Mike Huckabee is an extremely quickly rising star in the Republican presidential race. I believe he is perhaps the most articulate, faith-based, and inspiring social conservative in the race. While I have immense respect for him, I would never in a million years consider pulling the lever for him in the primaries. I would much sooner vote for even Ron Paul.
The reasoning behind this comes from the divisive effect a Huckabee nomination would have on our party. While many conservatives have threatened defection in the event of a Giuliani nomination, a ticket with Huckabee at the top would lead to certain defeat.
Huckabee is shaping up to be what George W. Bush was supposed to be in 2000: a compassionate conservative. Huckabee is a former baptist minister with an impeccable record on social issues... and a set of economic policies to the left of Bill Richardson. He is extremely liberal on economic policies and is politically nearer Al Gore than Ronald Reagan.
His positions are a very close fit with those of the upper mid-west states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and to a lesser degree Colorado and Nebraska. While this group of voters is shaping up to be extremely important in 2008, Huckabee repels boatloads of voters from other groups. The pro-business, social-moderate, and libertarian wings of the party, while not centered in any geographical area as most populists are, will find a Huckabee nomination as the final nail in the coffin that Bush has been so busy nailing up the last few years.
A Huckabee nomination would also be a thorn in the GOP's side for at least the next two decades. George W. Bush, while just as great a man as anyone, has left the Republican Party in tatters and Huckabee would do naught but make the last few tears needed to completely splinter the GOP. Huckabee very closely resembles Bush in his policies and, frankly, I'm scared by that.
Bush and Huckabee are standard-bearers for the extreme so-cons that have hijacked the Republican Party in recent years. If any kind of conservatism is fading, it's the social variety. In this quickly evolving world, the ideas presented by social conservatism seem outdated. What people want now is government that focuses not on fighting proxy wars as the Baby Boomers have done incessantly, but officials that focus on solving problems. To use the terms of race42008.com poster DaveG, people want technocratic pragmatists.
Democrats have proven capable of adapting to this change in desires with politicians like Janet Napolitano, Mark Warner, Bill Richardson, Jim Webb, Bob Casey, and countless Congressmen and Women. Republicans, however, have been a little slower adapting to this radical change. With exceptions in the forms of Sarah Palin, Charlie Crist, Mark Sanford, and Richard Lugar, the GOP has continuously put forth Boomer proxy warrior after Boomer proxy warrior.
If we cannot adapt, we will fade into inconsequentiality. Huckabee and Bush have proven ignorant of this shift through the countless statements made by both men declaring GOP endorsement of such philosophy as an abandonment of principles. While perhaps it departs from their core principles, those principles are fading into the minority.
As Republicans, we must accept this change and prepare to be mediating back-seat drivers for a decade. Our other option is to listen to the ad nauseum indoctrination of Huckabee/Bush and become intoxicated upon our own ignorance. As we know, intoxicated persons' reasoning is seldom adhered to in vehicles and the same is true in politics.
Therefore, I am opposed to Mike Huckabee not on a personal level, but because I believe he will a) indefinitely divide our party, b) lose against Hillary, and c) cause the GOP to fade into inconsequentiality. Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain have proved more understanding of this necessity and would all act more upon reason as opposed to a personal philosophy unfitting of the nation it is being applied to.
