Tagged: Mike Huckabee

Huckabee may not run in 2012

Appearing on Fox News Sunday this weekend, former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee admitted he may sit out the 2012 race for president, due in part to his weekly Fox News Channel show. This is great news for real conservatives, since Huckabee is no more conservative than John McCain was, even though he was younger, more Christian and more pro-life.

While his word is likely to be less reliable than good insurance quotes, for now the nation can breathe a sigh of relief and hope that a real conservative, like Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal, rise to the top in 2012.

Early handicap of GOP 2012 Presidential Field: Mike Huckabee

In assessing, early on, the 2012 presidential field for the GOP, in the contest to face off with Barack Obama, the first name I’m going to tackle is a favorite of evangelicals and some party faithful. He’s been raising his profile and money, going as far as to accept credit cards from donors, but nothing’s official yet.

My problems with Huckabee as a banner-carrier, at this point, are manifold. First, if he runs again, he needs to remember he’s running to be commander in chief of the military and CEO of the country, not the national pastor. In 2008, Huckabee wore his religion on his sleeve even more obviously than did George W. Bush for two election cycles; it didn’t even sell to the party’s base.

But there’s a deeper problem with Huckabee, and that is that he’s not a conservative on most issues; he sees big government as simply misdirected by liberals, and would maintain a big government philosophy in office, simply redirecting the power of governmental power, as did GWB.

That’s the wrong direction for the party, which needs to re-embrace its constitution-loving, Reagan roots. Thus far, all Huckabee has proven himself to be is a “more Christian and pro-life” version of John McCain. And that, we don’t need.

McCain rushes toward Dole finish

It’s 1996 all over again, minus the cheap pens the Dole campaign was so fond of.

After brokering a backroom deal with Mike Huckabee to rob Mitt Romney of a win in West Virginia, and perhaps some other key southern states, Arizona RINO and “the most qualified Democrat in the race,” John McCain, appears to be favored in California which could very well push him to a hard-to-overcome delegate lead following Super Duper Tuesday results. In West Virginia, Romney was in the clear lead on the first ballot, but failed to gain the necessary 50 percent, so on the second ballot McCain pledged his supporters to Hucka-BUST to keep the heat away from the former Massachusetts governor and the only remotely conservative candidate with a chance of winning left in the GOP race, Mitt Romney.

Much as I’d love to see Romney win, it’s now going to be extremely hard for ol’ Mitt, and the GOP seems bent on hurtling headlong into a repeat of 1996. Back then, a decrepit Bob Dole took his turn at bat against Bill Clinton, largely because of his pull with the Beltway establishment and party bigwigs. As we all remember, Dole went down to defeat and ended up as a national joke, doing Viagra commercials while lusting after Britney Spears.

McCain’s ascension due to the same sort of forces – the perception that it’s his turn after paying his dues, ties to Beltway types and party leadership, etc., – sets up a whirlwind of forces that almost guarantee the Democrats a White House win in November. The parallels are frightening.

When he ran in ’96, Dole was older than Reagan was when he was first elected. Likewise, McCain is 71 and would be the oldest candidate ever to win, if he did win. However, Dole faced a considerably younger and more energetic candidate in Bill Clinton, who was running for a second term. The potential Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, is a much younger, far more charismatic personality than McCain, and Obama will wipe the floor with McCain, just as Clinton did against Dole. In fact, it may not even be that close. McCain’s best hope is to go up against Hillary, whose high negatives are showing following Super Duper Tuesday results, and hope more liberals vote for him than for Hillary… which isn’t likely.

Thanks to back room deals and shady politics, McCain is making 2008 a replay of 1996. And if he’s going to be the GOP nominee, maybe a dose of a far-lefty candidate like Barack Obama is just what this country needs to get the GOP – and the nation – to re-embrace conservatism once again.

“Open” primaries and caucuses must end!

How can someone as liberal as John McCain or Mike Huckabee win in a GOP primary or caucus? Are they perhaps bribing caucus-goers to abandon principal in favor of, say, gold jewelry?

No, I believe a far different dynamic is at stake.

Most notably in Iowa and New Hampshire, but prevalent in many of the early primary and caucus states is a set of rules, established by the GOP and Democratic parties at the state level, that allow anyone to vote in the primary (or attend the caucus) of their choice without so much as even having to declare a party preference or even prove they are a resident of the state in question.

This policy, called “open participation” or “open attendance,” skews the results of such primaries away from the wishes of actual party members. This was most noticeable in New Hampshire and Iowa, where all a person had to do in say they hoped to live in those states someday soon, and they would be allowed to attend and participate in a caucus (in the case of Iowa) or vote in the primary in question (in the case of New Hampshire).

This means that Hollywood liberals with time to burn thanks to the writers strike could conceivably have attended the Iowa caucuses to vote for Huckabee, then voted in the New Hampshire primary for John McCain, just to prevent a more conservative candidate, like Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson, from gaining traction. It also means that the traveling staff of each campaign could conceivably do likewise, leaving a multiple-vote trail behind them as the primary and caucus season advances.

This open policy needs to end.

It should be the business of Republicans – and Republicans only – to select who they want to lead their party in a presidential contest; it should be the business of Democrats – and Democrats only – to select who they want to lead their party in a presidential contest.

The media admits the truth of the current situation when they report how well McCain is doing by drawing his support from Democrats and independents. Yet the bottom line is, they should have no say in who fronts the Republican ticket, since they are not Republicans.

WonderfulPessimist.com suggests that both parties pass new rules for 2012 and going forward that require proof of residency and, hopefully, a declaration of party preference, prior to allowing anyone in any state to participate in a state caucus or primary. Until then, the whole process is a joke.

So what should independents do during primary season, you ask? Simple.

Either choose a side or stay home.

Florida leaning toward Romney

While the barely-active Rudy Guiliani campaign has pretty much staked everything on the Florida primary, as have many other marginal candidacies looking for an injection of legal steroids in the political sense, the latest Rasmussen poll indicates Florida voters may actually be leaning toward the current delegate front-runner, Mitt Romney.

According to the poll, Romney is garnering 25 percent of GOP support, followed by John McCain at 20 percent, Guiliani at 19 percent, Mike Huckabee at 13 percent and Fred Thompson at 12 percent. Ron Paul trails badly with only five percent. Romney seems to be the candidate benefiting the most from the withdrawal over the weekend of California congressman Duncan Hunter from the race.

Romney is the current leader in states won to date, as well as delegate count. Of the top GOP candidates, Romney to date has won Michigan, Wyoming and Nevada, and come in second-place in Iowa and New Hampshire. By comparison, the mainstream-media-pushed RINO leader John McCain has only won in New Hampshire and South Carolina. The only other candidate to win a state was Mike Huckabee, who won in Iowa but hasn’t broken through since then.

In the delegate count, Romney has an early lead thanks in part to garnering so many first-place and second-place finishes. Even McCain is not close to Romney so far in the delegate count. While a victory in Florida could add fuel to any candidate’s bid, a decisive win in Florida could put the Romney campaign in an undisputed lead heading in to Super Tuesday.

Huckabee Iowa win won’t repeat in New Hampshire

Fake conservative Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, may have won in Iowa last night, but don’t expect a repeat performance in New Hampshire. In the Iowa caucus, self-described evangelical Christians voted their religion over issues to boost Huckabee to a dominating win, 34 percent over Mitt Romney’s 25 percent. Yet the surprise of the night – a pleasant one for conservatives – was Fred Thompson’s unexpectedly strong showing, edging out John McCain for third place by about 350 votes, though both had roughly 13 percent of the vote.

Yet now that the campaign moves beyond Iowa, Huckabee’s campaign is about to go on diet pills; unlike Iowa, New Hampshire voters will study policies and records more than prayer chains and church attendance. That ought to favor Gov. Romney, who neither pardoned nor commuted any prisoners while in office in Massachusetts, compared to Huckabee, who pardoned over 1,000 prisoners, including 12 murderers.

Fiscally? Huckabee raised sales taxes in Arkansas by 37 percent and oversaw a budget that ballooned by 65 percent. Compare that to Romney, who turned a $3 billion deficit into a surplus without raising taxes. There’s another issue-oriented advantage of substance.

And keep in mind that all of this is skewed in that Rudy Guiliani is not taking part in either Iowa or New Hampshire, so his numbers are artificially low, and thus McCain and Huckabee’s numbers are artificially high. As the campaign moves into Michigan and Florida, all this could change.

If the party of Ronald Reagan is to retain its conservative soul, Romney is the party’s best hope, and Romney-Thompson ticket could easily be this year’s dream team.

Assessing the GOP field: Mike Huckabee

It’s like the set-up to a gag: how would you like to nominate a former governor of Arkansas, who hails from Hope and says he’s a Baptist, for a bid to the White House? Surely we’re talking about former national disgrace, Democrat Bill Clinton, right? Nope. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is running for the GOP nod in 2008, and is being taken seriously by quite a number of misdirected “faith” voters who helped install Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush into the White House.

That’s because, ever since the so-called “Hucka-boom,” in which the media scrambled to puff a less well-known liberal Republican when it became obvious voters weren’t buying John McCain and were growing increasingly wary of Rudy Giuliani. They found their fair-haired faux conservative and genuine RINO in Huckabee. His conservatism is about as inflated as a flat garden hose; in other words, not much at all.

Huckabee talks a decent game; he has faced the Clinton political machine in Arkansas and won. But is he noticeably different from those Democrats the Clinton machine ran against him? It would appear not.

So how does he do it? How does Mike Huckbee fool so many conservatives into embracing liberal government solutions instead of Reagan-style conservative values? The answer is simple: religion.

Mike Huckabee wears his faith bonafides on his sleeve in a manner so outrageous, even George W. Bush would tell him to tone it down a bit. He mentions being a former Baptist preacher more often than he mentions being Arkansas’s former chief executive. Huckabee’s miscalculation is in thinking that he’s running to become America’s pastor, rather than its president; even Pat Robertson focused more on politics in his failed runs for the GOP nod.

Now, to be kind, Mike Huckabee has a nice personal story. As a man who once was challenging Bill Clinton for who had the fastest-expanding waistline, Huckabee conquered his overeating and, if he’d had a better career manager, might have even won an edition of NBC’s The Biggest Loser. Or at least MTV’s Celebrity Fit Club.

His tale of embracing fitness over fatness is inspiring.

But is he a Reagan conservative? He’ll claim the mantle, but the devil is in his policy details. The Huckabee record includes some controversial tax hikes, and perhaps he did inherit them; but he also did nothing to reverse them while in office. The Huckabee record also includes a permissive approach toward illegal immigration that could serious jeopardize national security. And the Huckabee record includes proposals mandating health and fitness goals that would make any big government, control your life liberal proud.

Bottom line is, Mike Huckabee has a lot to prove and leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to living up to the Reagan legacy. Of the six candidates WonderfulPessimist.com will be profiling, Huckabee rounds out the three we feel fall into the undesirable, liberal RINO candidates who would make poor choices that are only an echo of their Democratic rivals, not a clear choice in favor of a different, more democratic, federalism-centered, Constitution-based Reagan brand of conservatism that moves the country away from socialist drift and toward the type of government our founders intended.

Of these poor choices, both Huckabee and Giuliani are supportable in a general election, simply because they have some positives going for them (Giuliani) or a thin enough public record that perhaps they could grow in a more Reagan-esque direction (Huckabee) than they may appear. Only McCain is so anti-conservative and objectionable that his nomination would cause WonderfulPessimist.com to withdraw general election support in 2008.

But none of these three are worthy of this site’s primary- and caucus-season support; there are three better options on the table.

HuckaBUST?

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, vying for the GOP presidential nomination, really put his foot in his mouth when trying to take a swipe at fellow GOP nominee, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. In a comment apparently designed to stir up doubts about Romney, Huckabee recently commented, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers?”

What a mess.

First off, as a former Baptist preacher, Huckabee not only should know better, he probably does. Second of all, for all his religious supporters, Huckabee needs to remember that he’s not up for a Baptist pulpit opening; he’s aiming for the White House, not the Pearly Gates.

While Huckabee’s support is booming at the moment, if he keeps up such cynical slurs, that support will quickly dry up. Maybe his campaign buses need new espresso machines to keep him on a more even keel. I’m not sure if Huckabee, Romney or Thomson have my support in the Minnesota caucus quite yet, but Huckabee’s offended this “religious conservative” by the use of such hardball smearing tactics.

Seems Huckabee inherited some of Bill Clinton’s leftover disdain for opponents when he took office in Little Rock, AR, shortly after Clinton left. One would hope for a bit better than this from a Republican. The Politico claims the Huckster has at least apologized for his remark. That’s a good step; now, don’t go out and do the same thing again, or your apology is worthless; let’s see a real change in how you campaign from here through Super Tuesday, Mike.

Bloomberg makes a more-honest man of himself

Current New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, the “favorite Republican” of all New York media types who can’t pair the words “favorite” and “Republican” together in a polite sentence, but of no one in the GOP, has dropped out of the GOP.

Well, at least he’s finally being honest with himself. Bloomberg, neither a conservative nor a real Republican, is halfway to being completely honest. He’s admitted he’s no longer in the GOP this week, filing in New York as an independent. Now he just needs to admit that his values have far more in common with MoveOn.org than the Cato Institute, and we’ll finally have the political breakthrough the world has been waiting for: a liberal Republican finally admitting he’s a sham artist out to win election under the GOP banner that he’d never win under more honest labeling.

Of course, don’t tell that to the New York Times, who is hoping Bloomberg can win as an independent if Hillary falls short. Either way, the entire drug-addled staff is readying their vans and their van racks for a return to the hippie hippie 70s, just as soon as Bush is either impeached for no reason at all (which they still believe is possible) or finally leaves office in favor of… anyone except a Republican.

Boy, are they gonna have a hangover when they wake up in November ’08 to President Newt Gingrich and Vice-President Mike Huckabee, or what? Heh-heh-heh.

Bloomberg a dangerous wildcard

Current New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is a dangerous wild card in the upcoming 2008 presidential election. He is especially dangerous toward the hopes of GOP candidates for office, a danger made more real by a recent online report suggesting Bloomberg is willing to spend up to one billion of his $5.5B personal fortune in a third-party bid for the presidency.

The popular media take is that Bloomberg is a change of pace from far-left Democrats and far-right Republicans, because he is socially liberal, fiscally conservative and from the East Coast. Yet that holds no water as a viable difference from at least two, and possibly three, current top presidential contenders.

First of all, Bloomberg is a virtual carbon-copy of top GOP presidential contender Rudolph Giuliani, who has the benefit of running as a major party candidate. Their views are nearly identical and Giuliani has the benefit of receiving a lion’s share of the credit for post-9/11 leadership in New York City. It Giuliani secures the GOP nod, there would be no appreciable difference between the two that would make a Bloomberg run make any kind of sense, other than to split the vote and allow a Democratic presidential victory.

Second is GOP candidate Mitt Romney, currently battling with Arizona Senator John McCain for second place versus Giuliani for the Republican endorsement. Just like Bloomberg and Giuliani, Romney is of the exact same socially liberal, fiscally conservative, East Coast liberal type represented by Giuliani and Bloomberg. Again, a Romney candidacy would provide no contrast for Bloomberg to run against, other than to split the anti-Hillary/anti-Obama vote and ensure a Democratic win. And it should be noted that McCain, while not an East Coast candidate, fits in lock step positionally with Giuliani, Romney and Bloomberg.

In fact, the GOP field is so packed with East Coast social liberal/fiscal conservative candidates, one has to wonder if there’s any hope for the conservative movement in 2008.

But I mentioned a third candidate who – arguably – fits the same mold. I’m speaking, of course, about Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Despite being slightly more liberal than Giuliani, Romney and Bloomberg, some votes actually have Sen. Rodham as more conservative than McCain on select issues. Sen. Rodham-Clinton is basically Mayor Bloomberg on Phentermine.

What I think motivated Bloomberg more than any real, substantive “difference” from candidates like Giuliani, Romnet, Bloomberg and Rodham-Clinton is something far more provincial: a good ol’ New York pissing contest. For the last several election cycles, East Coast candidates – and specifically New Yorkers – have been nonfactors in presidential politics, much to the chagrin of the New York-centric liberal news media. New York has taken a back seat to the deep South as the most influential voting block, and New Yorkers are eager to get back into the game of presidential politics.

Think about it.

Bush II/Cheney: Texas and Wyoming

Clinton/Gore: Arkansas and Tennessee

Bush/Quayle: Texas/Maine and Indiana

Reagan/Bush: California and Texas/Maine

Carter/Mondale: Georgia and Minnesota

Ford/Rockefeller: Michigan and New York.

So, you have to go all the way back to 1974-1977, a brief stint as Ford’s vice president, to find the last time a New Yorker was in the White House. That’s at least a 30 year absence and it’s clear that one of the largest states in the nation is eager to be “back in the game.”

By the way, Rockefeller was, in his day, the leader of the liberal wing of the GOP, so even he fit with the ever-more-bloated socially liberal/fiscally conservative mold that is so well represented in this election cycle by Bloomberg, McCain, Giuliani, Romney and – arguably – Rodham-Clinton.

To be blunt, Bloomberg’s “change of pace” proposed candidacy is no “change of pace” at all – it simply litters the field with another sound-alike candidate designed to blot out any legitimate conservatives from getting a foothold in the 2008 election cycle.

The only real hopes for a legitimate change in rhetoric in this election cycle are Fred Thomspon, Newt Gingrich, or – arguably – a dark horse emergence from someone like Mike Huckabee. Bloomberg doesn’t represent change in any fashion; but a potential third-party run could doom the country to a Democratic presidential victory.

Huckabee the first genuine conservative to announce

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee made it official today, announcing that on Monday he would file papers to formalize his exploratory bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. Huckabee is the first candidate considered a genuine conservative to enter the race.

Huckabee, a native of Hope, Arkanses, is actually from the town of 11,000, unlike Democrat Bill Clinton, who claimed to be from Hope, but was actually born and raised in Hot Springs. Huckabee gained some national attention for a dramatic weight loss achievement that marked his tenure as governor of Bill Clinton’s home state.

Wonderful Pessimist still has huge reservations about Huckabee’s electability. When your return address labels come from the same state – even the same town – as Bill Clinton, that’s not a way to endear oneself to conservatives. And Huckabee’s name recognition pales in comparison to RINOs like Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney. And Huckabee needs more than weight loss methods to sell his candidacy to the country; he’s running for president, not The Biggest Loser.

But as the only notable conservative in the race – and no, the extremely obscure Sam Brownback doesn’t count – one at least has to consider the viability of Huckabee, or surrender to the inevitability of the GOP falling into RINO hands for the next four to eight years, at least. Dismal.

Giuliani still playing coy

Rudolph Giuliani may not have declared his candidacy for a 2008 GOP presidential bid quite yet, but it sounds like he’s getting ready to print up the business cards and the campaign literature. According to a New York Times report, Giuliani was sounding all the right notes in New Hampshire this past weekend.

While Giuliani remains a favorite of many due to his 9-11 leadership of New York City, many are conveniently putting aside his social liberalism while waiting for him to declare his candidacy. Still, he’s talking like someone ready for a marathon, not a 100-yard dash.


“When I say to you that we should reduce taxes to stimulate the economy, I’ll say it to you because I did it and I saw it work,” he said. “When I say we have to bring peace and security as sort of the beginning of anything, whether it’s in Baghdad or in other parts of the world or here at home, I’ll say that to you because I saw that happen in New York, and I made it happen. I did it.”

My take? Giuliani is the best of the RINOs, but I’m still holding out for a true conservative to declare and capture the imagination. Whether it’s Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee or someone yet to surface, the GOP is looking mighty thin on genuine conservatives this time around.