2009-11-30
AP Reports Mike Huckabee Leaning Towards Not Running For President in 2012
Granted, he says that it's still way too early to know for sure. Typically, front runners have to announce their decision in the October before the midterm elections in order to secure any support... actually, that's just what happened last year. So let's forget about that.
According to the Associated Press (link via Newsmax), Huckabee says that among the factors he must consider are the results of the mid-term elections, his self-perceived ability to unite the Republican Party under his banner, and finally the status of his talk show on the FoxTabloid Channel.
So as we always do, let's read in between the lines. (Isn't it nice having a trained intelligence analyst to do this for you?) First and foremost, Huckabee says that he's leaning against a 2012 run for the White House. That means that of the three stated factors that will influence Huckabee's decision, the overall expectation is slightly negative. Pretty straight forward, right?
Let's figure out why it's negative.
Factor 1: The results of the mid-term elections.
For the love of God, the Republican Party REALLY needs some wins to hang its hat on. When we look back at the direction our country is heading, these mid-term elections will probably be in the top three most important in our lifetimes (at least as conservatives). If we are able to delay the socialized health care bill until March or April (not unreasonable), the odds are that Democratic leaders will drop it in order to minimize the damage it will do to their majorities in Congress. The only way to kill it then is to win the majority back in either the House or the Senate (we only need one), which I think is very likely unless there's a catastrophic melt-down in Republican Party unity or leadership. Quite frankly, we NEED to win in 2010 in order to keep the far left agenda of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama in check.
So this bodes well for Huckabee, right? Yes and no. The results of the mid-term elections will affect Huckabee's decision in three ways. First, it will determine what kind of momentum the conservative movement has and what kinds of conservatives are playing well where (I'm not sure if Huckabee has the research power to determine the latter point, but it's important nevertheless). Second, Huckabee will need his HuckPAC endorsed candidates to shift the face of the establishment a bit more in his favor so he can build support where it killed him in 2007 and 2008. And finally, those candidates who win will have to owe Huckabee more than they owe other Presidential contenders.
This final way is why there are a lot of volunteers in HuckPAC both raving mad and sick with worry about the failure of Huckabee to do any serious fundraising for the PAC itself while he's gallivanting on book tours. After all, if Candidate X gets $1,000 from HuckPAC and $5,000 from SarahPAC, Candidate X is going to be more indebted to Palin than Huckabee. The defense HuckPAC and advocates usually offer is that Huckabee often does fundraisers for candidates directly and that the phone calls made by HuckPAC volunteers make up for the lack of money HuckPAC is able to offer to campaigns. What they fail to mention is that Huckabee usually charges an arm and a leg to do these fundraisers (tens of thousands of dollars unless you endorsed him in the primary). Additionally, while the phone banks are certainly nice, campaigns usually prefer cash. Cash is a very fungible asset... in other words, it can be used to make phone calls just as easily as it can be used to make yard signs, do opposition research, or host a campaign rally or fundraiser. Phone calls from New York or California to Virginia?
Not quite so fungible.
If Huckabee wants to run in 2012, he needs to endorse candidates with the accuracy of a laser. They have to be able to win both the primary and general election for important offices, but at the same time be obscure enough that nobody else running thinks to endorse them. That's quite the chore, especially considering that HuckPAC supporters ignorant of this are going to be demanding HuckPAC endorse every local Republican candidate under the sun. FYI: This wouldn't be a problem if they were able to raise money.
Factor 2: His self-perceived ability to unite the Republican Party.
Because the agenda of President Obama hasn't been an aggressive campaign against Christianity as much as it has been to grow the size of government by epic proportions, the Christian Right isn't going to have as much influence over 2010 and 2012 as the fiscal responsibility and libertarian wings of the Republican Party. And while the Fair Tax is certainly a positive with that group, Huckabee has proven himself too easy to attack based on his record in Arkansas. Granted, Arkansas needed a lot of the spending Huckabee did down there (mostly on schools and roads), but it's a lot more difficult to make a 30 second ad saying, "I increased spending on schools and roads and here's why I had to..." compared to a 30 second ad saying, "Don't trust Huckabee, he increased spending." Especially considering that Huckabee won't have the money to run adds when he's really going to need them.
With that said, the faith issue COULD be more dominant in the conservative movement after the 2010 elections. Remember, a single Republican controlled house of Congress will be able to put a screeching halt on the socialistic agenda of the President. The last time Republicans had control of the Congress, issues of the Christian Right were brought to the forefront and Democrats then slaughtered Republicans in 2006. While I don't blame the focus on those issues for our loss in 2006, Democrats might. If they do, you can expect them to poke and prod the religious conservatives into making a stand, and that would open the path for Huckabee to at least win the nomination.
The problem with this scenario for Huckabee is that he's going to need to know for sure what he's doing by December at the very latest, and preferably mid-November of 2010. That doesn't give him and his staffers a lot of time to look at what issues the new Congress is going to address and assess how that will affect the 2012 landscape for another possible Huckabee run for President.
The other part of this "unity" issue is the role of Sarah Palin and Haley Barbour. Sarah Palin has such a small and obscure record that she can pretty much declare she is whatever she wants to be and her record won't disprove it (unlike Mitt Romney). That mixed with her more universal appeal among the far-right and her ability to fundraise makes her significantly more dangerous to Huckabee than the 2008 conservatives like Brownback. Adding to the troubles facing a Huckabee 2012 campaign are the slew of Southern Conservatives looking at a run. As much talk as there is about Southerners dominating the GOP, they were shockingly MIA in the 2008 campaign (Fred Thompson was a late dud and Jim Gilmore was Jim Gilmore). If Huckabee is going to have any success fundraising, he needs the south behind him and that's not going to happen if one or two politicians from the region decide they want to move to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.
In addition to being worried about divisions in the party, Palin and Southern Conservatives would threaten to divide Huckabee's base. Unity has got to be a chief concern in the mind of Mike Huckabee and his advisers.
Factor 3: The status of Huckabee's show on FoxNews.
Even when I was a Huckabee supporter, I wasn't a huge fan of this show. But he has loyal followers and loyal followers make for instant ratings. But here's the catch. If Mike Huckabee wants to run for President, he has to leave the show. The problem for Huckabee is that he's a Republican and he likes making money for himself. That's partially why his PAC is suffering. The guy charges conservatives tens of thousands of dollars for a speech and possible endorsement, spends his weeks selling a non-political book about Christmas, and pulling in a good amount of money from a weekend television show and short radio spots. If he runs for President, all of that stops and he, his wife, and presumably his daughter are going to be forced out of their homes in order to live out of different hotels for about two years (if he wins the nomination).
However, if Huckabee's show is starting to bore people and ratings fall dramatically, it might not be a bad thing to end on a high note, resign, and then run for President. The problem with this scenario is that if ratings are falling, his fan base is becoming smaller and less fanatical - signaling they've either turned to someone else for political leadership or they have become tired or less supportive of Huckabee for any number of reasons. Either way, it's a good high note to end your television show, but it's kind of like jumping the shark in life. Only instead of jumping the shark, the Fonz decided to run for President on the "Cool Ticket." Either way, both shows would be canceled before anybody reached the White House.
The other thing to consider would be Huckabee's ability to return to the broadcasting industry after resigning from a radio and television show, running for President a second time, and losing. Ratings wouldn't be quite as high for the Huckabee spin offs and while he could still make a ton of money speaking and selling books, I personally think that he REALLY enjoys broadcasting. Probably more than politics, which exposes him and his family to a lot of garbage nobody wants to put their family through, especially twice.
In fact, if Huckabee loses the primary this second time around, he might feel more inclined to take the Vice Presidential spot if it was offered to him. He couldn't have accepted it in 2008 and expected to run again in 2012. Let's say that Huckabee REALLY wants to be President a LOT more than a talk show host, which isn't unreasonable. He runs again and loses the primary for the plethora of reasons discussed above but was offered the VP slot. If the ticket loses in 2012, Huckabee won't be able to run for President again in 2016 because he'll be associated with failure three times (2008 primary, 2012 primary, and 2012 general election). HOWEVER, if he didn't accept the VP slot, he would become Alan Keyes v.2.0 - that guy who always runs but will never win. What the VP slot on the ticket offers, though, is the chance of victory (regardless of how remote it may or may not seem). If Huckabee is part of a winning ticket and the Republican President wins re-election, decides not to run, resigns, or dies - Huckabee will become the instant nominee for President in 2016 or 2020.
The problem is that I really doubt Huckabee wants to be Vice President. Nor do I think he wants to take on the attack-dog responsibilities traditionally associated with being a Vice Presidential candidate. In 2008, after Huckabee lost the primary and we were debating who John McCain should pick as his running mate, I quoted the Vice President under FDR, John Nance Garner, who said, "The Vice Presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss." I think Huckabee probably agrees with that statement and that he would much rather remain at FoxNews with a hit weekend show.
Personally, I hope he doesn't run. I think there are going to be a lot better candidates surfacing between now an 2011 and the candidates there are in the mix, the more difficult it's going to be for any of the conservatives among them to not only win the nomination, but unite the party and lead us to victory in 2012.
Archived Comments
Cindy
Hi Kevin,
It's been awhile. This post is very thoughtful and provocative. I will say though that it has been revealed that the shooter in Washington State was one of Huckabee's pardons. I suspect that will put an end to Huckabee's political aspirations. I, like you, am no longer a Huckabee supporter. I am now a registered Republican, though, so I suppose I've got to find someone to support. It's a miserable lot. Whoever the candidate, he will have to be charismatic and personable but also have a good solid record. It's depressing. I do think you are dead on about Huckabee, though. I don't imagine we'll see much of him unless you watch his really boring show on Fox.
Kevin Tracy
Hey Cindy,
I'm glad you're doing okay. Welcome back! I usually write the Huckabee stuff on this blog, but I think I'm going to have Travis write about this shooting just so the blatant truth comes from someone who these Huckabee-lovers don't already hate. I haven't seen how it's being covered, but I can imagine it looks pretty bad. I wonder if he's going to address it on his boring show.
Some humility would be nice.
