Economic populism is making a comeback on the right, and not always in a good way. Mike Huckabee wants to ride this wave and his standing with social conservatives to the GOP presidential nomination.
The ordained Baptist minister and former Arkansas Governor declared his candidacy on Tuesday in his native Hope, also the Bethlehem of Bill Clinton. Mr. Huckabee’s campaign is in particular targeting evangelicals who helped him pull an upset in Iowa eight years ago. His folksy charm has since won him many fans on Fox News, which shouldn’t be underestimated.
Mr. Huckabee’s challenge will be overcoming his record of support for larger government after the record government expansions of the Obama years. Between 1997 and 2005 Arkansas’s per capita state and local tax burden rose by nearly 50%. In 2008 the Club for Growth lambasted his support as Governor for higher taxes on income, sales, gas, tobacco, the Internet and even nursing beds.
He also hurt himself by endorsing energy cap and trade—which he has since renounced—as well as the FAIR tax that would replace the income and payroll taxes with a 30% national sales tax. This has appeal on first pitch but voters soon figure out that they’d get the sales tax and never lose the income tax. Mr. Huckabee’s attacks in 2008 on income inequality, income-tax rate cuts, and George W. Bush’s foreign policy gave him a fillip in the media but turned off many mainstream primary voters.
We believe in political redemption, but Mr. Huckabee is already back at the same old stand. He is accusing Republicans who support entitlement reform of “robbing” seniors and says that as President he wouldn’t sign Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform. He recently lambasted New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for proposing to gradually raise the Social Security retirement age and means-test benefits.
Aside from repealing ObamaCare, Mr. Huckabee has no answer of his own on entitlements, though they are steadily consuming more of the federal budget and national GDP. Entitlements on autopilot inevitably mean tax increases. Meanwhile, he’s stalwart for ethanol and farm subsidies.
Mr. Huckabee hopes another good showing in Iowa will propel him through South Carolina and into the “SEC primary” in early March with Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. But this time he’ll have stronger Iowa competition from the likes of Ted Cruz,Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. It’s hard to see the logic of a Huckabee candidacy in this era of conservative reform, but if anyone can sell bigger government to Republicans, it’s probably him.
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