Huckabee as deja vu moderate

(Lyon, France, Jan. 12) Here’s a no-brainer for you as the GOP primaries whirl past Michigan into South Carolina and beyond. Who said: “Since there is a God of love, our efforts to allay the suffering of the unfortunate, to temper the exercise of raw economic force at the expense of the less strong, and to provide opportunity for each individual person to realize the best that is in himself, are not sentimentalism; they are the governmental counterpart of a rule of life accepted by devout Americans as an expression of their religious convictions”? Mike Huckabee, right? Wrong. Those are the words of Arthur Larson, Under Secretary of Labor for President Eisenhower, in his 1956 book A Republican Looks at his Party. They're from the first of his eight principles defining a so-called "New Republicanism" that tried to strike a balance between the perceived harmful excesses of unfettered laissez-faire economics and the New Deal's big-government regimentation.

The striking similarities between Larson's "New Republican" trust in government to provide social insurance, and Mike Huckabee’s decision, as he put it the other day on Jay Leno’s show, to “get out of the stands” (the ministry) and go to work on behalf of the poor (politics), point to a socio-economic strain of GOP thinking that is very much at odds with Barry Goldwater’s and Ronald Reagan’s philosophy of individual freedom and responsibility under limited government.

Against the backdrop of renewed Democratic calls for antiquated New Deal/Fair Deal prescriptions -- masquerading as change and inclusiveness -- a Republican nomination of Mike Huckabee for President would mark a return to the kind of “me-too” Republicanism that led to Republican defeat in the 1936, 1940, 1944, and 1948 presidential elections.

As Republican primary voters ponder which candidate to support, they should contrast these relentless defeats with the success of conservatives in holding the White House for 20 of the past 28 years. Making the right choice should then really be a no-brainer.

Note: “Paoli” is the pen name, er, nom de plume, of our French correspondent. Monsieur is a close student of European and US politics, a onetime exchange student in Colorado and a well-wisher to us Americans. He informs us the original Pasquale Paoli, 1725-1807, was the George Washington of Corsica.

No double standard for Obama

Apparently, the MSM realizes that Obama's youthful brushes with Islam are a huge negative. So they attempt to take it off the table and make the entire subject taboo. Notice that the MSM make no such exceptions concerning Romney's religion, McCain's age, or Giuliani's marriages. On CSPAN last evening, a left-wing apologist for Barack Obama from the New Republic argued that anyone who mentioned the candidate's past Muslim connections was making a low blow, absolutely reprehensible. He went on to say that the potential threat to Obama's life as an apostate Muslim was a non-issue, since any president would be in jeopardy from Jihadis.

In my view, Obama's life being threatened as an apostate isn't the issue: it is whether or not he is concealing his ties to Jihadi organizations. And after the Holy Land Foundation trial last summer in Texas, there's reason to believe that most "moderate" Muslim groups have been founded by the Muslim Brotherhood. Reputable observers such as Daniel Pipes have raised serious questions about Obama and Islam. Nor can you necessarily expect the truth from asking the senator himself.

That's because the Islamic concept of Taqyyit asserts that anything that forwards the cause of Islam is the moral thing to do. Thus, if disinformation benefits Islam, one is permitted or even obligated to practice it. Hypothetically, then, if Obama were concealing his ties to Jihad, he would be religiously permitted to deny it. There are no Ten Commandments in the Qur'an, so swearing one's oath on that book has quite a different meaning; ask Representative Ellison from Minnesota.

In my nightmares, I can picture an Islam-sympathizing US President moving to put the head of CAIR in his cabinet, and garnering praise in the New York Times, because we were finally "reaching out to heretofore marginalized Islamic organizations -- and that giving these groups responsibility would bring them into the mainstream." Of course, anyone who would object is a "racist bigot and Islamophobe."

Or imagine the same President admitting a growing stream of extremist Muslims from the Middle East as "refugees from violence", then charitably enrolling them in the US Army.

How long are we going to let political correctness pave the road to our destruction?

Eve of NH: Reagan forsaken?

Rumors of Mrs. Clinton’s demise are greatly exaggerated. True, she is reeling after a weak showing in Iowa, but the first subsequent poll (USA Today/Gallup) still showed her tied nationally with Barack Obama, and prior to Iowa she held a consistent double-digit lead in national polls for months. Indeed, to this point nobody else has led nationally in the Democratic race. And though Obama looks likely to win New Hampshire and South Carolina in the coming days on the strength of far greater likeability than Mrs. Clinton – particularly among men – contests in big states like Florida, New York, and California where Clinton is strong still remain.

[Note: See also the NH forecast by John Andrews and Joshua Sharf on the Gang of Four blog.]

Moreover, the larger Clinton machine and network, one of the most powerful in recent political memory, remains formidable in Democratic circles. Obama has a shot, to be sure, but media hype about the race being Obama’s to lose is just hype.

On the GOP side, mediocrity is breeding ambivalence. A field of philosophically lackluster candidates has made for the most evenly-matched race in recent memory, with leading conservatives everywhere lamenting that these are the best a wandering Republican Party can produce. There is no Reagan in sight. Rudy Guiliani has led in national polls for months but began sliding toward the end of November as Mike Huckabee skyrocketed.

Huckabee’s meteoric rise, which over-exposed Republican pundit and focus group organizer Frank Luntz has called “unprecedented in modern political history,” began around Nov. 25, the very day Huckabee began airing his famous “Christian leader” ad.

Interpretation: evangelical social conservatives are still numerous in the South (South Carolina) and Midwest (Iowa) and, prior to Huckabee’s series of bold statements regarding his faith and social conservatism, had not seen anyone or anything in the race that made it interesting to them. Huckabee followed up the “Christian leader” ad with his famous Christmas ad which, as such things do, terrified secular media pundits with visions of hovering crosses (actually just lighted bookshelves) and tyrannical Christian theocracy.

Huckabee’s faith is obviously genuine, his knowledge of the Bible obviously thorough (he is halfway to a Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas), and his answers to media questions regarding evolution and religion unwavering. Here, for instance, on evolution. Or here on whether he believes the Bible.

If you don’t understand how energizing this is to evangelicals, the largest single bloc of Republican voters, you don’t understand evangelical Christianity. Huckabee is also a solid conservative on abortion and homosexual marriage, furthering buttressing his appeal to evangelicals. He combines this kind of backbone on his faith with a quick wit and guy-next-door likeability that is disarming even to those who distrust his Christianity.

His response to those who saw a “floating cross” in his Christmas ad: “I will confess this: if you play the spot backwards it says, ‘Paul is dead. Paul is dead.’” And here is his appearance on the Jay Leno show on the eve of the Iowa caucus (watch both parts – he plays bass guitar with Leno’s band in the second). Finally there was his debate crowd-pleaser back in May: “Congress spends money like John Edwards at a beauty shop."

Huckabee is the only candidate in the race with a Reagan-style wit and charm, to say nothing of an unashamed belief in the historic Christian religion. There is only one problem. On foreign policy and military matters, taxes and fiscal matters, the welfare state, law and order, and immigration, Huckabee’s record is either confused or outright liberal. He represents the rebirth of pre-Reagan evangelical politics – William Jennings Bryan reincarnated. Bryan opposed evolution, supported Prohibition, and preached evangelical salvation, but supported the nationalization of railroads, the disbanding of trusts, and many other important free-market economic priorities of industry captains. He and Huckabee represent more a brand of Christian populism than a coherent conservatism.

Thus, the larger Republican base remains unenergized by Huckabee, and many military, foreign policy, fiscal, law enforcement, and immigration conservatives actively oppose him. These people are either settling for McCain or Guiliani – the two most liberal candidates in the race – if they are weak on social issues, or, with national conservative organ National Review, agreeing Mitt Romney is the conservative candidate of choice in a weak field. Romney’s conversion to social conservatism is too recent for the comfort of many (myself included), making his seemingly courageous adherence to his Mormon faith, which clearly teaches social conservatism, ring a bit hollow. But he does appear the best of the field.

As of now, McCain looks as though he has sealed up New Hampshire. Romney’s father was governor of Michigan once upon a time, making Romney strong there, but Huckabee is running a close second and has South Carolina in the bag. It is thus very possible that, by the time Super Tuesday rolls around, when Guiliani still looks to win big states like California, New York, and Pennsylvania, there could be three different early GOP winners, and thus no clear frontrunner. This is Guiliani’s dream scenario.

Sigh. For now, Reagan’s revolution does appear to be at an end.

Two-thirds of Iowans nixed Huck

(Lyon, France, Jan. 4) Hold everything. What’s all this I hear and read about Mike Huckabee’s brand of economic populism coming out on top in last night’s Iowa caucuses, as I raid the Internet for political news? Huckabee is said to have “won” with 34% of the vote. Well done, and I would hate to sound like a party pooper, but let me ask this: What about the 66% of GOP caucus-goers who did not vote for what David J. Sanders aptly describes on today’s OpinionJournal web page as Huckabee’s religious-left, big-government agenda based on “increasing the government’s role in the fight against global warming, poverty and economic inequality”?

Call me naïve or insufficiently versed in the intricacies of Republican primary politics, but looking at last night’s results, I would make one further comment:

However flawed the GOP's two most prominent spokesmen (Romney and Thompson) might be this year in terms of authenticity and “fire in the belly”, three-legged-stool conservatism combining defense hawks, free-market proponents, and moral traditionalists is still very much up and running -- having collectively prevailed in Iowa with at least 38% of the ballots cast (or 51% if you count McCain's near-tie with Thompson).

Huckabee campaign advisor Ed Rollins and David Brooks of the New York Times might be self-servingly shouting it from the rooftops -- but the demise of the Reagan coalition has thankfully not occurred yet, if ever in the foreseeable future.

Message matters more than money indeed, but only modern conservatism, not apocryphal economic conservative tongue-speaking, can still deliver it. How much longer will we have to wait for an authentically fire-eating conservative to step up and take the good news to Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere in these indispensable United States? Eight years?

Note: “Paoli” is the pen name, er, nom de plume, of our French correspondent. Monsieur is a close student of European politics, a onetime exchange student in Colorado and a well-wisher to us Americans. He informs us the original Pasquale Paoli, 1725-1807, was the George Washington of Corsica.

Moloney’s World: Worst Form of Government?

Stowe VT, Dec. 31 - Somewhere near here, tramping through the snows of New Hampshire and probably wearing a wool cap with ear flaps to impress the natives, is the next President of the United States – ardently seeking to persuade taciturn Granite Staters that he (or I Hillary) is their best bet for leader of the Free World. While it’s fair to say that ordinary citizens in Iowa and New Hampshire seem to enjoy their quadrennial star turn, I think the rest of the country would be perfectly happy if this political version of "Survivor" didn’t begin until say, next August. Having lived in England for a number of years, I have fond memories of the expeditious character of national elections in what we used to call the “Mother Country” where they allow just six weeks of campaigning before you see a new Prime Minister lugging furniture into Number 10 Downing Street.

However, if you want the very latest in efficient electioneering, look to that new star in the east Vladimir Putin. In Vlad’s Russia they won’t even call an election until they’ve sorted out in advance who’s going to win, namely you know who. Putin’s new electoral techniques were a rousing success in the recent parliamentary elections, where his United Russia party won over two thirds of the seats. This result was much aided by locking up opposition leaders, canceling their rallies, and limiting their television time to after midnight and only available to cable subscribers (if there are any) in Eastern Siberia. The whole thing stunk so badly that even Jimmy Carter refused to be an election observer.

Stealing elections isn’t as easy as it looks. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez thought he’d followed the Putin playbook perfectly in his recent election to make himself President for Life. His thugs beat up opposition leaders, shut down rival newspapers, and seized the only free television station, but then Hugo made the rookie’s mistake of failing to decisively stuff the ballot boxes. When he lost one can imagine a phone call from his mentor Fidel Castro reminding him of the wit and wisdom of the Queen of Hearts: “Results first, lections later – maybe”.

Of course, Americans shouldn’t be too smug about all this, since we’ve had a few funny elections of our own.

Chicago was long famous for having “problems with voting machines” around midnight so that they could find out how many votes they’d have to manufacture to overcome downstate Republicans. John Kennedy, who probably owed his election to such Chicago shenanigans, at least had a sense of humor about it. On visiting the Windy City shortly after becoming President, he lamented the closeness of the election saying “my dad told me he wasn’t buying any more votes than absolutely necessary”.

In fairness, Chicago has no monopoly on slow counts, mysteriously appearing (and disappearing) ballot boxes, delayed poll closings, intervening judges, and who will ever forget “hanging chads”.

So, what lessons can we draw from this random tour of the world’s electoral horizons?

As regards our own elections, it’s been great to see that the pundits and the talking heads in the end didn’t know any more than the rest of us.

They told us that Huckabee had no chance, McCain was finished, Hillary was inevitable, and Obama was just a flash in the pan. Now in the next six weeks, We the People will tell the experts what’s really going to happen.

As regards the rest of the world, beyond what we used to call Western Civilization, much work is needed before elections and democracy can flower into their true splendor.

U.S. elections, like America itself, are imperfect models – but warts and all, we remain the grand example of what people striving to be free want to become. Even election-rigging tyrants implicitly acknowledge this.

So, as we follow CSPAN-2 into people’s living rooms, church basements, and school cafeterias to hear candidates try to make a connection with ordinary people, we are pulled back to a simpler time in our history. Critics may call this an odd manner of filling the most important political post on the planet, but Churchill still has the last best word: Democracy remains the “worst form of government save all the others the world has tried”.

Dr. William Moloney, a featured columnist on BackboneAmerica.net, was Colorado Education Commissioner from 1997-2007 and has done graduate work in Russian and world history at Oxford and the University of London. He admits to being a veteran of all too many political campaigns.