I Heart Who?
I got to follow Mike Huckabee around New Hampshire recently and the piece that followed is in the latest (9/10) issue of The American Conservative. Here is just a taste:
In style and substance, Huckabee is a different kind of Republican. As local GOP activists gather in the living room, the former governor of Arkansas remains on the patio with his hosts, discussing his own band, Capitol Offense, and how they opened for Willie Nelson. He tells Mary that he noticed her impressive audio equipment and just has to hear it before he leaves. He’s smiling and insistent. She is happy to comply. After all, Mike Huckabee has played Red Rocks.
Besides being an interesting and likable candidate - who could potentially do damage in Iowa, then slip into a VP role - there is was something else I discovered about the former governor of the Natural State
Huckabee’s policy naiveté, and his willingness to label as “unholy flames of racism” what most see as vigorous and honest disagreement, signal that he is a sort of character wonk—more concerned with the morality of the citizenry than with the laws that govern them. Unlike Obama or Bush before him, Huckabee asks us not only to rise above partisanship but to rise above ourselves.
Run out and grab a copy, or a subscription today. If that isn't enough, I also have a shorter piece about him in Comment is Free - the Guardian's very cool web-mag.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Politics
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14 Comments
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Reader Comments (14)
Rudy is the only candidate who can lose Iowa and New Hampshire and still crush everyone else.
I haven't read your piece yet--hosting a cocktail party tonight--so if it's in there I shall see it this weekend.
Thompson needs to declare soon or all his early buzz will have fizzled and people won't care anymore.
Still think Rudy is most electable at the moment, but still not my favorite choice. Don't actually have a favorite yet, but I know it is not Rudy.
I'm a little fuzzy on the sending monthly checks to every household based on income. That seems counter to the top-line theory.
Giuliani is going to implode sooner than later...trust me.
Huckabee is sooooo likable that I wish he could pull some social conservatives -- unfortunately conservative people still like to back a winner.
On a personal level, I like this guy. On a political level, I hate his guts, and despise the fact that with such socialist/nanny state/liberal policies he's still managing to be as popular with "conservatives" as he is. It's depressing.
For example, his contention that "Hostility toward immigrants is a sin." I should like to know what his definition of hostility is. If he means committing crimes against immigrants or (especially) their wives and children, I cannot disagree. But if he means that deportation would be sinful, I have to ask:
If a homeless man showed up uninvited to crash on your couch, mooching off your food for a year and occasionally beating your children and stealing your S.U.V. (and actually, I am an avid opponent of suburban S.U.V.s, but that is another issue, and the fact that a S.U.V. is a gawdy, wasteful toy does not justify stealing it from its rightful owner), would you not be justified in kicking him OUT?
I suspect I'm preaching to the choir. But this kind of "holier-than-thou" "compassionate conservatism" was precisely how we got into the kind of mess we are in today. Good men--and good preachers--do not necessarily make good statesmen.
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2006/12/15/huckabees-second-chance-doctrine/
Here Huckabee is quoted as saying:
"For decades, we treated our state's African-American population poorly. The Hispanic influx gives us a second chance to prove what kind of people we really are.
I think frankly the Lord is giving us a second chance to do better than we did before."
So not only is Huckabee extremely pro-immigration, but he has a crusader's zeal for it. He makes it sound like God speaks through him the same way that Bush always said.
What a country.