Mike Huckabee is close to the bottom of my "would never vote for" list, but it’s been hard for me to say why. The Wall Street Journal seems to have put its stodgy finger on the explanation this morning with an opinion column by John Fund (how’s that for a Wall Street byline?):
Another Man From Hope
By JOHN FUND
October 26, 2007; Page A16
Republicans have won five of the last seven presidential elections by running candidates who broadly fit the Ronald Reagan model — fiscally conservative, and firmly but not harshly conservative on social issues. The wide-open race for the 2008 GOP nomination has generated two new approaches.
Rudy Giuliani, for example, isn’t running away from his socially liberal views, although he has modified them. But he is campaigning as a staunch, even acerbic economic conservative. Should he win the nomination, conventional wisdom has it he may balance the ticket by picking former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as a running mate.
Mr. Huckabee, on the other hand, is running hard right on social issues but liberal-populist on some economic issues. This may help explain why the affable, golden-tongued Baptist minister was the clear favorite at the pro-life Family Research Council’s national forum last Saturday. And why Mr. Huckabee’s praises have been sung by liberal columnists such as Gail Collins of the New York Times and Jonathan Alter of Newsweek…
I tend to have a warm place in my hear for anybody who confounds those who want to put everyone into a "left" or "right" box.
As it happens, one of the reasons I hate those labels is that I could never fit into one or the other if I tried. If you really strain, and chip away an inconvenient fact here and there, you might be able to cram me into a "conservative" box on social issues, and sometimes cram me into a "liberal" box on fiscal ones — just as Mr. Fund is doing with Mr. Huckabee.
But you’d have to really, really want to do it, because it would not be easy. One of the problems, of course, is that the popular definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" are so twisted and illogical.
For instance, Mr. Huckabee the fiscal "liberal" opposes free trade. Well, I don’t. And how is that "liberal?" A true liberal favors free trade and open markets.
And how on Earth did we ever get to the point that opposition to gun control is a "conservative" position? That makes zero sense. Obviously, gun ownership is a cherish libertarian — that is, liberal — value, while no true conservative (someone honoring tradition, security, stability, the established order) wants there to be so many guns around that you can’t walk the streets safely. The fact that the whole world, from avowed right-wingers to the most disgusted lefties, agree that it IS "conservative" would be enough to convince me I don’t want anything to do with the popular labels of today.
And "populist?" I can’t go with that, either. You don’t have to be a populist to give a damn about the poor and disadvantaged. I care without going for the dumbing-down that comes with populism. If Mr. Huckabee is indeed a populist, then I’ll leave that to him and John Edwards.
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Brad, one of the reasons I won’t be voting for Huckabee is his approach to taxes. Huckabee is an advocate for replacing a diversified tax base (which includes income taxes) with a consumption (sales) tax. You and Cindi have been right to criticize SC government for this; I think it’s wrong on the Federal level too.
Well, now that’s a good point. I can’t say I’ve looked into that Fairtax thing enough to have made up my mind, but the diversification thing is important — although federal is vastly different on that point than state.
What about the line-item veto? He’s for that, and I’ve always been inclined toward it — although I’d heard some good arguments against it lately.
I hasten to add, I’ve always been for it with a simple-majority override. That eliminates the excuse that it gives legislative power to the executive. It simply requires that lawmakers take an up-or-down vote on each item. They either want it or they don’t. That’s all I look for such a veto to accomplish.
I saw his views on sales taxes on the news, and your question drove me to his website. I don’t know how he nuances the line item veto issue, shades of gray weren’t apparent in the presentation. I would be surprised if he gave it the legislative override option – my experience is that very few people ask for limited power when they can have more. Perhaps I am being too cynical.
I am a little disappointed about his reqeusts to modify the constitution. It’s hardly a holy document and I don’t object to its modification generically, but modifying it to define marriage seems excessive. For instance, we didn’t need to modify the constitution to abolish polygamy. Likewise the anti-abortion take, which is too complex to realistically address with a flat constitutional act.
At least I would hate to be the person tasked to write that.
And here I was thinking that Huckabee was similar to Bob Riley in Alabama, who had the courage to put Christian principles into practice (and get them smashed by the no-government is good government crowd). I guess I got fooled on that one, or perhaps he’s thinking that it would never draw support?