Huckabee has discovered what Ronald Reagan did -- the American people will swallow anything if you smile while you say it. One of his lines is "I'm a conservative, but I'm not mad at anybody." Compare him to the others in the GOP race and he does come across as a nicer guy than the others. And that sells.

Mordechai,

I'd bet cash money that if it is Hillary against Huckabee, the oligarchy will support Hillary. Huckabee, unlike Bush, actually believes all those fairy tales and doesn't just pay lip service to them to fool the rubes (the man is a rube!) and so he is considered a risky bet.

It's not that Hillary is desirable, just that she is less likely to start WWIII or completely dismantle the social safety net, and replace it with a police state, than Giuliani, Romney, Thompson, or McCain. When the pickings are so slim, it does not make much sense to dream about a banquet.

The Daddy Warbucks wing of the Greed Oil Pimp party needn't worry about Huckabee. Once he becomes president he'll do everything they tell him to do. He'll trot out a few interesting ideas to fool NASCAR America into thinking he's not George Wanker Bush. Once he assumes office we can all drop our pants, bend over and grab our ankles and relive those good ol' days of being fucked straight up the ass by the GOP. Merry Christmas, you damn fools!

An Obama/Huckabee contest would be more lively entertainment (and probably less nationally hateful)than Hillary vs Rudy. And Huckabee would be helpful for not leaving Obama as THE one with the funny name.

Huckabee, however, would be vulnerable primarily on his loud support (so far) for the national sales tax called the "Fair Tax" as a means to "abolish the IRS", as he likes to mention between joke quips on other things.

If you end income/estate/payroll taxes as we know them,
(1) How do you actually remember how much is being paid in for Social Security & Medicare? (2) How do you control any corporations, except by a tax code? (3) How do you keep churches from becoming endless and open political rallies? With no "tax-exempt status" to be at risk of revocation?

Obama or Edwards either one could shoot machine-gun holes through this outrageous "fair tax" issue alone. And, if we're lucky, we'll see it happen.

Good neutral article. I cannot fathom why anyone to the left would be demonizing or otherwise undermining Huckabee at this point. He appears to be the least radical on the issues that really matter (a president has little effect on the social issues other than appointing judges and all the Republican candidates have pledged to appoint similar judges) such as foreign, tax, environmental, and social safety net policy (excluding the reasonable foreign policy of eccentric longshot Ron Paul), and he is the most likely to lose in the general election. Hell, as a an agnostic socialist, I am tempted to send the man money!

Kivals seems to also have been born of this 'Southern Strategy'. How else could he so warmly embrace Huckabee who has gone from performing as a local political whore to an aging national political whore. Part of the 'Southern Strategy' built the infrastructure to allow the Clintons and the Huckabees to ply their wares on the national level. This 'Southern strategy' has made our whole political system, and society, sick, infested with the all-mighty Dollar.
Hoa binh

since1942,

I think you should read my original comment again. I am an agnostic socialist who certainly does not want Huckabee to win. Among the leading contenders on the Republican side, he is clearly the least likely to win in November. My gosh, the man does not believe in evolution. But worse for him, he does not appear to be a total tool of the corporate oligarchy, like the other contenders, and so the oligarchy would not give him much support.

But if my some miracle he did win, he seems much less likely to start WWIII or to dismantle the social safety net than Giuliani, Romney, Thompson, or McCain.

Exacto vinlander. It's a beauty contest.

Huckabee may not be perfect but if I had to vote between him and the current clowns in the Democratic Party save Kucinich, Edwards, or even Gravel somewhat, I'd vote Huckabee in a heart beat.

Daniel David, for once I pretty much agree with you.

But, I assume the SS and Medicare payroll tax would remain in their dreadfully regressive rich-people-exempt form. Sales tax - particularly one on food and clothing is highy regressive too.

An election that would be a true face off between the two opposing threads of political-economic discourse in the US would be Kucinich vs. Paul

I am not aware of what Huckabee accomplished in Arkansas, aside from the immigration row.

Anyone know?

But then, I did not knwo what slick willy had done there either.

I knew very well what Bush was up to in Texas.

Daniel David,

You are right about Huckabee's tax policy being more radical. I was mistaken to have ignored that. But I disagree with you that that would be his weak point in a general election. Though most Americans would be worse off, the corporate media would not inform them of that, because the "fair tax" would benefit the corporate oligarchy and the wealthy elite. However, the members of the corporate media would be incapable of stopping themselves from ridiculing Huckabee for his stands on social issues and his primitive religious worldview. And if his opponent were Hillary or Obama, the oligarchy would likely find the Democrat more appealing (because of oligarchy-friendly trade, defense, and foreign policies) and would condone an all-out assault on the rube.

I can't believe Progressives would vote for this guy, he's a flat earther...I just can't believe we need another evangelical wing nut in office, haven't we learned our lesson yet?

I hate his last ad..which basically said

"If you believe in the Baby Jebus, I'm the guy for you, otherwise, burn in hell."

The earth is 6,000 years old and I was born yesterday... this lack of scientific thought in the neocon/republican side is unquestionably ridiculous. Rational thought is actually frowned upon. They shouldn't get ONE vote let alone half of the country (of those that turn out).

kivals,

I think you're right that some of our media pundits would be incapable of stopping themselves from ridiculing Huckabee on religious views if he becomes the Republican candidate. And that is a DANGEROUS reality, because doing so mostly has been known to backfire. It also distracts attention from the more important economic substance we should be voting for or against.

We can never take for granted that the Democratic Party will do what it should. But if Huckabee runs, the Democrats SHOULD carpet-bomb his views on the economics of health care, Social Security, war debt, growing income disparity, weak dollar, and especially this mis-named "Fair Tax" nonsense he supports. As for his faith, they should compliment him on it and never say another word about it. I don't know about "the party" or "the pundits", but I think Obama or Edwards are both intuitively smart enough to put a campaign on the religious high road and beat Republicans on better issues.

Daniel David,

You wrote:

"I think Obama or Edwards are both intuitively smart enough to put a campaign on the religious high road and beat Republicans on better issues."

If only Obama or Edwards could control the campaign coverage.

I think we can safely assume the Republicans will run a general election campaign the way they have for years -- with character assassination based on flimsy or manufactured evidence, exaggerations regarding policy positions, and distractions with insignificant or irrelevant issues. And we can assume the corporate media will do little or nothing to inform the public of the Republican distortions and lies or to educate the public about how the different policy proposals would affect them.

All that means that any Republican would have an advantage in the general election in terms of media coverage except Huckabee (regardless of the actual significant and relevant policy proposals or their expected effect on the voting public). However, the elitism and disdain for non-elites in "flyover country" by the corporate media would reach unprecedented levels when confronted with a Baptist preacher from Arkansas spouting simple religious tales that he actually believes. The media's derisive comments and venom would spew out so forcefully and in such volume it would reach hurricane proportions and Huckabee would be blown out of the water.

kivals,

Well, I hope you're right that Huckabee won't win if nominated. I also hope we don't have the liberals' agenda tainted badly among mainstream conservatives as just being the sinful rantings of God-haters. And I know that some of the "stand-up" folks at places like HBO, the comedy clubs, Comedy Channel, and Saturday Night Live can create precisely that result by taking humor right over the top into offensiveness. They do it all the time, and it really doesn't belong in our politics. We could win on substance instead, and we ought to.

Huckabee may not be a mean guy on immigrtion, but what about his other positions ?
check out the wikipedia "Political positions of Mike Huckabee"
I really don't think that right wing wacko is to strong a term.

Does it take a "good old boy" from the South tell ya'll the "Southern strategy" is really the white Southern racist stategy, and that the Democrats didn't do a good enough job attacking this divide and rule strategy for the stinking fraud and rip off that it is.

Damn I ran out of time on editing, but the word "didn't" should come betwen the words "Democrats" and "a."

This country is finished. Our national political class are a bunch of stupid, self-serving, and opportunistic prostitutes doing the bidding of crass, vulgar billionaires.

Many of us wish Mr Bumblebee would just buzz off. He promises (milk and) honey, but packs a sting; we don't want another bumbling administration. We've had government dominated by the values of the BARN (born again redneck) voters, and what has it brought? War, war profiteering, carnage, torture, forced disappearance, illegal spying on Americans, massive budget deficits and burgeoning national debt, recruitment and training of legions of terrorists bent on our destruction, environmental catastrophe, economic near-collapse and the opprobrium of the civiled world. Enough of them!

All that it would take for Huckabee to get elected is for too many people to ridicule his fundamental religious views and those voters would be solidly behind him no matter how far off he is on taxes and other matters. Don`t forget that bunch of people helped put Bush in twice and in 2000 it was mostly on the born again business that Rove figured out. Never think that the fundies are not a force to be reckoned with, as they do not vote with their brains, but with religious fervor. As with Bush, that would trump all else, even if they were voting against their own interests, such as the fair tax nonsense.

Huckabee appears to be dragging around some baggage of his own. Mr. Nice guy is declaring war on "Islamo Fascists" and claims that Jesus supported the death penalty. His moral standards also seem to be on a slippery slope.

Misappropriation of Tax-Payer Funds

Huckabee and his family improperly used money from the taxpayers' $60,000 per-year Governor's Mansion maintenance fund for personal expenses like dog food, pantyhose, and meals at Taco Bell.

Destroyed Government Property Possibly to Obstruct Justice

As he was leaving office in January, Huckabee ordered all the computers and hard drives used by his staff to be wiped clean and then crushed, a wanton act of destruction of public property that cost taxpayers $335,000 bill to replace and prompted the question: What was he hiding?

Raised Taxes by Hundreds of Millions

Known in Arkansas as "Tax Hike Mike," during his term in office the state "raised taxes more $505 million per year, a figure adjusted for inflation and economic growth, according to the state's department of finance and administration. The average Arkansan's tax burden grew from $1,969 in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1997 to $2,902 in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2005. Meanwhile, during Mr Huckabee's tenure the state added about 8,000 new fulltime workers to its payroll."

According to the Republican anti-tax group, the Club for Growth, "By the end of his 10-year tenure, Gov. Huckabee was responsible for a 37 percent higher sales tax in Arkansas, 16 percent higher motor fuel taxes, and 103 percent higher cigarette taxes according to Americans for Tax Reform (01/07/07), garnering a lifetime grade of D from the free-market Cato Institute."

These are regressive tax increases, with the biggest impacts on the poor. His positions, detailed by Wikipedia, make interesting reading. Another walking disaster. He thinks WalMart exemplifies the genius of the market.

Kivals, I have to disagree that Huckabee would be easy to beat in the general election -- I think it's just the contrary. He's a dangerous religious nutcase, but I've watced some of his speeches on C-SPAN and he has the ability to talk as if he's sane. In a recent speech at a high school in Iowa, he talked about bringing back music and art education to the curriculum, to the obvious approval of the audience -- he sounded more progressive than Hillary or Obama. In the general election, he'd have the ability to pull in the independent voters that Romney and Giuliani can't. He's also criticized Bush and the Iraq War, and Bush and his war are loathed across the board by the left and many on the right.

As Huckabee has shown in Arkansas by putting the arm on businesses for freebies when he was governor, he'll gladly take corporate money and march to their tune but, just like Reagan, he'll make it seem as if he's an outsider running against the Beltway Establishment.

As far as his Christianity, if he gets the nomination he'll soft-pedal that somewhat and the MSM will be wary about bringing it up -- they live in fear of the screeching emails and phone calls from far-right Christopublicans.

At one time in this country, anyone who said God talked to them and told them to run wouldn't have had a chance to be president, and then we got Junior. Being a religious nutcase, unfortunately, is no longer a bar to the White House.

That said, I still think a Dem will win -- America is burned out on the GOP and Huckabee will still be campaigning with eight years of the worst president in history perched on his back like an obnoxious monkey.

I have an aunt who talks real sweet and nice and friendly and sensible on all the silly little subjects like how to bake a cake or how much snow they got. But if you try to approach any more serious subjects with her, she suddenly turns into an uneducated, hateful, close-minded, paranoid religious nut with a smile on her face.

Of course I didn't even need to ask who she and her husband will be supporting: Huckabee.

The only thing that would spell the death of the Republican Party faster than Shucksterbee's receiving the nomination, would be his winning the election.

Go Shuck!

miftin:

A very familiar stereotype. Conservative Bush enablers, whether in the form of nice little old ladies or benevolent grandfathers, are unfortunately as responsible for the current state of world affairs as their elected reps. are. And they ALL vote.

The election is already too controlled by money, so the fact that they're paying attention to polls for Huckabee is a breath of fresh air.

But we did not see the same treatment of Hillary, Obama and Edwards or the so-called "second tier" Democratic candidates.

If polls show that Edwards is, as some polls claim, the "most electable" against any of the GOP contenders, then it's too transparent how the so-called "front-runners" could have been manipulated already (and made front-runners) by campaign contributions. You would not have to wait till the primary and stuff the ballots with crossover votes. You could do it much earlier with money:

1. Find some Republicans who claim to be disappointed with Bush, and get them to contribute to Hillary (who too many love to hate) and to Obama (with that unelectable middle name of "Hussein"). Make sure relatively few of them contribute to "most electable" Edwards.

2. Then have the media focus on Hillary and Obama as the so-called "front-runners" merely because they raised the most money.

See the circular argument we buy into? We assume that they are "front-runners," and therefore most electable, because we live in the greatest democracy money can buy, the media begins with this assumption, so they assume those with the most money have the greatest chance of winning.

We push this assumption on the public over and over and over again -- instead of asking them, first, who they like and are likely to vote for first.

We don't stop (enough) to question if some of the funds
that found their way into the campaigns of
"Love-to-Hate-Her" Hillary, and
"Recently-Conditioned-to-Hate-the-Middle Name" Hussein Obama,
got there because monied interests
may have wanted to put less-electable candidates
in the lead.

PF-Flyer, what you say is true -- to a point. The media-controlled national polls show Giuliani leading the GOP and Hillary leading the Dems. But these are landline phone polls reflecting the attitudes of people who answer the questions of phone pollsters, a group which tends to be older, less well educated and more conservative than the population as a whole. Those with cell phones, unreachable by these pollsters, tend to be younger, better educated and more representative of the average American. This is why you see the disparity between the national phone polls and the state polls, which are often person-to-person polling. (Also, national polling at this point always favors those with name recognition. Before the primaries in 2004, the Big Media pundits had the race between Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, and the national poll numbers to back that up.)

In the state polling, Edwards is competitive in all of the early primary states and Huckabee is leading or among the top three. Neither Edwards nor Huckabee has the money of the Clinton, Giuliani or Romney campaigns, but they do have a populist message for their respective bases. I think there might be some surprises in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Miftin, I've met those scary types, too, including the nice elderly woman who told me seriously, "You're such a nice boy -- it's too bad you're going to burn in hell for being a liberal." Fortunately, they are a slim, if vocal, minority.

Good article although I laugh at this part: Huckabee: "..has been too nice to poor people and foreigners"

From Huckabee's website:

"I will not tolerate employers who hire illegals - they must be punished by fines and penalties so large that they will understand it is not worth the risk. Once again, as with Hazelton, liberal judges are gumming up the works. Right now, a court in San Francisco -- Pelosiland - has delayed enforcement of the "no match" letters for Social Security numbers that the Department of Homeland Security will use to crack down on those who hire illegals. If illegals cannot find work, they will go back where they belong. I will do everything I can to hasten their trip home by denying them employment."

How Christian of him.

No room in the manger for that baby and his nomad parents -- and what kind of name is 'Hey-zeus' anyway? What, are they giving the high sign to some pagan god? Besides, they're too broke to stay at the inn. Send 'em back where they came from.

Those who believe the hype that Gomer would be less of a disaster for American social democracy than his competitors need to remember his fathead idea of abolishing the IRS and making the income tax unconstitutional, in favor of a national sales tax.

Recall while you are at it that the conservative pundits hated GW before 2000 for being a tax raiser and a "compassionate conservative."

Heck, they still hate him for Medicare D and other departures from the purest fiscal conservatism.

But he has been a disaster for American social democracy and not only for American foreign policy.

Maxpaynes got it right!

Huckabee did pretty well for Arkansas, made some boo-boo's as well.

But if I can't get Obama or Edwards.....I'll vote for him.