The False Conservative
Who would respond to criticism from the Club for Growth by calling the conservative, free-market campaign organization the "Club for Greed"? That sounds like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards, all Democrats preaching the class struggle. In fact, the rejoinder comes from Mike Huckabee, who has broken out of the pack of second-tier Republican presidential candidates to become a serious contender -- definitely in Iowa and perhaps nationally.
Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans know that he is a high-tax, protectionist advocate of big government and a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans. Until now, they did not bother to expose the former governor of Arkansas as a false conservative because he seemed an underfunded, unknown nuisance candidate. Now that he has pulled even with Mitt Romney for the Iowa caucuses and might make more progress, the beleaguered Republican Party has a frightening problem.
The rise of evangelical Christians as the force that blasted the GOP out of minority status during the past generation always contained an inherent danger: What if these new Republican acolytes supported not merely a conventional conservative but one of their own? That has happened with Huckabee, a former Baptist minister educated at Ouachita Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The danger is a serious contender for the nomination who passes the litmus test of social conservatives on abortion, gay marriage and gun control but is far removed from the conservative-libertarian model of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.
Robert Novak
The Huckster sounds more and more like Slick Willie every day. He recently pronounced that Saudi oil profits are "obscene" and that we are enslaved to Saudi oil. His health care plank is virtually identical to Hillary's (and Romney's for that matter).
How are you pubbies liking that big tent now?
Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans know that he is a high-tax, protectionist advocate of big government and a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans. Until now, they did not bother to expose the former governor of Arkansas as a false conservative because he seemed an underfunded, unknown nuisance candidate. Now that he has pulled even with Mitt Romney for the Iowa caucuses and might make more progress, the beleaguered Republican Party has a frightening problem.
The rise of evangelical Christians as the force that blasted the GOP out of minority status during the past generation always contained an inherent danger: What if these new Republican acolytes supported not merely a conventional conservative but one of their own? That has happened with Huckabee, a former Baptist minister educated at Ouachita Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The danger is a serious contender for the nomination who passes the litmus test of social conservatives on abortion, gay marriage and gun control but is far removed from the conservative-libertarian model of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.
Robert Novak
The Huckster sounds more and more like Slick Willie every day. He recently pronounced that Saudi oil profits are "obscene" and that we are enslaved to Saudi oil. His health care plank is virtually identical to Hillary's (and Romney's for that matter).
How are you pubbies liking that big tent now?
posted by Anonymous | 9:27 AM
4 Comments:
You do know that Mike Huckabee's hometown is Hope, Arkansas; the same hometown as Bill Clinton.
It shows, doesn't it?
What I find really interesting is that exactly the same kinds of warnings about Huckabee are coming out of Arkansas as the ones about Bill Clinton. I wonder if Republicans will be any smarter than Democrats.
Thinking about it, the warnings that came out of Hope about Bill Clinton was about his womanizing ways. With Huckabee, it's about his liberal domestic policies.
The womanizing was part of it, but most of the warnings were that Clinton was a chameleon. If you recall, he ran as a moderate Democrat, meaning only slightly left of center. The warning that came out of Hope and Little Rock were that he was a political opportunist. They also warned that he was associated with a pretty unsavory lot.
When I said they were the same warnings, I meant that they were warning that Huckabee is not what he seems.
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