Increasingly, Mike Huckabee is what leadership looks like, and that's baffling his opposition. Huckabee's ardent FairTax support, particularly, may account for the occurence of Huckenfreude.

The FairTax Act of 2007 (HR 25/ S 1025) represents a prospective power shift of massive proportions in America. It lays out a practical ideal of voluntary payment of taxes, based on a substantial level of taxpayer choice that the plan affords. Since FairTax untaxes basic necessities (up to socially-accepted poverty-level spending), what is taxed is marginal, and/or desired or preferred, on a broader base of retail products and services. This is to say that the taxpayer may, under the FairTax, choose to purchase used products and avoid paying the tax. And, to the extent desired, the taxpayer may choose to self-perform certain services rather than pay for them. This will stimulate do-it-yourself education, improve citizens' self-reliance; indeed the FairTax represents the possibility of ushering in a new can-do, citizen psychology that would accrue to greater demands for government accountability - truly, a socio-cultural sea change, or - better - a restoration of a freeholder mindset on account that politicians could no longer directly grab dollars from paychecks, nor could they grap operating capital from businesses.

As things stand at present, the system primarily benefits politicans who cater to special interests through lobbyists who game the tax code. The politician seeks to capture them as constituent voting blocks, dependent on continued syphoning of taxpayer dollars to their members' benefit. This is increasingly repugnant to the average working American who often finds it difficult to meet the needs of his, or her, own family in an environment where federal and state business income taxes substantially contribute to trade inequities resulting in the loss of American jobs! Thus, the Sovereign are continually degraded by features of Congress's income tax policy. The most rapidly-growing needs-based "special interest" group has become the Citizens!

Passing the FairTax? Ridiculous! Or, maybe not.

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This piece is right on in its analysis of the advantage the Republican Party has taken of social conservatives over many years. I never really understood how the GOP could hold together a coalition of blue-collar workers and Wall Street types who want to eliminate blue-collar jobs in America. As a Christian and strong Huckabee supporter, I'm reveling in the show!

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Arianna, you have outdone yourself. What an amusing and well-deserved predicament for the GOP. They dug this hole all by themselves and I hope they stay in it for a long time. I cannot believe that this man will be president or any other so limited, but never underestimate the stupidity of the American people. After all, over 50% won't accept evolution, but do accept the alleged virgin birth of and the ascension into heaven of a tribal politician.

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Being perceived like Rudi as a tough guy enhances the GOP "We're more powerful than Dems" foreign policy plank.
This plank is effectively muted with Huckabee.
Bigotry on illegal immigration is a strong vote getting plank for the GOP.
This plank is effectively muted with Huckabee.
On paper, he is a dream come true for the Democrats.
Yahoo.!

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Why don't you lay off huckabore for a while and focus on some REAL candidates?

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I've said it many many times, we have let organized religions operate like business in terms of collecting money for centuries in this country. But we don't tax them like we do any other business. This has enabled some religious organizations to become so wealthy that they now can control the people who make the laws that we all have to live by in this country.

The practice of allowing any religion to effect decision making in the governing of all in this country is a direct contradiction to one of the (if not the main) reason our ancestors came to this country which is freedom of choice when it comes to religious and spiritual belief. The separation of church and state is (was) very clearly stated in the Constitution.

Religious and spiritual beliefs and practices should be a personal and private thing that has absolutely nothing to do with governing the masses. It is the only way to allow freedom of choice for all, even those who don't believe at all. To vote for anybody to an office that can affect the governing of all simply because of their religious affiliation is wrong!! It has never worked and never will.. The proof is documented throughout the history of mankind. Religion and individual perceptions of what religion is has been used time and time again to validate some of the most horrific offenses mankind has imposed on each other. IT HAS NO PLACE IN THE OFFICES THAT MAKE THE LAWS EVERYONE HAS TO LIVE BY.

Because we have allowed religious organizations to grow monetarily like any other business without the same taxing and regulation that we subject all other business to has enabled religious entities to become so rich and thus powerful that it is destroying this country and what original made this country so desired in the beginning. If the people of this country do not figure out a way to get religion off the ballot and keep it that way this country and mankind itself will never make it. It is just that simple!!!

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It is said that "mainstream conservatives are mostly urban sophisticates with a libertarian bent", but the various neo-"conservatives" quoted in Huffingtons' article are hardly of "libertarian" bent, with their penchant for prolific government spending and disregard for limitless deficits, not to mention the Constitution, all in pursuit of their aggressive foreign policy agenda to remake the world in a Wilsonian "democratic revolution". Hence the more fundamental divide on the Right between the real Ron Paul libertarians and the neo-"conservatives" is glossed over. This split has more third party potential to wreck the Republicans going forward than with the Christian fundamentalists - unless this latter actually captures the nomination.

The real problem with the piece is that it shares with "mainstream discourse" the same drastic disconnect with the actual underlying political alignments in the USA. To begin with, the true conservative center of US politics is to be found in the leadership of the Democratic Party symbolized by but not limited to Hillary Clinton, as it also includes John Edwards, who thinks Russia is going in the "wrong direction" (and who is therefore in fuundamental agreement with Dick Cheney) and Barak Obama, who has no problems with an invasion of Pakistan. This center is Conservative in the true sense of the word in that they seek to maintain the status quo with reforms only around the margins as necessary, as opposed to the agendas of the various Republican Party factions, which are Radical and Far Right in their drive to change the status quo in the USA. In no way are these latter factions "conservative". It is, by the way, a misunderstanding to believe that true conservatives are always opposed to positive reform - it was the British Conservative Party who initiated the first Factory Acts to regulate working conditions in 19th century Britain, and it was the conservative politicians Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt that became the 20th century avatars of what is known as progressive reform in the USA - really, what could be more progressive than that? Although not possible under present conditions given the present status quo, the reasons for which are a entirely different subject here, conservative-led reform is possible.

But Huffington's piece does inadvertently reveal which of the factions on the Far Right are most closely aligned with the conservative center currently located in the Democratic Party. These are the 'neocon' Far Right, and the Democratic party conservative / 'neocon' axis forms the core of US mainstream politics today. The only differentiator within the leadership of the Democrats lies in the attempts of Obama and Edwards to simultaneously bridge the gap with liberals and leftists who strangely have chosen to voluntarily and permanently self-subordinate themselves to this all-right wing arrangement, while maintaining the axis with the 'neocon' radicals. Clinton, correctly betting that a conservative focus on the status quo will cause the Democratic nomination to simply fall in her lap, can afford to abjure such maneuvers secure in the knowledge that liberals and leftists will mechanically pull the lever for her in November.

The result will be that the 'neocon' radicals - if dislodged temporarily from the drivers seat they enjoyed with Bush - will still have substantial influence in the next government, albeit in a bizarre latchup with the liberal left supporters of conservative government. The potential wild card will be the Lou Dobbs "immigrant-bashing protectionist" right wing. This sector occupies the true center of gravity in US politics, overlapping with both the dominant Democratic Party conservative / 'neocon' axis and with the soon to be 'out' radical right factions, including the libertarians, who are of course radical capitalist fundamentalists and not conservative at all, make no mistake.

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I can't believe all of the bullshit I am reading on this blog.

SCARY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY #26:
Huckabee and Guiliani have nothing for the economy compared with Romney's business and economic acumen. Will you still be complaining about Romney's faith when they lay you off and foreclose your home? Get real, and don't get me started about Huckabee as a foreign policy disaster. Huckabee and Ahmadinejad sitting across at a table???? That's classic, what a nightmare.

Take all of the t-shirts mocking Bush you see at the mall and insert Huckabee's face. That's what college kids may be wearing until 2012. Bush haters are going to LOVE Huckabee, what a goober...there's a good image for the Republican stigma. Are you kidding me??

Why don't we all vote for an inferior candidate merely because he's not LDS. Evangelicals are going to ruin this nation...Piss off!!

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Arianna quotes Kevin Drum, and apparently agrees with him that, "mainstream conervatives are mainly urban sophisticates with a Libertarian bent". That may be true if you live within dinner party distance of The Hoover Institute or The Heritage Foundation, but out here in fly-over country, that description fails the giggle test. Any one who supports Black-Ops prisons, Total Information Awareness coupled with massive intercepts of domestic communications, and the Unitary Executive theory hardly qualifies as a Libertarian to me. Of course most of the Republicans I run into don't know or care about these details. They just know GWB is gonna kick some ass and make America great again. Blind devotion to the symbols of Liberty, like the flag and the pledge to it, are way more important than the idea of Liberty itself.

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I hope democracy still rules in the United States, and the Repbublicans have an honest election and vote in Huckabee instead of Mitt "Blackwater" Romney or Rudy "Fox News" Guiliani.

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At first I had trouble understanding why Republicans could possibly like Bush anymore than Huckabee. But after reading this I begin to see. Bush has one foot in the Religious right camp and the other in the economic conservative camp. Meanwhile the "Huckster" has both feet firmly planted in the latter.

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Huckabee is running for the VP spot. Since Nixon...the GOP has been using the VP spot for impeachment insurance...selecting a candidate who is so revolting and/or unappealing that impeachment would be out of the question: Dick Cheney...Dan Quayle...Spiro Agnew....Mike Huckabee. As an added benefit: the VP can be used as an attack dog to say things that the president couldn't say...This game was mastered under Nixon with Spiro Agnew.

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