Huckabee On A Roll?
Apparently, Huckabee is in second place in a straw poll in Iowa, right behind Mitt Romney. This is supposed to be big news because Huckabee has reached that position despite spending 1/25th of what Romney has spent ($1.7 million versus $53.6 million).
Frankly, I’m not terribly impressed. Local primary straw polls are notoriously easy to manipulate. One bus full of sign-waving supporters for one candidate or another is more than enough to sway them, usually. Huckabee consistently finishes behind Thompson, Giuliani, Romney and McCain in national polling, and while he’s topping McCain and pulling even with Romney occasionally of late, only placing their money on this guy to get the nomination is a fool.
The only reason Huckabee is seeing the success he is lays with the fact that he’s the sentimental favorite of the evangelicals turned off by Romney’s Mormonism, Giuliani’s social liberalism and Fred Thompson’s relative agnosticism. But the conservative movement is made up of more than just evangelicals, and Huckabee hasn’t done much to make libertarian-minded conservatives, or even fiscally-minded conservatives, sit up and take notice. He’s got a record as a tax hiker which is becoming increasingly difficult to shake, he supports a national smoking ban which puts the anti-nanny staters’ collective teeth on edge, and in a Wall Street Journal editorial published today he attempts to defend himself from criticism of Journal columnist John Fund and digs himself an even deeper hole by supporting the expansion of government entitlements:
One of my proudest achievements as governor was signing legislation creating ARKids First--creating health insurance coverage for more than 70,000 Arkansas children who otherwise might have gone without. I am firmly committed to finding a way to provide health care and a better education for America’s children, who hold the key to our nation’s future. Unfortunately, there seems to be a serious misunderstanding about my State Children Health Insurance Program comment at a recent presidential debate.
I was not criticizing President Bush’s veto as a matter of policy, but as a matter of politics. I fully believe that Mr. Bush should have negotiated a compromise and not let it get to the point of a veto. Mr. Bush indicated he was willing to spend more than the $5 billion he originally proposed, but less than the $35 billion the Democrats pushed through, so there was clearly room to negotiate. In no way do I support spending an additional $35 billion, or moving two million children from private insurance to government insurance, or letting Schip be a step on the path to socialized medicine.
The problem fiscal conservatives like me have with compromises like the one Huckabee describes is that they still result in the expansion of government. Huckabee is in favor of expanding SCHIP despite such an expansion not being needed.
This is the sort of Republicanism we need to avoid. Huckabee has his good points, but there are better candidates in the field.
pparets
Ken McCracken
JustSayin'
2Hotel9
Move_Zig
ShoeMart
