Fear and Loathing in GOP Land

It's official. Mike Huckabee's meteoric ascent in the polls has the Republican establishment spooked. In his latest column in the National Review, Editor-in-Chief Rich Lowry echoes my 'Huckabee is the Republican Howard Dean' analysis:

After many false prophecies, Dean circa 2008 has finally arrived. He is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Not because he will inevitably blow himself up in Iowa. But because, like Dean, his nomination would represent an act of suicide by his party.

I think Lowry is selling both Dean and Huckabee a little short, however. Dean may well have lost to Bush in 2004, but I don't think he necessarily would have done worse than Kerry did. And I actually think Huckabee has the potential to be a formidable general election candidate. If I were a Republican, I'd be a lot more worried about nominating Giuliani. He seems much more likely to cause a fissure in the party or to suffer some scandal-induced meltdown.

But back to Lowry's column. After ticking through all of Huckabee's faults, Lowry ends with this:

None of this is a winning formula. Huckabee has been running his campaign out of his back pocket, and has done it extremely well. There’s a reason, though, that serious candidates surround themselves with policy experts. It’s necessary to running a campaign based on more than sound bites. Wherever you scratch Huckabee on policy, he seems an inch deep. Do Republicans really want to enter what is already a tough political year with a candidate apparently allergic to preparation, and who has shown no predilection for organizing or fundraising, when he can do cable TV appearances instead?

This seems like pretty weak criticism to me. First, the Republican party has, for quite a while now, campaigned exclusively on soundbites. Has George W. Bush ever been able to discuss policy issues in a substantive way?

Second, the reason Huckabee doesn't have a team of top policy advisers and handlers is because, until very recently, he was considered a second or third-tier candidate in a field with a handful of first-tier candidates. It's pretty hard to attract and pay for advisers under those circumstances. If Huckabee continues to solidify his status as a front-runner, he'll be able to attract money, staff, and big name advisers, just like his rivals (indeed, it's already happening). And is this really the measure of "seriousness"? Other than John McCain, it's not as if any of the other Republican candidates have any more foreign policy experience than Huckabee. I'm sure Huckabee can repeat talking points handed to him by advisers every bit as well as Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani can. And Rudy Giuliani's chief foreign policy advisor is Norman "Let's Bomb Iran Right Now" Podhoretz, who is certifiably crazy. Having no foreign policy advisers is preferable to surrounding yourself with nutjobs.

Moreover, it seems more than a little hypocritical for the National Review to slam Huckabee for not seeming particularly informed or interested in foreign policy when the magazine enthusiastically endorsed George Bush for president, twice. Bush had zero experience or interest in foreign policy. And the magazine's candidate of choice this time around, Mitt "Double Gitmo" Romney has no more experience or apparent knowledge of this subject than Huckabee. Romney is prone to saying things like this:

This is about Shi’a and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate. They also probably want to bring down the United States of America.

Is this is the level of "seriousness" that Huckabee needs to aspire to? If so, then I don't think he'll have any trouble.

The reality is that Lowry and other establishment Republicans aren't really concerned about Huckabee's qualifications or political skills or ability to attract advisers. What concerns them is Huckabee's priorities. All the GOP candidates are basically saying the same things. But what Lowry wants is a candidate who genuinely believes in the GOP's fiscal and foreign policy platform and merely goes through the required motions on social issues (while never really doing anything to advance those issues). Hence, Mitt Romney. Huckabee is the converse of that. He genuinely believes in the GOP's social platform but seems to be less than a true believer on other issues. Republicans like Lowry are worried that, if elected, Huckabee would be willing to compromise on the wrong issues (taxes, foreign policy) and would use his political capital on the issues he cares the most about (social issues).

In other words, the concern isn't so much that Huckabee can't win, the real concern is what Huckabee would do if he won. But Lowry knows that what ultimately derailed the Dean campaign was the perception that he was unelectable. So he and his cohorts are going to try desperately over the next few months to convince Republican voters that Huckabee can't win.