This is the eighth installment of my analysis of Obama's potential Republican foes in the general election. I have previously profiled Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, John McCain, Tommy Thompson, Jim Gilmore, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.
Mike Huckabee is the former Governor of Arkansas, like Bill Clinton, and the two both grew up in the same town. They both tried to run an insurgent campaign for President at a time when their party's fortunes weren't looking so hot. The similarities end there, though. Bill Clinton was able to rely on his charisma and raise money and rise in the polls rapidly. Huckabee remains a blip on the radar, and has raised little cash. His speaking skills, while a step above the likes of McCain and Giuliani, aren't enough, and his chances for winning the nomination are slim.
One interesting fact about Huckabee is that, like Obama, a large part of his campaign is about positive thinking and bipartisanship, which you can hear in his video above. Unlike Obama, however, this message isn't really gaining any traction for Huckabee. Why? It could be the bloodthirsty base hates the idea of working with the other side. More likely, Huckabee himself doesn't care about it: beginning with the second sentence of his web site's issue page, Huckabee lashes out at Democrats with all the partisan rancor his supposedly dislikes. His hypocricy doesn't stop there: he calls the fight over abotion a "battle," and talks about "fighting" to pass a national ban on gay marriage. Of course, those issues without fancing language are combative already: if you haven't noticed, most hardline conservative views have to do with hating one's fellow human beings and trying to control their lives in any way possible. It takes a tried and true charlatan to take such views in one breath and in the next, be telling us that "we should never seek to impose our faith."
What about foreign policy? Does he have any room for inclusive, hopeful rhetoric there? No. According to him, we're already in World War 3. It's our job to provide "state of the art weapons" to Israel. He said that peaceful coexistance between America and "Islamofacists" is impossible.
There's nothing particularly original about Mike Huckabee. The only thing worth saying is that he takes the level of lies entailed in phrase "Compassionate Conservative" to a whole new level.
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