is virtually no way to build an operation between a strong showing Jan. 3 and the de facto end of the primary season Jan. 19 in South Carolina," he said.

"The highest electoral hope of the Huckabee candidacy seems to be to provide the necessary confusion to nominate Rudy Giuliani for the presidency," he said.

But Mr. Huckabee's supporters say there was a built-in set of voters looking for another candidate to emerge, and Mr. Huckabee is the conservative-values candidate they were looking for.

"There always was a cry out there for a fourth candidate, from the beginning, and the question was who was it going to be," Mr. Webster said.

Huckabee Should Enjoy His Fifteen Minutes

...because this guy is not going to hack it.  He does not have enough sense to have a staff person to keep him appraised of current political events.  Toast baby, smoking singed toast.

December 05, 2007
The Wolves at Huckabee's Door
Rick Moran American Thinker

The most recent LA Times poll has former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee moving into second place nationally, trailing Rudy Giuliani 25%-17%.

Rather than rejoice, Huckabee should start bobbing and weaving. He is now target #1 of other Republicans running and the media. And the assault has already begun:

As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again.

The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman.

Confidential Arkansas state government records, including letters from these women, obtained by the Huffington Post and revealed publicly for the first time, directly contradict the version of events now being put forward by Huckabee.



[T]he confidential files obtained by the Huffington Post show that Huckabee was provided letters from several women who had been sexually assaulted by Dumond and who indeed predicted that he would rape again - and perhaps murder - if released. In a letter that has never before been made public, one of Dumond's victims warned: "I feel that if he is released it is only a matter of time before he commits another crime and fear that he will not leave a witness to testify against him the next time." Before Dumond was granted parole at Huckabee's urging, records show that Huckabee's office received a copy of this letter from Arkansas' parole board.

The woman later wrote directly to Huckabee about having been raped by Dumond. In a letter obtained by the Huffington Post, she said that Dumond had raped her while holding a butcher knife to her throat, and while her then-3-year-old daughter lay in bed next to her. Also included in the files sent to Huckabee's office was a police report in which Dumond confessed to the rape. Dumond was not charged in that particular case because he later refused to sign the confession and because the woman was afraid to press charges.

The rapist, Wayne Dumond, subsequent to his release, raped and suffocated a woman. This is the nightmare of all governors and perhaps singling out Huckabee for special treatment would be unfair - except he has apparently denied any knowledge in helping Drumond when in fact, one of his close friends was pushing for the inmate's release as was Steve Dunleavy, a New York Post columnist.

Then there's the little matter of Huckabee missing the news of the year - the release of the NIE on Iran:

The Politico's David Paul Kuhn was among a group of reporters who had dinner with Mike Huckabee in Iowa tonight. According to a transcript posted by Jonathan Martin, Kuhn asked Huckabee about the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, and it was news to Huckabee:
Kuhn: I don’t know to what extent you have been briefed or been able to take a look at the NIE report that came out yesterday ...

Huckabee: I’m sorry?

Kuhn: The NIE report, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. Have you been briefed or been able to take a look at it —

Huckabee: No.

Kuhn: Have you heard of the finding?

Huckabee: No

Yikes! One would hope that as president, the Huckster would pay a little more attention to what's going on in the world. Both incidents show that the long knives are out for Huckabee and that if he wants to survive long in the rarefied atmosphere the frontrunners inhabit, he better get up on his hind legs and fight back.