Huckabee: a threat?

As a dark horse with legs, he IS dangerous. He's William Jennings Bryant with a lower IQ. Who gives a shit if he listened to Jimi in the 60's?

I've got this theory about Huckabee -- that basically all of Democratic politics is organized about finally fighting Republicans (Hillary), or out-maneuvering their smear machine through sheer charisma (Obama), but it all falls apart if they nominate Huckabee. Hillary beating up on him won't look tough and presidential; it'll look just plain mean. And Obama's reasonableness doesn't look as special against a Huckabeean backdrop. Just a thought.

The Huck at the "Value Voters Summit" this weekend:

"Sometimes we talk about why we're importing so many people in our workforce," the former Arkansas governor said. "It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973."

From CNN: Huckabee also spoke adamantly of the need for conservative lawmakers to show no compromise on fighting for a constitutional amendment that defines marriage between a man and a woman.

The Huck: "I'm very tired of hearing people who are unwilling to change the constitution, but seem more than willing to change the holy word of God as it relates to the definition of marriage," he said.

Viguerie cares about conservative economics (aka: voodoo economics and more tax cuts, forever), not the bible belting that won the Huck round after round of applause from the Family Research Council folks.

Well, it looks like he just trounced everyone else by taking half the votes of the people present at the latest evangelical thump-off. Will the GOP heart Huckabee?

I think Huckabee's appeal to liberals is not that his policies are more progressive - that's far from it. I find him to be interesting because he doesn't hold up Democrats as effete sodomites or Al-Qaeda-huggers.

He's got a solid tradition of working with Democrats in Arkansas, and rhetorically he's just not as vitriolic as the other candidates.

So for Aaron and JimPortlandOR, the decision is not between Huckabee and a Democrat. The question is" do you find him less objectionable than the other GOP front-runners?

I sure do.

Well, JMC, I'm not sure from a lib. Dem's view (mine) which of the GOP candidates is least bad. On economics and social policy (excluding 'religious' policy, where he's among the worst) Huck's not as bad as his competitors, but would surely be as bad as Reagan - another 'nice' man who liked ignoring the law like Bush, and had many of the same 'advisors' as Bush.

It's far easier for me to pick the worst though: Rudy is a danger to the Republic. Romney is what? Hard to say, except a man of no there there - and therefore will be captive of the GOP's most dangerous tendencies. McCain is bonkers. Thompson is borderline senile and was poorly informed before he lost it. Hunter is fuckin crazy. Brownback is gone.

There are very few times I have any empathy for GOP voters (since at least Eisenhower). But picking among these dogs is a true test of character that I'm glad I don't have to do.

So how would a smart DNC go on the offense against these guys? Bash the front-runner (Romney) or the guy who would be hardest to beat (Giuliani/Huckabee) in a general election?