I have been a watcher of Mike Huckabee and a general fan of him personally, even if his politics fall on the other side of the fence from my normal comfort zone. he seems a fiancial realist and a practical politician.
How about this populist gem from Huckabee?
“Do you realize that if we could increase just by 50 percent the number of adults who have a college degree, it would add $5 billion to the economy and it would result in a net income to the state of Arkansas of $340 million a year?” --- That is someone who financially thinks like I do. Government can invest in its people to a good return.
I have watched him grab ahold of the the Religious Reich and the Gun Nut rank and file (against the wishes of the ruling elite of those political blocks) and turn himself into a legitimate political candidate in Iowa.
He seemed like an honest, straight-forward guy who was religious, but didn't wrap himself in the cloak of moral superiority. He has said some crazy things in currying the gun-nut/rr vote*, but in the primaries you campaing to your base, in the elections you campaign to the middle. I don't hold that agaisnt him, but...
(* "I'm pretty sure there's gonna be duck hunting in heaven... and I can't wait!")
I am inclined to think his metoric rise is over, in spite of him recently adding the excellent Ed Rollins as his campaign manager. I think Huckabee is being outed as a candidate with just as many skeletons in the closet as Mayor 911. When you figure in the fact that Huckabee's base are the folks who's leadership declined to endorse Huckabee to begin with (presumably they saw these skeletons in the closet and decided he was unelectable), it seems likely that he may find a lot of these leaders jumping over to McCain or Romney in the next 2 weeks. It is, afterall, in their interest to say to their consituency, "you backsed the wrong horse this time, stick with me and we will get the right one next time." rather than sitting back and being seem as impotent or irrelevant in this race. Deals will be cut.
Huckabee has shown himeslf to be mean-spirited in the last 45 days or so, he has gone out of his way to be unneccessarily hateful to gays and Mormons. He has moved from being devoutly, and righteously pro-life to dogmatically pro-life. Huckabee's momentum was based on his positive message and his general likeability. He has shown his petty side over the last 3 weeks and has seen a couple of missteps from the past (his AIDS ideas, women's subserviant roles, and the rape scandal) come back to haunt him. His upwards momentum has stalled and his negative numbers have gone way up. That can't be corrected in 3 weeks. I think Huckabee is going to lose Iowa to Romney or McCain and I think he may have also lost out on the VP job if Romney (or perhaps McCain) gets the nod.
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What is the rape issue floating over Huckabee's head?
Well, this is it in a nutshell. I got the story from the McGlocklin group. I make no pronouncements over whether this is a justified criticism or a fair one, but this is it. A rapist in Arkansas was granted an early release. His victim begged the Governor not to allow him to be pardoned. The Governor says he had nothing to do with the pardon and says it was all the parole board, but a member of the parole board has come out and said they pardoned the guy because the governor wanted him pardoned. He put it all on Huckabee.
Anyway, this is where it gets really seedy. The political insiders on the M.G. said there is some thought that the release of this guy may have been a political slap at the Clintons as the victim was a cousin of Bill's.
Anyway this guy got out and raped 2 women and killed them. Their families are mad as hell and will make a world of stink to keep Huckabee out of the presidency.
Now there are scandals and there are SCANDALS. If even half of this is true, Huckabee is going to have a very hard time rallying voters who favor strong sentancing. Republicans don't want to escape the primaries with a lame duck candidate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/04/documents-expose-huckabee_n_75362.html
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