The ProConPundit loves Huckabee...through Iowa

This is a very interesting article that is very harsh toward Huckabee. I tend to agree with a lot of the article though I am not as harsh as Huntley. I think the media and secularists are a tad harsh on Huckabee for wishing people a Merry Christmas. At the same time, I clearly doubt his credentials to be our President at this perilous time in our history. As I have stated often, I believe McCain is the only Republican who has the necessary bona fides.

The ProConPundit REALLY dislikes Romney. I think he is disingenuous and just wrong for our country. I heart Huckabee long enough for him to beat Romney in Iowa. I think McCain is moving toward a New Hampshire win and then we are off to the races. If Romney wins in Iowa, that would hurt McCain in New Hampshire. If the Bible man can pick off Romney in Iowa, I believe the Granite State mavericks will be solidly behind McCain.

Go Huckabee in Iowa!

Huckabee? Is GOP serious?
Republicans need to burst the Huckabubble quickly
Chicago Sun-Times December 18, 2007
BY STEVE HUNTLEY

The only question is when -- not if -- the Huckabubble will burst.

Only a Republican Party hell-bent on political suicide would nominate Mike Huckabee as its standard-bearer in next year's presidential sweepstakes. Or a dispirited party so resigned to defeat that it figured it had nothing to lose in appeasing its evangelical wing by anointing a candidate who resembles Jimmy Carter more than Ronald Reagan.

A Huckabee nomination would all but guarantee the GOP an election debacle of the magnitude of Barry Goldwater's 1964 loss -- but without establishing a foundation for the future as Goldwater's candidacy did. Goldwater's failed presidential bid launched the modern conservative movement that ultimately propelled Reagan into the White House.
But Republicans don't have a death wish. They won't nominate a former Arkansas governor from Hope (the Democrats already did that). And a sure voting-booth catastrophe is only one reason why.

For starters, Huckabee carries religiosity into politics far beyond acceptable boundaries for most traditional Republicans. Like me, they're not hostile to faith. Far from it, most are believers and worship regularly. Though not very religious myself, I am troubled by the push by the secular left to drive God from the public square. Neither a Nativity scene on the village green at Christmas time nor a prayer at the opening of a high school football game seems to me to constitute establishment of a state religion. And our Declaration of Independence and Constitution would be unimaginable without the West's Judeo-Christian heritage.

But Huckabee brazenly campaigns in Iowa as the candidate offering "Christian leadership." How would we feel about a politician touting "Jewish leadership" or "Muslim leadership"? Huckabee is injecting religion into politics to the detriment of both. And he's hitting below the belt by playing an evangelical card against Mitt Romney's Mormonism. Dirty politics from an ordained minister.

Social conservatives energized by Huckabee's bid for the GOP nomination might take note of news reports about how he avoids religion in his campaigning in New Hampshire. Voters there are more fiscally conservative and not swayed by a former preacher glibly joking that Jesus is too smart to run for office.

Pro-Huckabee evangelicals can say what they want about Rudy Giuliani's stance on abortion and gay rights or John McCain's immigration position, but at least they're honest with the voters. They hold firm to the same message no matter what the state is where they're politicking.

We already know from his tax-raising record in Arkansas that Huckabee is no fiscal conservative. His attempt to disguise that boils down to damning the conservative Club for Growth, which blew the whistle on his taxing ways, as the "Club for Greed." That's a taste of what Arkansas media tell us is the unpleasant prickly side of a thin-skinned politician.

Now comes word the National Education Association in New Hampshire endorsed Huckabee for his "strong views on public education." That's teacher-union code for being against school choice. He would abandon the long-held GOP response to the dismal failings of government-monopoly education.

If that wasn't bad enough, Foreign Affairs magazine over the weekend published a Huckabee essay attacking President Bush for an "arrogant bunker mentality." Despite overall low job approval ratings, Bush remains popular with the GOP base. Romney got it right in describing Huckabee's attack as something you'd expect from the Democratic camp, not from a politician seeking to succeed Bush.

Finally, no one thinks Huckabee, even if he wins in Iowa and another early state such as South Carolina, has the organization or money to compete Feb. 5 on Tsunami Tuesday when nearly two dozen states hold primaries. It will take more than enthusiastic evangelicals to sustain the Huckabubble, and fiscal conservatives won't sign on. It's just a question of when it will burst.