{"id":14246,"date":"2008-01-15T15:30:03","date_gmt":"2008-01-15T20:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14246.html"},"modified":"2008-01-15T15:30:03","modified_gmt":"2008-01-15T20:30:03","slug":"huckabee-draws-the-rights-ire-for-the-wrong-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/huckabee-draws-the-rights-ire-for-the-wrong-reason\/","title":{"rendered":"Huckabee draws the right’s ire — for the wrong reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, that wasn’t the comment that drew the right’s ire. This was<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Socially, conservative Western Michigan is where Mike Huckabee has his sights set.<\/p>\n

Today, he took direct aim at Mitt Romney– son of former Governor George Romney.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

But the right’s vehement reaction was entirely different.
\n
\n* National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez<\/a>: “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?”<\/p>\n

* Dr. Sanity<\/a>: “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?”<\/p>\n

* Ace of Spades HQ<\/a> called Huckabee’s comments “gag-inducing.”<\/p>\n

* Hot Air<\/a> called Huckabee a “class-warrior.”<\/p>\n

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”?<\/p>\n

Huckabee is, to borrow one conservative’s phrase, “manifestly unprepared<\/a>” 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}