Tête-à-Tête-Tête

Back in December, I posted some concern that Huckabee might take the GOP nomination, and possibly pose a stronger-than-Romney contest against the Democrats in the General. That was because my peek at him so far gave me the impression of a fair-spoken, sometimes moderate on issues like health and immigration, candidate with real conservative bona-fides to keep the religious right happy and mollify the neo-cons. I didn’t think the small government types on the right would be thrilled with him, but I thought they would take him as easily as they would McCain and stay on board with the GOP nomination. He displayed some gracious southern charm, and seemed to run a positive campaign while the front-runners were busy sniping at one another. He had populist rhetoric and a congenial demeanor that would appeal in the general election better than the sometimes forced pronouncements of his competitors who seemed to have trouble positioning themselves in the sweet spot that must surely exist somewhere in that Kristoll-Gingrich-Falwell triangle…

Then, all at once, I discovered enough about the real Mike Huckabee that I had to laugh at myself for taking him seriously for even a moment. I wonder if those who caucused for him in Iowa have felt any buyers remorse, too?

People in private conversations have asked me, “what was it? What swung your perception so suddenly? Is he really that far out there? Show me!” So, I’ll tell you the story now, and how it evolved for me.

The first big chink was in NH, but before that there were some early signs. Huckabee tried a gambit to poison Romney on religion… You probably remember it, with his non-accusation that Mormons believe that Jesus & the Devil are brothers (which isn’t really entirely accurate in the first place). Suddenly, my own extremely religiously conservative family seemed put-off. I won’t quote them directly, but they did not appreciate the attack on Romney’s religion, despite being natural partisans of the farthest religious right candidate available. I figured that the back-handed attack politics might drive Romney’s negatives up, and not do too much damage to Huckabee’s image as an above-board campaigner.

Then that big chink came. You heard about it, too: Huckabee produced a vicious attack ad on Romney, then tried to pretend to take the “high” ground, by pulling it before it ran – and showing the media what he pulled. Perhaps his calculation was that he could get his attack message out, and at the same time paint himself as a saint for not running the attack message. Whatever it was, it was clearly calculation – and not a very clever one. It was clear that he was being duplicitous, negative, and hamfisted, all at the same time – coming out of a win in Iowa where he could have pushed his positive persona better by keeping an outward semblance of honesty, positivity, and competence… essentially the areas that differentiated him from the “front-runners”, and possibly helped him win Iowa. It was clear to me then that Huckabee was a phony – and if it was clear to me then, I had little reason to doubt that others would figure it out soon enough.

But there was another crack that appeared concomittantly with the anti-Romney ad. I posted a link to Dave’s blog at the time. One of Romney’s supposed failings, according to the ad: No Executions. Obviously, his hope was to drive Romney’s negatives up among the pro-death-penalty camp. But, it was a vacuous charge in the first place, as Massachussetts had no death penalty during Romney’s tenure there. Even worse, it was crass and dehumanizing – even among many supporters of the death penalty – many of whom do at least look on it as a “necessary evil”, rather than something to positively crow about. That opened my eyes even wider than the botched ju jitsu against Romney: that Huckabee could view having overseen the execution of convicts as a prerequisite, and something to be proud of. It seemed to me (and seems still) that this is a person playing political calculations with peoples lives. Not good.

After the chink appeared, it was as though the floodgates opened. There is something in Huckabee’s record that has emerged before or since then to alienate just about every chunk of the Republican primary constituency – and the general election constiuency. And those constituencies have every right to be alienated. He isn’t just a fake – he’s a cold, hollow, amoral, and unconvincing fake. Let’s look at the real Mike Huckabee for a minute. But this is enough for the front page. Let’s take this below the fold…
Continue reading Why I quit being a’skeert of Mike Huckabee, not long after I mentioned worrying about him…

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