Huckabee

 Huckabee’s withdrawal from the 2012 race changes the contest in many ways. First, his departure may accelerate the entry of archconservatives like Palin and Bachmann eager to scoop up his supporters and claim his mantle as social-conservative leader and head tea bagger. Also someone will try to claim his role as the anti-Romney: Huckabee despises Romney. Also, Huckabee’s endorsement is worth a ton. Also he could shoot for the VP slot on the ticket, from the sidelines. Most of all, Huckabee’s departure will force Republican leaders, to the extent that there are any, to try to pick a frontrunner, from one of four options: support one of the only two candidates who polls within 13 points of Obama right now, Romney and Paul; try to build support for one of the small fry like Huntsman or Pawlenty; try to repair the damaged reputations of Palin or Gingrich; or try to recruit someone like Giuliani.

There is a fair chance that Huckabee is setting himself up for a run in 2016. In 2016 he would still only be 61. Arch-conservatives groups like the Club For Growth, who actually think he’s too liberal, may have lost power by then. There will be no Obama in his way, no Romney, no Gingrich: only a handful of relative unknowns. In the speech closing the door on the 2012 campaign, he stressed that he could have run strong had he gotten into the race; in the same speech he explicitly said he would do the same thing that Nixon did in the 1960s, to retain his political relevance and pave the way for a comeback, namely helping other Republicans: “I will gladly continue doing what I do and helping others in their campaigns for Congress, governorships, and other positions.” If he does run in 2016, count on him to launch in Iowa, where they love him; he began his book-signing tour there, and the first chapter of his book was entitled “I Love Iowa”. A 2016 race would still pose problems: he would face the deep scrutiny he didn’t get in 2008 when his race was over almost before it started, and his credentials as a social conservative are not matched in economic or national-security areas. And some conservatives are suspicious of him.

Despite Huckabee’s quite conservative beliefs, he would indeed have come under fire from conservatives if he had run. The arch-conservative Club For Growth declared war on Huckabee, claiming he spent too much and taxed too much in Arkansas. Also, some of the prisoners who sentences he commuted turned out to be seriously bad seeds: one of them murdered four policemen, and another raped and murdered two women, one of them pregnant. For some, Huckabee was actually too liberal, despite his very conservative views.

We forget that Huckabee is a professional preacher, a man who is way to the right on social issues: he sought a constitutional ban on abortions, wants to post the ten commandments in schools and impeach judges to bar legislature prayers to Jesus, advocated tax credits for Christian schooling, doesn’t believe in evolution, and advocated concealed-carry legislation. He claimed that our “culture of life” separates us from Islamic fascists: in other words, the pro-choice movement is equivalent to al-Qa’ida. He slammed Natalie Portman for giving birth before marriage, after giving Bristol Palin a free pass for doing the same thing. He also wants a fifty percent increase in military spending, and insisted Obama was born in Kenya.

Huckabee rejects moderation: “Throw the social conservatives, the pro-life, pro-family people overboard and the Republican party will be as irrelevant as the Whigs....They'll basically be a party of gray-haired old men sitting around the country club puffing cigars, sipping brandy and wondering whatever happened to the country. That will be the end of the party."

Huckabee went public with his views that gays are like addicts and molesters, a dangerous health risk: he advocated putting HIV patients in concentration camps. Huckabee on same-sex marriage: “You don’t go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal. That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want who use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them.”

Huckabee on gay adoption: “I think this is not about trying to create statements for people who want to change the basic fundamental definitions of family. And always we should act in the best interest of the children, not in the seeming interest of the adults. Children are not puppies. This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out, how does this work?”

Likewise fiscal issues: Huckabee wants to keep Bush’s tax cuts, flatten the tax structure and block bankruptcies, both of which would devastate the middle class, and reject the Kyoto carbon effort. Huckabee implies that Obama would have killed Ted Kennedy. "In fact, listen to what I said. It was actually a tribute to Senator Kennedy and an observation that he did what Americans would want to do: follow the best health care advice that they can find. And we don't want the government telling us to go home and take a pain pill and die. When diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at age 77, Senator Kennedy didn't do as President Obama suggested and take a pain pill and ride it home. He did what most of us would do or want to do. He went to the very best medical facilities in the world, had surgery, and sought to live as long and as strong as possible."