Huckabee can't credibly claim to be conservative, but with compassion
Aren't you beginning to feel a little sympathy for Republicans? The Democrats are suffering from an embarrassment of riches, the Republicans just embarrassment.
The only commitment problems Democrats are having are between appealing suitors. The Republicans, on the other hand, have the wedding date saved, the room picked and they're still speed-dating.
The men keep coming, one after the next, making a pitch and missing.
Candidate No. 1: John McCain, the man who says what he thinks, even if it isn't popular. But it isn't popular. Next!
Candidate No. 2: Rudy Giuliani, the tough guy from New York. But the thrice-married former mayor can't get beyond Ground Zero. Next!
Candidate No. 3: Fred Thompson, the actor and politician. But folksy Fred isn't playing Ronald Reagan, he's playing Sleepy, or is it Grumpy? Next!
Candidate No. 4: Mitt Romney, endorsed by National Review as the "full-spectrum conservative." A spectrum created by flip-flopping across the rainbow. Next!
Now Mike Huckabee is the (second) man from Hope who has risen in polls as fast as a wedding cake in the oven. I confess to a certain weakness for Mike, the sort of weakness women admit for a man who makes them laugh. The affable pastor, the "recovering foodaholic," the bass guitarist for "Capitol Offense," Huckabee actually trademarked the name "Positive Alternatives."
In his mocking ad with Chuck Norris, in his populist posture on poverty, in his green-ish talk of being a good steward of the earth, he's presented himself as the positive alternative. "I'm a conservative but I'm not mad at everybody over it," he told Jon Stewart. That was after he dropped a good ol' flatulence joke into the airwaves.
He's selling himself as this year's compassionate conservative. And even in the speed-dating world, there's time for a second glance.
Huckabee may "drink a different kind of Jesus juice," as he says. But that hasn't stopped him from selling himself on TV as a "Christian leader" -- compared to, say, a Mormon leader. In Wednesday's debate, he said the most important thing was to bridge the great divides in the country. But that's the same man who once said we have to "take this nation back for Christ."
His comments about educating illegal immigrants -- "we're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did" -- brought him kudos. But he looked less kind and gentle accepting the endorsement of border vigilante Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project.
As for social issues? He's long been an anti-abortion absolutist, no matter what he says now. Huckabee now preaches against intolerance toward gays, too. He told the Values Voter Summit: "I want us to be very careful that we don't come across as having some animosity or hatred toward people." But his own animosity dates back to a 1992 pitch against an "aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle" and in favor of quarantining AIDS patients.
But since we're speed-dating, let's remember the pastor politician signed on to the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention statement that "a wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband." Prenup anyone?
All this may help him court the evangelical voters who make up 45 percent of Iowa's Republican caucus voters, but are they ready to hitch up with the man who missed the intelligence report on Iran? The man who is a blank slate on foreign policy?
Huckabee said that Americans are "willing to forgive people for their ideology if they have optimism and vision." He could be right. That's what sold the last compassionate conservative? Remember him? Next!
© 2007, Washington Post Writers Group