Wednesday December 12, 2007

Culture & economics: Huck hits the sweet spot

Here, from Newsweek's illuminating cover story on Mike Huckabee, is why (Ron Paul excepted), Huckabee is the most interesting and challenging of the current crop of GOP politicians:

Democrats expected the worst of their new evangelical, Republican governor, who welcomed anti-abortion activists to the mansion and tried to pass a law outlawing gays and lesbians from adopting children. But they discovered that Huckabee's "do unto others" world view also led him to push for more money for schools and a health-care program for poor children that became a model for other states. When he took office, he found that the state's roadways were falling apart. Huckabee supported controversial legislation that would raise gas taxes to fix them. Some of his fellow Republicans were furious, but voters went along. Huckabee served out his first term and was re-elected twice by wide margins. Even as a Republican in fractious Democratic Arkansas, he maintained approval ratings in the high 50s.

Huckabee screws up the categories we've become accustomed to over the past 30 years. He's fairly progressive on economics, while very conservative on culture. This is pretty close to where many Democrats used to be, before cultural issues began to dominate American politics. The Huckabee campaign challenges both liberals and conservatives. For the left, it raises the question of whether it's worth giving on cultural issues to get more of what they want economically; and for the right, it raises the question of whether the culture war that so many conservatives have embraced as a political cause is really what they care about, or if, in the end, it was just a useful set of slogans and attitudes to mask a pro-business agenda.

Read the data on the most recent Pew Center study on American political typology -- especially the section on "shifting coalitions." You'll find that most Republican voters identify themselves as socially conservative, but more favorably disposed to economic progressivism. And you'll find that conservative Democrats are there too (their conservatism, in other words, is cultural). Huckabee may not win, but it seems that his version of populism hits a sweet spot in the emerging American political order. His rise is not just about his folksy personality.

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Filed Under: culture, economics, Huckabee, populism

posted by Rod Dreher @ 9:04am Permalink Email This Add to: