Mike Huckabee is a likable pol who has excellent communications skills. He’s down to earth and can tell a joke, which, in a Republican field filled with alpha males, distinguishes him from the pack and makes him seem a little more, well, normal than the other candidates. But is he really, as David Brooks claims, “the one candidate acceptable to all factions” in the Republican party? Not quite. Free market conservatives and the business community, already ready to bolt the party in order to benefit from, or be protected in case of, a possible Clinton restoration, haven’t embraced Huckabee. Nor do they have reason to do so. And national security hawks have reason to doubt Huckabee’s seriousness in prosecuting the war on terror and carrying the Bush Doctrine into the next administration. By my count, then, Huckabee has issues with two major conservative constituencies. This is not to deny the strong possibility that Huckabee may become the candidate of the social right, or at least a large portion of it. But Brooks also exaggerates Huckabee’s uniqueness. He writes:
It’s a funny joke. But there’s another candidate with a similar childhood background, who is polling better than Huckabee and is in a stronger position financially.
