Mike Huckabee
Posted on December 19, 2007 - Filed Under American Politics |
According to some polls, Mike Huckabee is now the national front-runner in the Republican primary field. If he manages to win the GOP nomination he is expected to go down in flames in the presidential election, but there would remain the distinct possibility that he could somehow win it, either through the Democratic nomination imploding or via his folksy charm that has catapulted him from nowhere to his current standing in the GOP race.
In interviews Huckabee comes across as engaging and sincere, even likable, despite maintaining positions that I totally oppose as a libertarian. He says that he’s a conservative, but that he’s not angry about it, by which he means that he doesn’t treat politics as warfare, where those who disagree with you are your enemies, deserving of the worst treatment you can inflict upon them. His biography also includes an impressive personal story of a former fat boy who lost 50kg in a short time through healthy eating and exercise. And like another former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, he also plays an instrument, in his case the bass guitar in a a band called Capitol Offense.
So what’s not to like about Mike Huckabee? Well, quite a lot actually. Huckabee fully embraces the ‘big government conservatism’ of the George W. Bush presidency; as a governor he was slated by fiscally conservative groups like the Cato Institute and the Club for Growth for continually raising taxes in his state. This may not sound like a big deal to most Irish readers, but it’s anathema to the GOP base. As Mitt Romney explained to him during the final GOP YouTube debate where Huckabee defended scholarships for non-citizens, “It’s not your money, governor”.
Huckabee’s views on homosexuality are also interesting. According to a 1998 book he co-authored:
It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.
Apart from the wild assertion that necrophilia and pedophilia are “publicly endorsed and institutionally supported” in the USA, linking homosexuality to these two entirely different things is a tactic right out of the religious nutcase play book.
Huckabee does not believe in evolution, and believes that creationism should be taught in schools alongside it. Presumably this stems from his religious convictions, but oddly enough, he supports the death penalty, even though it clearly violates the 5th Commandment.
Huckabee and his family are alleged to have abused Huckabee’s position as governor of Arkansas to spend taxpayers’ money on personal expenses.
On the subject of his family, Huckabee’s son also hanged a dog when he was 18 years, or around that age.
Huckabee plays the religion card an awful lot for somebody running to be president of a secular country (which the USA is, according its constitution). Huckabee’s religiosity has even caused concern among conservative writers like Charles Krauthammer who worry that the Republican Party is being taken over by nutty Christians.
Finally, the last and perhaps the best reason to suspect that Mike Huckabee would make a lousy president is that he is, in the words of Christopher Hitchens, “a moon-faced true believer and anti-Darwin pulpit-puncher from Arkansas who doesn’t seem to know the difference between being born again and born yesterday.” Besides coming across as affable, Huckabee also smacks of spinelessness and gullibility. While it is easy to imagine John McCain or Rudy Giuliani standing up to Vladimir Putin during Russo-American meetings, it is hard to conceive of Huckabee doing anything better than poorly in such a situation.
This list is by no means exhaustive, and there are no doubt many other reasons why Mike Huckabee would make a bad president. Personally, the anti-evolutionism alone is reason enough for me to oppose him. The rest is just fuel for a pyre that will burn mighty bright if the Republican Party’s religious gut out-votes its brain and thus succeeds in nominating him.
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He can fit his entire foot into a tube of pringles.