|
|
| |
| Mon, Dec. 1, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
Huckabee's pro-McCain purpose Sunday, Feb 3, 2008 By John Brummett Oh, yes, Mike Huckabee. We nearly forgot about him. He was the Republican presidential front-runner for several hours. Then Republicans seemed to retrieve part of their senses. Huckabee had a chance to maintain viability in South Carolina, but he failed. He got creamed in Florida. He has no money, and darned if he just can't seem to raise any. He has marginalized himself with all this religious right business. One guy on television Tuesday night was explaining that, with Rudy Giuliani's withdrawal, there would be only three Republican candidates on stage for a debate the next night - John McCain, Mitt Romney and the frivolous libertarian, Ron Paul. The TV guy plumb forgot about Huckabee. How embarrassing. For Huckabee, I mean. But Huckabee remains in the race, and you should be aware that he might win, oh, six or seven of the 22 states participating in Super Duper Tuesday. That's this Tuesday. Those would be the Southern and border states, with substantial Southern Baptist populations. But it won't matter much. McCain ought to win all the really big states, and some of those are winner-take-all in terms of delegates. It should be McCain's nomination-cinching night, and it's possible that, when it's all over, Huckabee, not Romney, will be second in delegates. But here's what Huckabee is accomplishing most significantly: He's nominating McCain. First of all, he kept Romney from capturing that essential opening win in Iowa, by which Romney could have bounced into New Hampshire and likely won again. As it happened, Our Boy Mike weakened Romney in Iowa so that McCain could beat him in New Hampshire. Then, just the other night in Florida, McCain and Romney were in a close race that, to some degree, McCain won because Huckabee was still lounging around in the race taking the votes of a quarter-million religious or cultural conservatives who probably otherwise have voted more often than not for Romney. These religious conservatives historically have not liked or trusted McCain, nor he them, though he's made his obligatory overtures lately. Given a straight-up choice between McCain and Romney, they might have gone grudgingly to Romney because, although he's seen skeptically because of his Mormonism, he says more of the right things to them than does McCain. But these voters didn't face the uncomfortable choice. They still had the third and righteous option, at least as they saw it: Huckabee, the preacher man. Ditto Tuesday. In a head-to-race race between McCain and Romney, Romney might stand a chance because the pure conservatives, seeing anyone as better than McCain, would go for him. But Huckabee's loitering in the race splits or erodes the conservative base, denying Romney his precious head-to-head and helping McCain win vital pluralities. Huckabee knows he's doing this. He likes and admires McCain. He neither likes nor admires Romney. Thus the obvious question: Will McCain express his gratitude by making Huckabee his running mate? It could be, though I'm thinking not. Huckabee may have overplayed the religious conservative hand, appearing too extreme and reckless by wanting to amend God into the Constitution and, oddly, standing up for the Rebel battle flag in South Carolina. And if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, I don't think it's certain that Huckabee's selection would serve even the modest electoral objective of keeping Arkansas' six votes red. Beyond that, the economic conservatives of the Republican Party can't abide Huckabee's record of big government in Arkansas or his populist rhetoric. They're not so crazy about McCain either. A ticket of the two of them might make Hillary or Barack Obama look somewhat less evil to them. McCain ought to look to a mainstream conservative who can blend support from religious and economic conservatives and bring some electoral juice to the equation, perhaps by hailing from Florida or one of the big swing states in the Midwest. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
