Huckabee 2012
Mike Huckabee in 2012
Since Sarah Palin seems to have a tendency to self destruct, Mike Huckabee has started to stand prominently in Republican minds as the frontrunner for the Religious Right votes in 2012. This makes him the most likely contender for Mitt Romney in the 2012 primaries, and the most likely to pull a surprise and steal the nomination come July 2012.
Huckabee’s background is going to be much less of a burden than Romney’s or Jindal’s. He’s a populist, and, unlike Romney, wasn’t born silver spoon in mouth. He comes across as a populist and has his own show on Fox News. To top it all off, he’s likeable. More likeable, really, than any of the other candidates. He comes across as genuine on Television, a tough thing for any politician to do, and he can be funny. While sitting down with left-leaning satirist Jon Stewart, he held his own in a battle of the wits, even after Stewart railed him for being anti-gay marriage.
He’s a former Baptist minister and is a Biblical literalist. He’s pro-life, pro-NRA, pro-death penalty, and is a supporter of the War on Terror. He’s also got plenty of political experience, serving two terms as Governor of Arkansas. As far as the Religious Right goes, he’s a golden boy. So what does he have working against him?
A lot, actually. If the Obama campaign in ‘08 was able to link John McCain to George Bush, they’ll sure as hell be able to do it with Mike Huckabee. Huckabee has a definite appeal and charisma, which all of the center-right candidates lack, but that doesn’t cover up his sometimes-radical political beliefs. Chances are he’d temper these for the election, but they’ll hurt him either way. If he does, he’ll be called a hypocrite, and if he doesn’t, he’s going to lose a ton of votes. For one thing, he believes the Bible is literal historical truth. That’s a tough sell to most of the population. It’ll definitely lose him any support in the scientific community. And he’s made statements to the effect that he doesn’t believe in the separation between church and state. It’s tough to win any election if you’ve ever made statements that fly in the face of the first amendment.
And he’s a proponent of intelligent design, and has referred to evolution as “dogma,” which will probably be seen as a bit hypocritical, and won’t please the education crowd.
He’s a scientists nightmare, honestly, and there aren’t many Americans – especially among Republicans – who are cool with going against the constitution. So his election would have to ride off of his charisma and his across-the-board support in the Religious Right. Which probably won’t be enough to win an election. Traditional Reagan Republicans are trying to return to a 1980’s model of laissez-faire economics and distance themselves from the theocrat crowd, and Huckabee won’t really do that. In fact, he’ll come off as another George Bush, and the Republicans probably won’t be wanting to draw that connection for at least the next two years. He has more of a potential to rally the Republicans under his banner than Sarah Palin, but there’s a good chance that a Huckabee nomination would cause more of a rift in the Republican Party than Romney or Jindal would.
In this bloggers opinion, he’s not going to cut it. The Religious Right makes up about 14% of the voters bloc according to an article on publiceye.org, and that’s not enough to win. Especially against Obama. In a battle of the charismas, they’d come close, but on issues, Obama will win, unless his first term is truly disastrous. And he was pretty solidly thumped by the more moderate McCain in the primaries in ‘08. He was out by March, though he remained in the spotlight. Huckabee also pretty solidly opposed the stimulus, and, as of November, there are indications that we might be pulling out of the recession. So if Obama succeeds in that respect, and prevents a terrorist attack in his first term, the Republicans are going to need to fight him with middle-of-the-road, not far-right.
He’s an easy smear target, honestly. A nice guy, sure, but intelligent design is an iffy thing to have a president believe in, and being pro-life and pro-death penalty is easy to paint as hypocritical to people outside the Religious Right. Gallup polls put Huckabee in first, but this blogger says wait for the campaigning to start, and watch for Romney.