The Huckabee Pile-On

Interesting times for the minister from Hope: As he rises in the polls, he takes broadside after broadside:

• "Earlier this week, I compared Mike Huckabee's stated approach to foreign policy to that of Jimmy Carter. The more I learn about Huckabee, the more I think I may have been unfair to Carter ..." That's Mirengoff at Power Line, who qualifies that he means Carter the president, not Carter the current nut-case.
  
  
• Writing about AP's story that Huckabee supported quarantining AIDS patients, Adler at NRO writes, "... this is a pretty outrageous position for Huckabee to have held at the time. This was not the early 1980s, when the threat posed by the HIV virus was poorly understood. Rather it was 1992, long after it was understood that AIDS could not be transmitted through casual contact. So either Huckabee was woefully ignorant about the nature of AIDS, or he supported a quarantine despite the lack of a threat of communicability. Neither interpretation speaks well of him."
  
  
• At Politico, Mike Allen channels another AP story and writes, "'Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, surging in Iowa polls in the Republican presidential race, wrote on a questionnaire while running for U.S. Senate in 1992 ... "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk," Huckabee wrote in the questionnaire for The Associated Press, which reported the answer on Saturday.
  
  
• Summing this stuff up, Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse gives us a window on the view of the non-Evangelical Right: "So go ahead, indulge yourselves my Christian right friends. Nominate the man who can quote parables from the bible but doesn’t know that the INS isn’t in business anymore. Elevate a man who is “right” on all your issues but is as unschooled in foreign policy as George Bush was when he took office in 2001. Except we weren’t at war then and didn’t think it necessary to have a president who had a broad, adult, outlook on the world."

His position on homosexuality won't hurt him among Evangelicals if he doesn't waffle and explains it with grace and humility, but there are not enough Evangelicals in America to elect a president, especially one so inept on domestic and foreign policy.

Huckabee's rocket is going to flame out soon -- John Dean-like, according to Hindrocket at Power Line -- and this pleasant but incapable man will no longer be a force, leaving us again with a fractured GOP field.

I had my moment of infatuation with Huckabee because he was so darn likable, so I've been considering the candidates:

• Romney: Nice speech Thursday, but if we're not forgiving Huck the errors of his way while governor, we're stuck with Romney's gubernatorial record as well. Troubling.
  
  
• Thompson: His lack of energy is making me tired, very tired.
  
  
• The Second Tier: Nuff said.

That leaves Giuliani and McCain.

McCain is one of the least likable candidates I've ever seen. Rough, angry, intense. But I can definitely forgive him his campaign reform debacles and it seems like he's listening to the electorate on immigration. On the war, no one touches him.

But can he beat Hillary?

Oh, and is Hillary the nominee?

Giuliani strikes me as a Bill Clinton in the making: likable, electable, competent ... but oily and not to be trusted with the public's funds or trust.

But he can beat Hillary.

Oh, and is Hillary the nominee?

Try as I might to ignore her, she is central to my process. I'm watching her troubles with great interest because ultimately, they may have more to do with my vote than whatever McCain or Giuliani say between now and California's primary on Feb. 5.

hat-tip: memeorandum