The Shot!

A few thoughts on Huckmania and the state of the Republican Party.

To be fair, the headline is taken from an editorial published by Rich Lowry on Real Clear Politics and is the genesis of our post here. Over the last few weeks, a number of Ronald Reagan’s former advisers have come forward to say that they fear the Huckabee’s pandering to social conservatives and forsaking of fiscal and defense conservatives will destroy the Republican coalition that Reagan so artfully fused together. With his “aw-shucks” style and laser like focus on the fact that he is a “Christian Leader;” he has been able to endear himself to single issue voters on the right (Remember folks, Pat Robertson won Iowa, but I digress) and and garner media attention with his creative one-liners as a deflection of criticism.

On the matters of foreign affairs and defense, Huckabee has been woefully inept. He responded to Benazir Bhutto’s assassination by blaming it on illegal immigration in Pakistan when there is virtually none. He has no foreign policy advisors on his team, and lied to reporters about who was advising him, claiming the former UN Ambassador John Bolton was in his camp. He had no idea that the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear capability had been released when asked by a reporters. All of this leaves defense minded conservatives with a very uneasy feeling about his ability to lead.

For small government/fiscal conservatives, the issues just get worse. The Republican Party used to be the Party that believed that government at best was a necessary evil and at worst, an intolerable one. Now, we have Huckabee promising to make government work for everyone. He supported a national smoking ban, criticized the President on blocking the expansion of the S-CHIP program, favors federal intervention on global warming, and supports cap-and-trade. And all of these examples have been taking from the trail, without an analysis of his tax and spend record as Governor of Arkansas.

Now, the self-annointed moral leader of the Republican pack has hired some of the shadiest political advisors out there; nationally he has Ed Rollins, and right here in South Carolina, there are a couple more (we told a friend that we would lay off). Subsequently, his campaign is the only one engaged in the detested tactics of “push-polling” and the use of anonymous third party attack groups. His campaign has gotten so negative that the New Hampshire and South Carolina Attorneys General have had to weigh in on the situation. So much for the, I won’t go negative, but if I did hear is how I would do it.

So here he is, playing “Christian Voters” against the rest of the traditional base of the Republican Party in hopes of eeking out a win. The problem is; most of defense and fiscal conservative are people of faith as well. They want a President who is guided by Faith, not one who uses it for political expediency and relies on a divisive strategy of pitting on group against the other. They would like a President who has a grasp on their issues and who can lead as Reagan led, not declare his vision dead and destroy the Republican Party.

Read the editorial below:

Huck Hoax: Why He Won’t Break Out

By Rich Lowry

Mike Huckabee has pulled a neat trick.His appeal so far has been limited exclusively to evangelicals, yet the press has taken him seriously as a new populist force in the Republican Party who could at any moment “break out” to appeal to lower-income voters.

Who knew a candidate of Christian identity politics would be afforded such respect? But Huckabee has managed it, which is one reason why he should open a strategic-communications firm the day after he leaves the presidential race. The ability to gull analysts into making so much from so little is a rare and potentially lucrative talent.

Huckabee won Iowa for one reason - he won an overwhelming plurality of evangelical voters in a GOP caucus where they made up an astonishing 60 percent of the electorate. Huckabee won 47 percent of evangelical voters, and only 14 percent of nonevangelicals - less than John McCain and Fred Thompson, who tied for third in Iowa, and barely more than Ron Paul, who finished fifth.

On this basis, E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post declared “a revolution in Republican politics.” David Brooks of The New York Times opined that Huckabee’s win “opens up the way for a new coalition,” given how profoundly he understands “middle-class anxiety.” Huckabee’s national campaign chairman, Ed Rollins, talked in similarly grand terms of rallying working-class voters to the GOP.

But working-class voters haven’t cooperated. In New Hampshire, where Huckabee finished a distant third, he won 33 percent of evangelicals, but just 7 percent of nonevangelicals - less than Ron Paul. In Michigan, he lost evangelicals to Mitt Romney 34-29, and got just 8 percent of nonevangelicals - again, less than Ron Paul. So among nonevangelicals, Huckabee is as much a fringe candidate as the sometimes bizarre libertarian purist.

Huckabee is a kinder and gentler Pat Robertson. His twinkle-in-the-eye and skill as a performer make him an upgrade over previous Christian conservative candidates, but don’t give the average voter any reason to vote for him. His campaign has specialized in sanctimony layered on top of disingenuousness, low demagoguery and policy incoherence.

In Iowa, Huckabee played the religion card against his Mormon rival, all the while pretending he was doing no such thing. Then, he became enamored of his line that people should vote for a candidate who looks like someone they work with rather than someone who lays them off - another shot at Romney. He concluded his TV ad in Michigan with the line, but it got him nothing. Ordinary looks don’t constitute an economic policy.

Huckabee’s campaign has been run on, to invoke two of his favorite substances, duct tape and WD-40. When reporters asked who his foreign-policy advisers were, he cited former ambassador to the UN John Bolton as someone with whom he has “spoken or will continue to speak.” But he never had. His advisers then said he had e-mailed Bolton, which he had - once, without ever following up. It was vintage Huckabee - slippery and laughably unserious.

Now Huckabee has gone from supporting the Bush amnesty plan on immigration and righteously declaring in a debate that children of illegals shouldn’t be punished for the sins of their parents, to promising to chase them all - man, woman and child - from the country. It might be the most nakedly political turnabout any GOP candidate has made in the race.

The tragedy of Huckabee’s campaign is that if he’d sat down two years ago and thought seriously about what it would take to become the next president, he might have been able to make much more of his winsome ways. Instead, he ran on a kind of lark, without carefully considered policy, without fund-raising, without organization. His warm persona and religious rhetoric have won evangelicals, but left other voters cold, despite the fanciful theories spun around his candidacy.

There are enough evangelicals in South Carolina and Florida for Huckabee to do well in the weeks ahead, but, ultimately, he is bound by the limits of his own Christian identity politics.

© 2007 by King Features Syndicate

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 4:29 pm and is filed under 2008 | Republicans, Presidential, The Chaser, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.