Three Dimensional Chess

Last night, Fred laid out a damning case against Mike Huckabee:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73iQpIATiVE[/youtube]

While the details of each of those statements will be parsed by the candidate and his Huckolytes, it’s certainly all consistent with this, especially the “Shiite” crack, which was a liberal talking point. [Added: Paul at Powerlineblog takes note of Huckabee's failure to address any of Fred's points.] Is it better to use an Islamic-based slur, or call someone unChristian?

Huckabee’s relationship with the party faithful got off to a rocky start when he retained high-profile agency heads who worked in the Clinton and Tucker administrations.Despite cutting taxes in his first legislative session, Huckabee also embraced the ARKids First program, which was then the cornerstone of an agenda pushed by an advocacy group started years earlier by Hillary Clinton. Even then, some were concerned that Huckabee’s conservative instincts didn’t stretch beyond social issues.

What should have been a close working relationship with his party organization wasn’t and it wasn’t entirely his fault. As early as 1998, distrust of Huckabee by many conservatives, as well as an emerging rivalry between his supporters and those of Hutchinson, turned internal party politics into a family feud. But while Republicans fought each other, Democrats regrouped. Later that year, Blanche Lincoln was elected to the U.S. Senate.

In 2000, Huckabee insisted on controlling the state party’s separate Victory Committee, but the committee’s finances were so poorly handled that a Federal Election Commission investigation resulted in the largest fine ever handed down by the FEC to a state party. That same year Republican Rep. Jay Dickey lost the 4th District seat he’d held for eight years.

In 2001, when conservative Republican lawmakers opposed a higher sales taxes and fees the governor supported, he began calling them “Shiites.” Huckabee’s positions on fiscal policy became indistinguishable from Democrats’ positions. A year later, he openly campaigned against a ballot initiative to remove the sales tax on food and medicine. While he and Rockefeller won re-election in 2002, Sen. Tim Hutchinson didn’t.

In 2003, Huckabee not only begged lawmakers for new taxes to make up a budget shortfall, but he rebuffed conservatives’ (Republicans and a couple of Democrats) plan to cover the shortfall by tapping one-time money and cutting pork. In 2004, President Bush won re-election, but Huckabee campaigned for some Democrats – even some who had Republican opponents – and Republicans lost state legislative seats for the first time since 1990.

In 2005, a term-limited Huckabee frustrated conservatives when he pushed a bill to give in-state college tuition and scholarships to the children of illegal immigrants. The next year, Democrats swept Republicans in every race for statewide constitutional office and Republicans lost legislative seats for the second consecutive election cycle.

It’s quickly becoming conventional wisdom that Fred made a mistake by not giving McCain both barrels in last night’s debate. Last night, I didn’t give it much thought, because it seems clear that McCain is going to be easy pickings. He can be taken out of the race at Fred’s leisure. Shamnesty, McCain Feingold, and a couple of decades of maverickness provide all the ammunition any GOP candidate needs to keep McCain out of the Oval Office. Whenever someone chooses to really deal with McCain, there are a host of ads that can be made using nothing but video of McCain talking, and that will be more than enough. But Bob Krumm’s analysis is much more thoughtful and makes a good case that there is some very intricate strategery taking place. [Added: Hot Air responds to Krumm.] Conservatives get very frustrated with George Bush for not doing what we want or how we want particularly with illegal immigration, but the Anchoress makes a good case that he’s been far more effective in other areas than people realize.

Many conservatives are upset with Fred for not running sooner and for not running the kind of campaign they think he should run. Early on, I was frustrated about that too. But I’ve come to see this election almost as a referendum on the American people, even more than on a candidate. Everyone says they want to move beyond the sound bites – they want substantive policy plans. They say they want someone who won’t play the political games – who will be consistent. We have a candidate who is doing all those things, yet people hesitate. In the movie The American President, Michael J. Fox gives a heartening speech about how the American people are desperate for real leadership, and Michael Douglas dashes cold water in his face by telling him that they can’t tell the difference. I think we’re about to find out which of those views is correct.