I noticed that quite a few well-read conservatives were pretty livid today at something Mike Huckabee said, and initially, I was thrilled — because I thought the right was rejecting Huckabee’s stated desire to bring the Constitution in line with his religious beliefs.
As it turns out, that wasn’t the comment that drew the right’s ire. This was.
Socially, conservative Western Michigan is where Mike Huckabee has his sights set.
Today, he took direct aim at Mitt Romney– son of former Governor George Romney.
“For those of us for whom summer is not a verb, for those of us who didn’t go to fancy boarding schools on the east coast, for those of us who didn’t grow up with a silver spoon, who were lucky to have a spoon — ask those folks and they’ll tell you the economy is not doing well for them,” says Huckabee.
Now, what I found annoying about this is Huckabee’s faux populism. Unlike his fellow Republican presidential candidates, he’s willing to concede that the economy is leaving a lot of Americans behind. His solution, however, is a ridiculous consumption tax that makes the burden on middle- and lower-income families worse. My problem with Huckabee’s rhetoric is that it’s hollow — he plans to do more to help those “for whom summer is a verb.”
But the right’s vehement reaction was entirely different.
* National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez: “Governor, I didn’t have silver spoons or boarding schools or a verb summer, but I know enough to thank God for the job creators, the natural economic stimulators, capitalism. Is this the Republican primary of a John Edwards rally?”
* Dr. Sanity: “What has the Republican Party come to? With all the socialism-lite being bandied about here in Michigan; all the empty promises glibly being made — how are these guys any different from the feckless Democrats who got us into this economic mess to begin with?”
* Ace of Spades HQ called Huckabee’s comments “gag-inducing.”
* Hot Air called Huckabee a “class-warrior.”
All Huckabee said was that those on the lower end of the economic spectrum are suffering in this economy. This is “socialism-lite”? It’s “gag-inducing”?
Huckabee is, to borrow one conservative’s phrase, “manifestly unprepared” for the presidency. But the fact that he’s at least willing to pay shallow lip-service to the concerns of those who can’t qualify for country club membership isn’t one of the reasons.