Mike Huckabee, Republican Vice-Presidential nominee. Mike Huckabee? If you would have said this just a few weeks ago, I would of thought you were crazy. Mike Huckabee has always been the most qualified choice to fill in this capacity. His 10 ½ years of experience as Governor of Arkansas makes Huckabee the most qualified candidate with any Chief Executive experience among Republicans. John McCain is 72 years old and is relatively in good health now. However, the aging process accelerates in the stress-filled world of White House politics. John McCain would need someone in position of leadership to take over the reigns as Chief Executive. No better person then someone who already has the most experience in this category.
Secondly, to win the White House, Republicans need social conservatives to get out and vote. If it wasn’t for the record number of social conservatives voting in the 2004 presidential election, the Republican Party would be nominating a candidate to defeat President Kerry. Recent history dictates that when social conservatives vote, Republicans win. John McCain needs someone to shore up his pseudo-social conservative record with someone who not only holds strong social conservative views but also someone who can invigorate the social conservative base to get out and vote this November. Mike Huckabee has the strongest support among middle class authentic conservatives then any other known Republican. This leads to my third point, John McCain is going to need someone with name recognition. There are many Republicans with strong conservative credentials across the country. However, outside their own region, they are barely a blip in the name recognition category. Last year at this time, Mike Huckabee was barely a blip outside of Arkansas. Now he is among the most widely recognized names. His popular appeal not only comes from the firmly held convictions that he shares with many other Americans, but also because of his warm, friendly, and engaging demeanor. This makes him an engaging and entertaining guest among the TV and radio media. Besides being entertaining and engaging he provides insightful commentary due to his vast experiences. This would shore up John McCain’s perceived weakness of being either wooden or temperamental with the media.
Mike Huckabee also has a strong appeal with African-American voters. In his re-election as Governor of Arkansas in 2004, Mike Huckabee received nearly 50% (48%) of the African-American vote. The GOP generally considers it an accomplishment when their candidate receives over 10% of the African-American vote in a presidential election. This final point could be very crucial this year when the likely Democratic nominee for president is African-American. Mike Huckabee’s appeal crosses racial lines more so then any other Republican in recent memory. Yes, many will say this is more true of Condoleezza Rice or Michael Steele (former Lt. Governor of Maryland). But Condoleezza Rice is not a strong social conservative and Michael Steele doesn’t have the name recognition. Just another small note, John McCain and Mike Huckabee seem to like each other as well.
Despite Mike Huckabee’s overwhelming credentials, even I thought Mike Huckabee’s chance to be selected as VP for John McCain, until recently, was slim. This is because Huckabee has never been taken seriously or was well liked among GOP elites. Mike Huckabee doesn’t really fit well with this crowd and, to his credit, never had a desire to do so. Since bowing out of the Republican presidential race, outside his speaking engagements which are his source of income, he has tirelessly worked to support conservatives running for state and congressional elected offices through his political action committee aptly named HUCKPAC, campaigned with and for John McCain in the south, and championed causes such as diabetes prevention. His appeal and popularity continue to grow and has shown that his agenda isn’t selfish but is in serving his country and the Republican Party. Many vice-presidential polls have been taken by many media outlets. Mike Huckabee continues to perform well in these polls, an indication of his popularity. Yes, many of these polls are nothing more than “beauty contests”, but if you perform consistently well in these polls, this can be taken as an overall popular appeal of a candidate. Also in recent presidential primaries, Mike Huckabee received between 10-13% of the popular vote even though his presidential bid ended on March 4th. So with this mounting evidence, it appears that the GOP elites who never took Mike Huckabee seriously, realize they can’t ignore him or his views if they are to win in November.
It’s still entirely possible that John McCain will choose someone else as his running mate. However, Mike Huckabee as VP nominee, not as crazy as I once thought it was.
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