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St. Huck, prophet Saturday, Sep 27, 2008 By John Brummett Only one of our many presidential candidates this year was ahead of the game on this financial market meltdown and stands now in a position to say he told us so. Well, there were two, actually. But one was John Edwards with his "two Americas" stage performance and other hollow posturing and transcendent phoniness. Disgraced, he's put himself out of sight so that we can put him pleasantly out of mind. The other wasn't Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, who spent their time sniping at each other and talking about the war and health care and experience and change. It wasn't John McCain, who said he didn't know much about the economy and spent his time talking about how we need to stop congressional earmarks, which, while offensive, amount to but a microscopic sub-fraction of our problem. And it wasn't Mitt Romney, who said the important thing was for government to stay out of high finance, in which he was highly invested, and let the markets work their magic. This unregulated activity would include, presumably, the Goldman Sachs hedge fund that got strung out on mortgage-backed securities and into which Romney was invested heavily and which had to get a $3 billion - that's with a "b" - bailout from other Goldman Sachs assets. That, in turn, contributed to Goldman Sachs own near-meltdown that required it to reorganize itself as a bank holding company so it could attract low-risk deposits and get FDIC insurance. No, only one candidate was talking months ago, not just days ago, about how we needed fewer Wall Street Republicans and more Main Street Republicans and about how these Wall Street Republicans contended that they were about the glories of growth when, in fact, they were about the vainglory of greed. I'll give you a hint. This candidate is the one who unveils his own cable TV talk show this very evening on Fox. It' s Our Boy Mike, the Huckster, His Eternal Huffiness, the Bro-Gov. It's, of course, Mike Huckabee. This is not a retroactive endorsement. Oh, no, not that. Huckabee was weak on ethics and superficially bloviating on nearly all other issues. But it's to give credit where due and it's to speculate that, as it turns out, Our Boy Mike might have been a better running mate selection for McCain than Sarah Palin. Faint praise, I admit. Huckabee would have provided similar fortifications among religious conservatives to those the neophyte Alaskan provided. He had more government experience than Palin and he had actually endured the tests of the high-stakes presidential debate, winning rave reviews. He wouldn't have connected with women, but Palin's appeal there seems to be waning. He wasn't from Alaska, which meant he wouldn't have been the expert on Russia than Palin is. Because, you know, Putin flies over Alaska. And he wouldn't have provided any fortification among economic conservatives. But it turns out that economic conservatives, champions of unregulated markets, are wholly discredited - jokes, really - and that McCain's campaign is in a bit of a free-fall because he's all gummed up with them in their greed and arrogance. So now there's this to consider: McCain may well lose in November. The Republican nomination for 2012 would be wide open. Romney thinks it's his, but a hedge fund guy might not be the way for Republicans to go. Palin would be discredited. Fred Thompson would still be clearing his throat. Rudy Giuliani would still be saying "9" and "11." What, then, of Huckabee, second-place finisher to McCain? He could march right to front-runner status, provided, that is, he doesn't trivialize himself too much with this Fox TV show. But after George W. and Palin, and after Bill Clinton talked about his underwear and got impeached for oral sex, and after Dan Quayle, it's hard to imagine how, exactly, an American politician could trivialize himself too much anymore. ------- 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. |
