Monday, December 24, 2007

Huckabee is Ahead...Among Democrats

Francis Bacon pointed out that it is less effective to tell your friend that a course of action is bad for him than it is to observe that his enemies will be pleased by his choice. In view of that, some have been drawing attention to how and why Mike Huckabee has been drawing good press from the Democrats.

Kimberley Strassel in The Wall Street Journal offered this interesting statistic:

Since the beginning of 2007, the Democratic National Committee has released 102 direct attacks on Mitt Romney. Rudy Giuliani has warranted 78; John McCain 68; Fred Thompson 21. Mike Huckabee? Four. The most recent of these landed back in March.

Democrats are supporting Mike Huckabee for two reasons. He's easy to beat and, should he win, he'll govern like a tolerably conservative Democrat. Let's take the second point first.

1. He has policies the Democrats like.
George Will, in his recent column, is blunt, but states the obvious:
Huckabee's radical candidacy broadly repudiates core Republican policies such as free trade, low taxes, the essential legitimacy of America's corporate entities and the market system allocating wealth and opportunity.

He calls it “a comprehensive apostasy against core Republican beliefs.” Huckabee’s response to challenges like this is to tell a joke or in some other way to deflect.

Mike Huckabee has attracted the favorable attention of the liberal National Education Association who are doing more to destroy the foundations of this country than any other organization, political or civil. In an unprecedented gesture, they have endorsed Gov. Huckabee for the Republican nomination.
In 2004, New Hampshire's chapter endorsed Howard Dean in the Democratic primary and no one in the Republican primary. Last week it endorsed Clinton in the Democratic primary -- and Huckabee in the Republican primary. It likes, as public employees generally do, his record of tax increases, and it applauds his opposition to school choice.
Do you think that ole Huck is celebrating that one on the primary campaign trail? His rivals should.

2. He is an opponent the Democrats love.
He has a record of corruption--Arkansas style--that rivals that of Hillary Clinton, and thus either neutralizes the issue in a contest against her or floors him in a match up against the relatively unstained Obama. In "Leap of Faith: Mike Huckabee and Little Rock Ethics," Strassel points out what has been widely reported:
In Arkansas, Mr. Huckabee was investigated by the state ethics committee at least 14 times. Most of the complaints centered on what appears to be a serial disregard for government rules about gifts and outside financial compensation.

There's a lot more where that came from. For example:
Most recent have been stories about his pardons and commutations, as well as the news that R.J. Reynolds contributed to Action America. Mr. Huckabee--who now wants a national smoking ban in public places--responded that he never knew he accepted tobacco money, which has inspired a former adviser to claim Mr. Huckabee is being "less than truthful." What's next?

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry anything that George Will says is suspect in my books.

You know his record has been misrepresented. FactCheck.org has slammed Mitt Romney on his attacks on Huckabee, as well as, distorting his own record.

David C. Innes said...

I'm sorry that you and Mr. Will are not on good terms.

I can see from FactCheck that Romney has done just what you say he has done. He appears to have a history of Clintonian treatment of the truth, and one that is lengthening all the time. If you know a young lady who is courting a man who has a habit of lying to her from time to time, you should advise her not to marry him, right?

As for Huck, he has his own behavioral patterns that disqualify him in my view. You can pick at this and that charge, but there is cumulative mudslide of evidence that he is a GOP Jimmy Carter. We know of this long enough in advance that we have no excuse for being charmed into nominating this holy roller snake oil salesman.

Thanks for the FactCheck.org reference, however. Seriously, though. Don't you agree that anyone who would vote for someone on the basis of his or her television ads should be disqualified from voting on the basis of mental incompetence?

David C. Innes said...

I can see now that I have repeated "on the basis of" twice in the final sentence of that last comment. Mea culpa, but I can't change it.

Anonymous said...

You are welcome about the fact check reference. We'll have to agree to disagree on Huckabee.

I do agree that people should not go by ads and need to do research themselves.

I hope you had a Merry Christmas.