Huckaburned

People just love Mike Huckabee. Even moderate-to-liberal law students.

Switching between the Orange Bowl and caucus coverage with some friends who follow politics but aren't hyper-political, I found that they think Huck is absolutely nuts policy-wise but is by far the most likable and human candidate. They say that even Obama is plastic and political in comparison. It's an open question whether Huckabee can survive the big-state primaries on Super Tuesday, but he's got support from some unlikely corners.

On an extremely related note, I wrote last month that the establishment money-cons of National Review and the big think tanks were going after Mike Huckabee because of his apostasy on some fiscal and foreign policy issues. After all, the Republican coalition has been held together for decades by tossing the occasional symbolic bone to the social cons (Terry Schiavo, the Hyde Amendment) while demanding complete lockstep on tax policy and never ending belligerence on the world stage.

Now the social cons have their own man, one who doesn't feel the necessity to kowtow to the monied elements within the parties. The "outsider" theme has been overdone for decades, but it's clear here that the GOP establishment is against Huckabee and vice versa because Huckabee doesn't know his place in the hierarchy.

Take a look at what the other members of the GOP coalition are saying. Stephen Green, who was one of the more popular hawks when I started reading blogs about five years ago, goes into sputtering rage:

Dear Iowa Republicans,

I’ll put this in language even your tiny little Iowa brains can understand: What the f*** is wrong with you people?

[...]

Three decades later, and along comes Mike Huckabee. Same moral pretentiousness, same gullibility on foreign affairs, only-slightly-less toothy idiot’s grin. Then you so-called Republicans took a look at Carter’s clone and said, “That’s our man, too!”

And by a pretty wide margin.

[...]

So I repeat the question: What is wrong with you people?

All my love, you corn-sucking idiots,

Aren't "limousine liberals" the ones who berate Middle America when it votes "wrong"? The comments are even more entertaining - there's nothing more appealing than when folks who strive for seriousness end up ranting about the coming socialist regime like cranks on the street. This apoplexy isn't limited to Green. NR is trying to explain the victory away. This popular hawk hurls the ultimate tired insult: it's good for the terrorists. Richard Viguerie, who basically invented the conservative direct mail machine, sent out a blast email calling Huckabee a socialist.

You can only scare people with the oncoming Swedeification of America for so long. The fact is that the GOP coalition is just that, a coalition. Coalitions are made up of groups with different priorities that subsume some of those priorities for a better chance at victory. When one group is constantly asked to make all of the sacrifices, they may just rebel.

This isn't a GOP disease. Democrats are even more factionalized. Unions are at odds with African-Americans on school vouchers. Jews and peacenicks don't see eye to eye on Israel, even if nearly all American Jews won't go to the lengths neocons will on the issue. Hispanics and African-Americans are fighting over some of the same jobs. It's a mess, but it's been a mess for quite some time and each groups have a long list of intra-party victories and losses. When the DLC tried to abandon Democrats' union, minority and dovish elements, they ended up with 8 years of policy stasis under Clinton followed by a six-year breakdown when many members of the coalition didn't feel represented by the Clintonite DLC. Dean knocked the Clintonistas out of party leadership, engaged the various interest groups and won big in 2006. The Republicans who are whining about rubes and Marxists right now are the equivalent of the DLCers, setting themselves up for a shellacking in the general election.

Will the GOP establishment embrace Huckabee if he looks like a winner? Only if Hillary wins the democratic nomination. Sixteen years of hate, conspiracy-mongering and otherwise insulting Hillary is too strong of a force to be trumped by threats of creeping socialism.