For nearly a year now I've been telling anyone who would listen that Mike Huckabee was going to win the GOP nomination. But now I'm not so sure. In fact, I have a heard time seeing how this Wayne Dumond thing doesn't do him in.
The question at this point, I guess, is whether or not it will do him in before or after he becomes an unstoppable primary force? If he manages to ride this out another week or two, I suspect the holidays will save him. If not, well...I have no idea who will win the nomination.
UPDATE: Ross Douthat asks similar questions:
So the latest polls have Mike Huckabee up an implausible nineteen points in Iowa and four points nationally. But he can't win, right? I mean, he's vulnerable on practically every non-social issue, he has a variety of skeletons in his closet, his policy team seems more or less nonexistent, he still doesn't have any money, and he has most of the GOP establishment united against him. He doesn't have a prayer - or maybe that's all he has.
Except, of course, that none of his rivals can win either
Read the whole thing here.
UPDATE II: Steve Benen offers a good round-up of Huckabee's strange positions on a variety of issues here. The list is apparently offered as yet more evidence for why Huckabee won't win, but I don't buy it. Does he have bizarre positions on gay marriage, AIDS, and religion in general? Sure thing. But the thing is, those bizarre positions match perfectly those of a sizable portion of the GOP base. So rather than offer an argument for why he can't win the nomination, I think they actually do precisely the reverse.
Huckabee can't and won't win in the general election. I've never thought that was possible. But the GOP nomination? If the "values voters" in his party actually believe what they say they believe, I don't see how these positions do anything but help his campaign.
Which is the point, when you get down to it. The Republican base is made up of a large group of people who hold a set of very, very strange beliefs. What Huckabeee is doing, I think, is making that so painfully clear that it can no longer be denied. Which is why I, of one, am so happy to see him succeed. The more average Americans learn about the GOP base, the more they are going to turn away from the party.
UPDATE III: Kevin Drum provides background on the Dumond here.
UPDATE IV: This will undoubtedly be the last update here, because Paul Rosenberg has written the definitive analysis - both pro and con - of Huckabee's candidacy here and here. At this point, there really is nothing more to say.
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