Huckabee: The Palin dragonslayer?

Rod, when I was at LSU in the 1970s, we had David Duke riling the crowd in front of the Student Union. And Edwin Edwards had just won his first term as governor. I look at Bobby Jindal and realize that Louisiana just doesn't make politicians like it used to.

I attended Murray State University in Kentucky and I think those guys were on our campus, too! Hadn't thought about them in years, lol...

Rod wrote, "Of course there really are elites who are driven berserk by Palin, and who do have an inexplicable obsession with tearing this woman down."

Pot, meet Kettle.

Now come on. You know that if it comes down to Mr. Obama, who only calls on God and uses religion to further his own causes (12 years of Reverend Wright teaching him some Black Liberation Theology as a poor substitute for Christianity) vs. Sarah Palin (who actually prays and means it) any thinking person who's not atheist or leftist (same thing) must support Sarah. Mike Huckabee could not even wrest the nomination away from an old, washed-up half-progressive old man (did I mention he was old?) who should never have secured the nomination in the first place. Best if Huckabee and Romney both decline to run; neither one of those could beat the ChicagO! machine.

It's going to take a populist who can polarize a lot of moderates, and a general feeling of sick-of-Obama to have a chance. That, my friends, is Sarah Palin.

The young men were likely taught growing up that signs that their message was effective would be people rejecting and "persecuting" them.

The more they were loathed and despised the more they knew their preaching was "convicting sinners" of their "sin".

I was taught growing up that the more resistance and negative consequences I received exercising the beliefs I was raised with the surer I could be I was doing the right thing.

Mt 5:10-11

Probably what keeps the Westboro Baptist church going too sigh.

Think we could squeeze 4 years out of Wendel Berry?

One has to wonder if Palin won't implode long before 2012.

Huckabee is an interesting guy - he knows his domestic issues and has some interesting ideas. He'll get a bigger audience with his TV show.
What he needs to do - and what I bet Palin is going to do - is make friends by showing up at Republican fundraisers and helping out.

If the economy is really bad by 2012 - people are not going for a small government - bigger military (Palin's position) global warming denier cut taxes for the rich sort of candidate - they'll get really radical - far right or far left. Maybe even a third party.

Zoetius,

I doubt Wendell Berry could stomach Washington for four minutes. :-)

She's still young enough I'm not willing to say what her future holds.

However if she has any sense at all her future won't involve running for President in 2012. I think she tried to rise too high too fast. If she still wants bigger things she needs to bide her time, learn, hit the circuit, etc. FDR is the only failed running-mate I can think of to be President and I think that happened 12 years after he ran as VP. She should maybe take a similar amount of time.

Can I say definitively I wouldn't vote for her in 2020? No, I can't. 2012? Yeah there I can definitively say no pretty easy.

Well, Rod... Your insistence that Palin isn't viable as president, pretty much seals it for me. I've not been a particular advocate of her being president, but, sometimes, you just have to know people by who their enemies are. Given the caliber of Palin's enemies... She is not just qualified, but would be the most outstandingly good president in history.

From the whiney elites, to the desperate lefties, to the liars in the media, all of whom just explode in completely unprovoked rage at her... That's all I need to know. They are all the most incompetent, useless, ignorant, and stupid people on the planet. What they hate HAS to be good, and not just "good", but a whole universe of "good" beyond their petty and mindless drivel.

And yeah, I'm pretty much anti-elite. You see, we've listened to them for... well... That's how we've all but destroyed the country. Reckless taxation, regulation, spending, laws, incomprehensibly stupid foreign policy... All flows from the "elites" in DC. Every day I meet people with better judgement, more capability, more competence than these people have shown in DC in, well, more than my lifetime.

Frankly, give me some farmers, loggers, miners, ranchers, mechanics, nurses, doctors, plumbers, fishermen, cowboys and a couple of teachers tossed in just for the color, and put them in office. They could actually get things back on track. I mean, they do that kind of stuff every day. They're actually COMPETENT. Not just blowhards.

I can't imagine how you say Palin is unqualified. Look what every pol you advocate is saying and doing. More of the abject mindless stupidity flowing out of Congress and the White House. Our currency is collapsing and they're borrowing trillions at ever higher rates. A half million to a million a month are losing jobs, and they vote to enact a massive tax.

Honduras follows its Constitution, which absolutely prevents anyone from being another Chavez and just taking over... and our government turns on them with fury.

Iran is ever so close to toppling the regime of tyrants and thugs and our "leadership" can't bring itself to give the people a hand. Not even symbolically.

Our tax burden has all but killed any chance of job creation. Yet, raising taxes and massive mandates on employers is being "sold" as "fixing our economy". We're going to fund "health care" by taxing "health care". 10 year olds shriek in merriment at the stupidity of the concept. Tell them that these "taxes" will "reduce the cost" of health care, and they wet their pants laughing, as if it were some alternate reality funnier than any comedy or cartoon ever seen.

Dave Ramsey holds a town hall for hope, and explains to the people how to be financially sensible in a weak economy. It takes him 10 minutes to fully explain what needs to happen and why. Yet, the "elite" in Washington can't grasp it. But us ordinary schmucks can.

Oh, and so can Palin.

So, when you say that she's not qualified to be president, and not "presidential" material, the only thing it can mean, is that she's not dumb enough.

Because, by George, I'm better and more capable of being a GOOD president and making GOOD decisions than EVERY Democrat and 99% of the GOP who's considered the run. Stuff they can't seem to grasp, that's simple and easy to understand is just so frustrating. Maybe it's becuase they chose to live an echo chamber, where intelligent thought never intrudes, and all they hear is the droning of the "elites" with thier mindless and worthless theories.

We, the ordinary and competent people, who run businesses, run our own lives, and conduct the real work of the country, making every aspect of it actually work - unlike the obstructionists in DC who can do nothing but harm us - are sick and tired of the nonsense. Oh, yeah, we're aware of the incompetents among us, but they've always been there. We're just not quite sure how, in the last 200 years, they went from being the village idiots we indulgently cared for, to the government that now demands we obey them, and let them run large segments of our lives for us.

Frankly, the inmates are running the asylum. And I don't care if you call them the "elites" or the "experienced" or the "proven" or whatever. All I know, is that they HAVE GOT TO GO. My apologies to the posters here who actually think we have a competent administration. I can only feel sorry for how you're going to feel when you finally recognize the truth.

So, when you say that Palin's not qualified... Who is? If that answer includes ANY insider in DC... BZZZZT!!!! stupid answer. They are the sum total of all that's wrong.

Not only is Palin distinctly qualified for presidency, we need a lot more like her. You know, people who ran their own lives with sense and sensibility and when arriving in DC would govern the same.

Now, if you want to argue something different... that Palin can't get elected, because she's not a great campaigner... Well, that's not so certain. Better than McCain.

I see blog after blog, column after column, lamenting the fact that there seems to be no sensible politicians to champion for office. Duhh. Read that 50 times and maybe the truth will start to sink in. There aren't. The whole political environment has become toxic. It is time to reach outside it. And you're going to have to suffer the indignity of having common men govern. Frankly, our lives depend on it happening and happening REAL soon.

So, while they might not make fantastic policy speeches, and they might not write harvardesque papers on your favorite social and cultural topics... We really don't need any of those right now. We just need people who can make some basic decisions that make an iota of sense. Because right now, not a single elite seems capable of ANYTHING remotely resembling sense.

If folks like Hannity, they'll vote for Newt. You might see Newt, Mitt, Mike and Sarah divide the right vote and open the way for another awful liberal like McCain to win.

Charles Cosimano July 5, 2009 11:03 PM Well, predicting anything from this far out is foolish but a good guess is that unless Obama really screws up and does a Jimmy Carter, there is no social/religious conservative that could win against him in any event.

"unless"? The O-bot passed "unless" a few months ago.

Joel,

When the Democrats refuse to consider moderates they lose. When the Republicans refuse to consider moderates they lose. No, Reagan wasn't a conservative. He always governed as a moderate.

McCain is not a liberal by any rational definition, but if you insist on having a kill-the-government conservative don't forget that every Democrat in the country will be cheering for you because they know that making the Republican Party smaller and more ideologically pure is the best thing that conservatives can do to make sure they are never in power again.

"Given the caliber of Palin's enemies... She is not just qualified, but would be the most outstandingly good president in history."

That's priceless. I guess that means the Obama is going to be the bestest of the bestest cause the enemies and accusations that he's experienced are twenty times what Palin has felt. All you have to do is listen to talk radio.

If only Meghan McCain would be old enough by 2012...

predicting anything from this far out is foolish but a good guess is that unless Obama really screws up and does a Jimmy Carter, there is no social/religious conservative that could win against him in any event.

You don't need the social/religious qualifier in there, Charles. Basic rule of presidential politics is that the re-election campaign is a referendum on the incumbent. If Obama's approval rating is above 50%, he wins handily against anyone.

Only if the President is south of 50% does the quality of the opposition candidate really matter. In that case the President can still be reelected if the out-party puts up an especially weak candidate (see, Kerry, John).

@Serr8d
"It's going to take a populist who can polarize a lot of moderates, and a general feeling of sick-of-Obama to have a chance. That, my friends, is Sarah Palin."

I think the word you were looking for is "galvanize" not "polarize" :) You were actually right the first time!

Huckabee is clearly the man to lead the Republican party to victory in 2012. He is leading all the recent polls and has the highest favorables among independents.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the last election's primary also-rans are the strongest candidates this time around. It usually doesn't work that way:

-- Dukakis beat a bunch of mediocre Dems ("The Seven Dwarfs") in the '88 primaries. None of them factored in the 1992 primaries.

-- Pat Buchanan was the runner up to President George H.W. Bush in the '92 primaries. He did win New Hampshire in '96 but never seriously challenged Dole for the nomination after that.

-- Steve Forbes was the darling of lots of conservatives in the weak '96 GOP primary field. Not a factor in 2000.

-- Bill Bradley, received fawning press coverage throughout his entire career and was the runner-up to Al Gore in 2000. Didn't run in '04 and would have flamed out if he did.

-- John Edwards was the runner-up to Kerry in 2004 and even got the VP nomination. Got nowhere in the '08 primaries.

Because everyone in politics understood the GOP's weakness going into 2008, the 2008 GOP primary candidates made up an extraordinarily weak field. Every one of them -- Romney, McCain, Huckabee, Giuliani, Thompson -- has serious liabilities as a national candidate. Sarah Palin added some spark to the McCain ticket, but her erratic behavior and failure to live up to her original image as an independent-thinking conservative have permanently damaged her as a national candidate.

In 2008 we'll see a very different crop of GOP candidates. Huckabee and Romney may run again, but they won't necessarily get the same level of support they got last time. The serious players are likely to be people most pundits either aren't talking about at all now or aren't paying much attention to.

Arrrrghhh said:
"Because, by George, I'm better and more capable of being a GOOD president and making GOOD decisions than EVERY Democrat and 99% of the GOP who's considered the run"

And gosh darnit, people like me.

freelunch
July 6, 2009 8:44 AM

Re: Our tax burden has all but killed any chance of job creation.

Federal taxes are lower than when Ronald Reagan was president.Good grief.
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Our tax burden has all but killed any chance of job creation. Got it yet? Or do you live in fantasy land, where cherry picked trivia are all you have? Have you added up all the state and STEALTH TAXES that have come along, in the form of mandates, and overregulation? Of course not. YOu have an agenda, one of "transfer as much wealth as possible to the public sector, it's a moral duty".

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The tax propagandists don't care a thing about reality. Remember that Norquist has said that he wants to destroy government completely. Sadly, George Herbert Walker Bush was absolutely correct in his declaration that Reagan and the Republicans who nominated him had embraced voodoo economics. Even he did for a while and he was turned on with a vengence after he allowed reality to intervene.

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Yeah... I'm a "propagandist". Why, I'm just some ignorant twit who runs a business and notes the burden that literally drowns you when you hire someone. That makes me a propagandist becuase I know it first hand. People such as you, well, you know better than me, becuase you're not a greedy businessman.

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Milton Friedman is still right. The tax burden is what is spent and the Republicans who have been whining about taxes have been talking a good game about spending, but then allowed spending to grow unchecked. No one can believe anything the Republicans say about spending.

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It's just a political game to you, isn't it?

True? / Not true? You don't care. Rhetorical argumentative wins is all you care about. To me, it's my paycheck, my retirement, my means of having a home and 3 squares a day, and that of those who depend on it due to employment as well. For me, for them, for those who don't have a job, it's not about rhetorical or verbal sleights of hand using trivia or arguing about definitions. For me and them, it's just plain old math, which you can't fudge. When the balance in the bank reaches zero, all the fancy dodges and narrow definitions and redefinitions of terminology in the world, and even blaming the GOP for compromising with Democrats won't add a single dollar to the balance.

But then, I suspect all you have is an agenda to hate a political party, and that agenda is so overwhelming that it won't let you deal in reality.
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Palin was governor of a state that has huge federal subsidies and huge taxes on extraction industries. Anyone can manage a balanced budget up there, particularly if they don't mind having the highest per capita spending in the country. Huckabee made good decisions in Arkansas without having hugely increasing revenues to make things simple

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All sound and fury... and no substance at all. You first argued against the notion that we're overtaxed, and then suddenly you argue that Arkansas not raising taxes is a virtue. You dizzy yet?

I note that didn't cite any actual information relevant. You know, like, did Palin enforce fiscal restraint? Did Alaska, under her, splurge on lots of new spending programs when the income jumped? And did she then have to raise taxes to keep paying for them when the income fell?

Why no, you didn't address anything like that. You just used trivial noise to obscure the whole thing.

Arrrrghhh -

It's not a political game, that's why I'm not willing to let the anti-tax activists keep repeating their falsehoods without pointing out that they are repeating falsehoods, that they know they are falsehoods.

It was Palin who could make silly pronouncements about taxes, because as governor she was in the position of a child with a huge trust fund who never had to worry about where the money was coming from. Huckabee had to raise taxes because he didn't have huge oil taxes and federal subsidies to fall back on. His tax increases and social spending angered the folks like the Club for Growth who don't want government to work at all and would rather see the poor die than spend money on them.

back in 2005, nobody outside of Arkansas had heard of Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney was the ultimate longshot outsider, and Sarah Palin was an unknown mayor of a small town in Alaska

No changes here yet.

even if that is cleared up, will we see the core of the religious conservatives willing to vote for a Catholic in the primaries?

Sure - it's been over a generation since that has been a serious issue among evangelicals. I can't think of a single politically influential figure from the evangelical world who would oppose a socially conservative Catholic on religious grounds.

Jindal personally may have an issue here, however, because some of his writings at the time of his conversion to Catholicism had an anti-Protestant tone. On the other hand, Democrats pushed that issue hard in the gubernatorial race without any appreciable impact.

Romney's Mormonism is different, because (a) Mormonism claims to be Christian but holds beliefs that evangelicals (and most other Christians) consider clearly outside the boundaries of Christianity, and (b) as a practical matter, Mormonism appeals mostly to white Americans of Anglo-Protestant ancestry, which means that evangelicals encounter them all the time. I think a lot of Christians (not just evangelicals) have concerns that electing an LDS President would provide a cultural validation to Mormonism that they don't want.

"I'm curious as to why you think that presidential politics would be the place to invest your efforts in regards to social and religious conservatism?"

I'm thinking Rod doesn't mean that someone needs to lead social and religious political conservatism by running for office, but that at least in recent history, there's always been someone running for office who attracts the socially and religiously cultural vote, and so that it's likely that there will be someone to "carry that banner" again in the next election.

Like anything, a candidate representing a particular constituency doesn't have to mean that that constituency invest all its hopes in politics, but that politics is one of its concerns and it looks for a candidate to represent it.

I welcome a Palin/Huckabee fight to the finish and may the best man win! Seriously, either one is conservative enough and I'd generally be rooting for Huckabee. But what we don't have to worry about is that the vote will be split allowing Romney to move in. That is not going to happen. He is not trusted by any on the right except the talk show hosts. Otherwise, look for him to turn even further to the left to separate himself from Pal/Huck. He can't compete so he will stake out claims to the left of both (where his heart is!).

But this time the center-right Republicans (as Mitt-loving Hugh Hewitt calls himself) will mostly be looking for a winner, not McCain II. I also believe that each of them could do the party good if they can avoid the sharp-tongue we know both of them are capable of (they are as fallen as the rest of us, I am afraid). Palin will have to avoid the temptation to court the talk-show hosts by calling Huckabee a lib, and Huckabee ought to avoid attacking her personally altogether

And Charlie Crist is a well-known (not-so)closet(ed) case -likes the bois, so he's a goner in religionland.