Are voters sure they want Huck?

To be honest, I think Huck needs to have a staff in place in the next two weeks. Given his polling, this shouldn't be difficult. The donations should start coming, and I would think we are at that point that the angel donors who hedge their bets with everyone will start coming. I don't see anyone knocking him off in the next two weeks, but his foreign policy views and his FairTax will simply not stand up to serious criticism, particularly the latter. It is one thing to think the income tax is bad in principle; it is a whole other thing to support a pollyanna tax scheme whose policy ramifications haven't been fully vetted and simply doesn't stand any chance of becoming policy.

Donny: It is Huckabee's ability to make me feel comfortable that he is looking out for the interest of my children and my family that seperates him from the elitists in BOTH parties. Clinton and Obama are every bit the marxist leaning lefties. Romney is every bit the elite Harvard guy. I'm as sick of Harvard leadership every bit as much as I am about hearing about gay rights in every segment of politics.

Applebee's America = Huckabee's America. You read it here first.

It's because I like him personally, and I like his populism. I'd like to see the GOP remade broadly in his image.

Huck's populism extends all the way thru Mexico to Guatemala.

Objective of populism is to improve conditions of lower and middle classes. If we allow unlimited immigration, there is never be enough resources to improve lot of working folks.

Till 2 weeks ago Hucks was as Open Borderista as they come. His immigration plan is a joke full of holes.

There is absolutely no indication that Huck will protect border any better than Jorge Busheron.

If border is not protected, Huck's populism is useless, resources will be wasted on illegals and their children.

Immigration aside, Huck has zero understanding of 21 century trade and globalism issues. Without understanding Huck will be a toy in the hands of FreeTradeUberAlles crowd.

Huck's populism looks so much 1940th and 1950th. I submit that 1950th populism will not do any good for GM or Ford workers.

What 1950th populist Huck will do with respect to auto industry? He would use one of the following tools:

1. Raise import tarifs on foreign cars and/or
2. Extend unemployment benefits to the workers and/or
3. Retrain workers to something that pays rent. For example retraining 50 year old auto worker to become software programmer is very promising claim high tech execs. After all Bill Gates keeps telling that we have shortage of high tech pros and need to import 1 million Indians/year.

It is easy to see that at the end of the day auto workers will be unemployed or re-employed with a huge loss of income, re-training by Goverment will flop as it always does, foreign car companies will build factories in US and avoid tarifs and GM and Ford will be in trouble or disappear.

I bet even Comrade Hillary could do better.

Huckabee seems sincere to you? He looks like a huckster to me.

mik_infidelos is spot on about Huckabee's recent flip-flop on immigration.

>>I worry, though, that Huckabee's Evangelical decency will lead us into the same foreign trap that fellow Evangelical G.W. Bush's crusading universalism did.

Feh, Bush is about as Evangelical as I am. His religion is power and his foreign policy is all about securing oil resources.

Rod,

I don't mind that Krikorian's plan has become Huckabee's. What bothered me was that he sent out the plan without even realizing the Immigration and Naturalization Service which was listed in point number 3 under "Amnesty" no longer exists and hadn't since 2003! He hadn't even fact checked his/Krikorian's plan to make sure what was said was up-to-date. (The point has now been fixed to reflect the correct agency.)

His problem in the campaign may be a lack of staffing, but his haste to put a plan out there was his decision, most likely to steal some thunder from Romney's speech since it was put out the same day. He seems to be a guy who "speaks first and thinks after." This is not an admirable quality in a man who could be handling the military and dealing with our enemies.

Speaking of foreign policy, he has said many times that his theology degree uniquely qualifies him to handle Islamofascism. But according to Joe Carter, Huckabee's spokesman speaking to NRO, he doesn't actually have a theology degree. He He has a BA in Religion/Speech and took one year of classes at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary before dropping out. I'm not knocking his credentials, but there is a vast difference between a BA in Religion/Speech and a theology degree. There's nothing wrong with a Bachelor of Arts, it's just that it is distinct from theology degree. Yet, Huckabee continues to say he has a "theology" degree.

Huckabee once said that he's the pharmacist and others are the chemists. Meaning that he'll dispense the knowledge and wisdom of others. That's definitely his strength at the moment -- selling the plans of others.

He decided to be a Fair Taxer after reading one book.
He decided that Gitmo had to go after talking to a group of generals.
He took the immigration plan of Mark Krikorian and made it his own.

This tells me that not only can Huckabee be a good salesman, he's an "easy sale" himself. That's what has me worried.

I have a simple rule. I never pay much attention to anything a candidate for anything says because once he is in office he will do the opposite anyway. And the words of a candidate for President mean even less because that office has no real equivalent in any other so experience counts for even less than words do.

What matters is the basic psychology of the candidate because that will determine what he or Hillary is going to do when in office and Huckabee is making my skin crawl. A Baptist creationist health nut is not someone I would be inclined to vote for for sewer commissioner, much less President. Add to that a campaign tactic based on human ignorance and vile superstition which leaves a trail of slime behind him that Romney would do well to envy and I cannot see how this man can President and not wreck things even more than they are.

Sheilagh:

I'm with you on the "dog bites man" aspect of Huck's immigration expediency.

Everyone:

Look, I'm an immigration liberal, but I admit there is an issue with illegal immigration even in Iowa (yes, Iowa) -- where there are small but very concentrated groups of Latino farm workers, probably not all with the right papers, in certain counties. (Not all over the state, however.)

One of the biggest complaints, ironically, is not the usual "they're ruining our neighborhoods" cry -- but rather that the kids, needing extra services, are pulling down the school test scores Iowans are so proud of. Wouldn't surprise me if the plaintiff in a future Plyler v. Doe test case hailed from the Hawkeye State.

Still doesn't excuse the Steve King-type "Keep Iowa White as the Driven Snow" demagoguery, though, IMHO.

Do we know if Huck's sons joined his health crusade? ;-P

My weightism aside (and I've lost 20 pounds this year, so at least I'm on the right side of that ledger, if still closer to old Huck than new Huck), I do want to compliment Rod (as I did Erin) for sheer volume. His "light" blogging days are any other Bnetter's "heavy" blogging days.

Donny said,

"It is Huckabee's ability to make me feel comfortable that he is looking out for the interest of my children and my family that seperates him from the elitists in BOTH parties. "

You might want to ask the families of the victims of Wayne Dummond if they think the same way. Huckabee never even called or wrote to them, but somehow found the time to write a "Dear Wayne" letter to the killer. From one news source,

"Davidson and Williams said they're particularly angry because Huckabee has never called them to apologize or explain his part in the DuMond case.

"In retrospect," Huckabee said, "someone should have made some contact. They have every right to feel distraught. I say that with sorrow, respect, and absolute regret for the terrible things they went through."

Here's the link to the article I took the quote from...

http://www.kctv5.com/news/14782769/detail.html

Here's the video of the mother of one of the victims sharing her sorrow with us this Christmas.

http://www.youtube.com/huckabeefacts

Would you say that he had the children and their parents best interest at heart when he took the time to write to the killer, but not to them? His words of sorrow now remind me of Clinton, "I feel your pain."

Hind sight is always 20/20. I am sure in that mother's shoes I would not be impressed with Huckabee's role. Still, does his role in that one case reveal a flaw so deep and so all incompassing that the good he might do as a president cannot be further examined. Is the bar raised as high for all the candidates? If so then Romney goes because he allowed illegals to work on his house, and Guliani goes because he's been divorced and married and divorced, and Edwards goes because he spent 300$ on a hair cut and Clinton because her business partner committed suicide and certain documents were never found and Biden because...I think you get the point. Oversight. Ignorance. Fraud. Relational instability. Hypocrisy. Foolishness. Are all our (and their) misjudgments equal?

Meg, two words - "Willie Horton"