Huckabee love
Thursday June 14, 2007
Read this lengthy transcript of a session GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee had at the Pew Forum in Washington. I'm really starting to dig this guy. Excerpts: I became a Republican largely because of deep convictions that America was a...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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He sounds pretty reasonable. I usually vote Democratic, but I'm all ears this election cycle. Absolutely disgusted by the political class right now. Seems like most of these guys go to Washington to establish their contacts and set up a cushy post-politics job in the lobbying industry.
Incidentally, have any of you noticed during the debates that, for the most part, the audience (the public) aska much more penetrating questions than the so-called journalists moderating. The journos tends to ask political questions, while the audience tends to ask policy questions. Of course, most broadcast journalists focus their reports and discussions to how a policy will effect the politician opposing or supporting it, not whether the policy is any good or how it will affect voters.
I think the outstanding James Fallows explored this a few years back in an Atlantic piece. If I find it, I'll link it.
What are your thoughts, Rod? I haven't been in the news business for about 10 years.
Matt, I haven't watched many of the debates, so I can't comment on that, but your question did bring to mind something that Huckabee said in his Pew remarks. Some reporter asked him for his views on evolution. He gave them, but said that that question doesn't matter to ordinary people, who are more concerned about how they're going to pay their health care bills, how their kids are going to be educated, whether or not there job is going to be outsourced, and so forth. I think he's exactly right. I don't care if my president believes humanity arose after being pooted out the rear end of a big blue goose, as long as he cares about things that a president can actually do something about.
To say nothing of his initiatives for health in a rather unhealthy Southern state. The man lost tons of weight by running, started a marathon in Little Rock. I'm a fan. Unfortunately, his thinking process it too advanced to ever make it in politics. Sheesh, I'm jaded at the ripe age of 26...
Those are heartening words. So why is Fred Thompson the one who is rising rapidly in the polls, when there is a person of substance like this?
The evolution question matters to me, as an average working person. Even saying that you can have a "personal opinion" on it is to allow subjectivity into an objective truth. (Please, let's not turn this thread into a debate on evolution!) It's crucial, after eight years of this weird postmodern reality prism that is the Bush administration that we have a man in the office who isn't in a bubble. Huckabee ain't that guy.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Huckabee is the only Republican candidate right now showing any real intelligence, creativity, and conviction. Well, him and Ron Paul. And Huckabee is mostly wrong about immigration. But the pseudo-libertarian Ron Paul is wrong about a good deal else, so between the two of them, it's Huckabee, no contest.
I've liked this guy from the beginning, but I just don't get why he doesn't get traction. But think of this -- as a southern conservative governor, he might make a good VP candidate for someone [evil] like Giuliani...
So why is Fred Thompson the one who is rising rapidly in the polls, when there is a person of substance like this?
Is that a rhetorical question?
I like Huckabee but for some reason he just can't get out of the second tier.
If Hillary Clinton or John Edwards used the EXACT SAME WORDS to talk about CEO/worker pay, they would be savaged by Rod and the right.
But Fred Thompson is so comforting, because we all feel we know him. Other than enjoying him on "Law and Order" I really don't know much about Thompson.
I think Huckabee seems like a man of substance. Unfortunately, Americans always seem to choose style over substance, and we have certainly paid the price for that throughout our history, particularly during the last eight years...
If Hillary Clinton or John Edwards used the EXACT SAME WORDS to talk about CEO/worker pay, they would be savaged by Rod and the right.
The right wing media machine certainly would, but I've been reading Rod's blog since he took over from the utterly idiotic "Loose Cannon" 1-2 yrs ago and he's showed considerable intellectual honesty. I think he'd be consistent.
I started liking Mike Huckabee after I read his "Bio" which appeared in Time magazine, April 5th 2007.
It reads:
Herb Greenebaum Shelton, Conn.: Why are you so progressive on issues like fitness and proactive national health yet so fixated on relatively unimportant topics such as gay marriage and abortion?
Mike: I would disagree that protection of innocent life is insignificant. It is what separates us as a civilization from the very jihadists we are fighting.
-Need I say more?
JS
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