With Super Tuesday behind us, it’s time to put some calls on paper.
After McCain’s victory in South Carolina, I’d made the seemingly improbable call of a McCain/Huckabee ticket. That’s starting to look more and more realistic.
By the numbers, it’s a great call. A centrist, maverick Republican with a history of bipartisan cooperation to tackle tough administrative issues; a southern Evangelical populist who can energize the religious right and blue-collar value voters. McCain and Huckabee differ on the issues and have little overlap in their constituencies, but most importantly, they have the exact same moxie. Their energies play very well off each other and would be the most formidable challenge to the Democratic ticket.
| “Hillary Clinton is a great conductor (critics say a lightening rod) but she has a lot of trouble generating electricity. Obama, on the other hand, is the political equivalent of a green power plant.” |
Huckabee is still relatively unknown on the national scene and can be whoever McCain needs him to be. Up until now, Huckabee has shown great promise as a chameleon. In national debates, he brands himself as a grassroots, traditional values populist seeking a fair deal for the working class and government accountability. In the South, he’s the pro-life, anti-gay marriage proselytizer who can shore up the very conservative vote. Huckabee’s challenge will to keep up this split personality and avoid the national limelight when preaching to the Evangelical base. Moderate voters may be turned off by Huckabee as he creeps into the limelight, but Liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats might just tolerate a Huckabee because they know as VP he’ll largely be a figure head preaching on the world’s biggest soap box. (Of course, as VP to an aging McCain, he’s only a step away from the top job.)
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