The conservatives should have drafted Huckabee

[Damuri Ajashi]

So the conservatives were all excited about Michele Bachman then, Rick Perry, then Herman Cain, and now Rick Santorum and each case (other than Rick Santorum) they have come to realize how deeply flawed their candidates are.

Romney keeps trying to present himself as a regular Joe who worked his way up from the bottom and achieved success. No doubt he achieved success that a lot of people who had his advantages did not achieve but there is no way that the son of a wealthy governor of Michigan (at a time when Michigan was the engine of American industry) can be mistaken for Joe 6-Pack.

Rick Santorum keeps referring to his coal mining GRANDFATHER and entirely glosses over his middle class upbringing (his dad was a psychologist and his mother was a nurse).

Huckabee would fit in very well with today's populist conservatism. Noone would mistake Huckabee for a Wall Streeter (you almost can't avoid the comparison in the case of Romney) and Huckabee is a LOT more congenial and less abrasive than Santorum.

[Lamar Mundane]

Tim Pawlenty should have stuck it out like Gingrich and Santorum did. The money would be pouring in for him right now. Problem was, at the beginning you had to be the rip-snorting, fire breathing, talking points spouting wingnut to get any support. He dropped out after the Ames Straw Poll, which was won by Michelle Bachman with Mitt Romney finishing seventh at 3.4%.

I think Pawlenty saw just how crazy this whole thing was going to be and decided he wanted no part of it.

[Oakminster]

A hardline conservative is not going to beat Obama. If the GoP wants to win, they have to nominate and support a moderate. Romney is their last best hope for victory in 2012.

[Skammer]

I don't think Huckabee is mean enough to win the GOP nomination these days.

[Marley23]

Huckabee is definitely not the Tea Party type, although arguably some of the other anti-Romneys really aren't either- they're just the best of what's available. He's personable but he's probably too much of a big-government type.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Oakminster

A hardline conservative is not going to beat Obama. If the GoP wants to win, they have to nominate and support a moderate. Romney is their last best hope for victory in 2012.

Help us Obi Rom Neynobi. You're our only hope.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by John Mace

Help us Obi Rom Neynobi. You're our only hope.

The President is not as forgiving as I am.

-- Darth Biden

[Martin Hyde]

Huckabee comes off as one of the few personally nice/decent men in politics but I couldn't vote for someone who advocates the Fair Tax. I'm all or smaller government and less taxation but the Fair Tax plan isn't workable and people that support it show too great a degree of ignorance about basic fiscal policy.

[RTFirefly]

Pawlenty was shooting to be the establishment Republican who could also pass the wingnut approval test. But having started off from the establishment side of the street ultimately made him more of an anti-anti-Romney than an anti-Romney.

Really the only way for an anti-anti-Romney to thread the needle this year would have been for one of the anti-Romneys to grab the lead and hold it for more than a brief moment in time, and for Romney to look like he wasn't up to a contest with that anti-Romney. Only at that point would a Huntsman, a T-Paw, or a Daniels or Thune (if they'd run) have been viable.

Huckabee, OTOH, would have clearly fit into the anti-Romney mold, and one has to wonder what the race would look like if he'd jumped in after Perry fizzled. He'd certainly be acceptable to a wider swath of the anti-Romney voters than any of the other anti-Romney candidates have proved to be.

[dropzone]

With the primary system as it currently stands, how do you draft a candidate?

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by Marley23

Huckabee is definitely not the Tea Party type, although arguably some of the other anti-Romneys really aren't either- they're just the best of what's available. He's personable but he's probably too much of a big-government type.

I think he's plenty acceptable to the Tea Party.

He's a small tax guy. He used to tell people that if they think they should pay more in taxes then they should and let the rest us of pay low taxes. This sort of idiocy is red meat for the tea party.

He will sign onto whatever sort of fiscal shit he needs to to get his social agenda implemented.