Huckabee Vs. Obama: A Thought Experiment

As I have watched the campaign unfold, I can't help but get a troubling feeling out of my head. Did the GOP choose the wrong guy to face off with Barack Obama? Would another candidate have changed the dynamic and likely beat Obama as badly as he appears to be beating Senator John McCain. Now, unfortunately, at the beginning of the year, when the Republican primary effectively ended, the nature of the way in which the race appeared to be is NOT the way in which the race wound up being. It appeared that national security would share the spotlight with the economy. One of the reasons that John McCain wound up grabbing the nomination is the tragic irony of the timing of the killing of Benazir Bhutto. With national security grabbing headlines right around the vote in New Hampshire, John McCain had the election timed on issues relating to his best traits.

Mike Huckabee has four things that John McCain doesn't: charisma, no discernible connection to President Bush, a consistent economic populist message, and opposition to the bailout. Watching John McCain debate Barack Obama, I couldn't help but wonder just how Huckabee would have handled Obama. McCain missed several opportunities in debates to point out that Barack Obama's tax policies were nothing more than income redistribution. It took Joe the Plumber to do it. I don't think that it would have taken an unlikely surrogate for Mike Huckabee to do it. John McCain also missed many opportunities to point out that Barack Obama's tax policies would include tax cuts for 40% of the population that currently pays ZERO in federal income taxes. This is yet another opportunity that Mike Huckabee wouldn't have missed. In fact, anyone that saw Huckabee debate knows that he would have fared far better than McCain did.

The other thing is that Huckabee ran on an economic populist message from the beginning. He didn't come late with a message in fighting for the little guy. He was talking about the pinch of the middle class, foreclosures, and high health care bills. In fact, Huckabee's message was so populist, economically, that his opponents effectively painted as liberal. Of course, this was a bit of a distortion. In fact, Huckabee had the innovative conservative idea of the fair tax. Putting Huckabee's fair tax against Obama's income redistribution proposal would have been the kind of contrast that would have made a real distinction. Rather than fumbling through an explanation of why we need to cut corporate taxes, we would have had a charismatic salesman selling an innovative tax idea. Rather than a debate over who should and shouldn't get tax cuts, we would have a debate over a change in a failed tax code and a revolutionary change to the tax code.

Where Huckabee would have wound up with the most traction is the bailout. He is one of the few politician to come out against the bailout. I believe John McCain lost the election when he supported the Bush bailout. This was an opportunity to distance himself from Bush and instead, John McCain doubled down on "a bi partisan proposal". Rather than running away from President Bush while Obama was siding with Bush, McCain took the easy way out and signed onto the bailout. Furthermore, he doubled down on his own quasi socialism when he proposed a massive bailout of borrowers. Neither of these are small government, fiscally conservative ideas, and neither would be supported by Huckabee. It muddies the waters when you call your opponent quasi socialist when you yourself propose quasi socialist ideas. Imagine the debate as the bailout was being debated. Imagine Mike Huckabee firmly saying that bailing out the irresponsible is not something he would sign onto. Now, on the single most important issue it would have been Senator Barack Obama that was allied with President Bush, and it would be Mike Huckabee that ran against President Bush. The bailout is overwhelmingly rejected. By running fiercely against the bailout, Huckabee would have pulled off the greatest political jujitsu. He would have hung the President Bush noose around Senator Obama. The centerpiece of Senator Obama's current attacks would wind up being used against him.

I believe for these four reasons mean the Republicans picked the wrong candidate and had they picked Mike Huckabee we would see a Republican in the White House.