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Mike Huckabee, and the death of the populist president
The Week ^ | January 13, 2015 | Michael Brendan Dougherty

Posted on 01/13/2015 8:42:25 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

Reporters took joy in the first Mike Huckabee campaign in 2008. Here was a former governor from Arkansas, accompanied by Chuck Norris and only Chuck Norris, kicking ass. Mitt Romney was bussing in clean-cut college Republicans to CPAC and dropping bills everywhere, and Huckabee — the guy who had to iron his own suit — was thrashing him. There were no surly and cynical 29-year-old press handlers. There were no rotund money-raisers. It was real populism. A man and his voters.

This time around, when Huckabee announced that he was considering another run for president, Washington's journalists collectively began to educate him. You’re going to need real money-men this time, Huck. You need so many of them that they can be divided into silly groups based on how much moolah they bring in. You’re going to need a real PAC, and media professionals. Get some white-paper people, too.

You need to build a real campaign. You’re trying to be president. It can’t just be you and Chuck Norris.

In other words, grow up and surround yourself with the political class and get on board with the technocracy. The modern presidency is for professionals, not populists or patricians. Your last run was a proof of concept. A "Huckabee" is something a lot of people like; now we have to tear it down and re-engineer it so that this product scales for the party and for the nation at large, and still functions at the White House.

Some commentators think that running a successful presidential campaign is in itself the organizational and psychological training that a candidate needs to become a successful president. It is a physically grueling process, offering plenty of humiliations. It offers candidates the chance to manage a chaotic, sprawling national organization that seeks, in turn, to manage them.

But this isn’t just a managerial and mental test. For populists like Mike Huckabee, building a huge campaign will be a process of socialization. Huckabee may have gone to Bible college, but this campaign will be a crash course in lobbying, think-fluence, money-raising, and technocratic will. He will face a small army of opportunists: the do-gooders who take the opportunity to do well, and the done-wellers who now want to do good. Now all he has to do is command it!

These just happen to be the same people who can run a presidential administration. Andrew Jackson, the ur-populist, may have killed the National Bank by force of will, but most populists these days would need people to explain how to navigate the millions-strong behemoth that is the federal government. Every administration has friends and enemies within the bureaucracy already. How would you even begin to sort them out without hired expertise?

So long as the modern presidential campaign remains what it is, we will never have a truly populist or patrician president again. George Washington essentially took office by acclamation. But no one would dare run a front-porch campaign now. No matter how popular, the man who tried it would seem unsporting.

The expectation that a presidential aspirant will mount a hugely staffed, professionally executed campaign is a subtle way of forbidding a major shakeup in Washington. The public wants to see a candidate surrounded by hacks and flacks; without that phalanx we suspect a candidate would be quickly overmatched and outwitted. There is no way to beat the system, so Ed Rollins is absolutely correct that Huckabee, like Barack Obama before him, must come to terms with it and join it.

Candidates can’t run against the whole culture of lobbyists, insiders, and big money. We demand that they run with them.


TOPICS: Arkansas; Campaign News; Issues; Parties
KEYWORDS: 2016; fakeconservative; fakerepublican; huckabee

1 posted on 01/13/2015 8:42:25 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Of course the media likes Huckabee : Huckabee is the socialist from Arkansas


2 posted on 01/13/2015 9:08:37 PM PST by Democrat_media (The media is the problem. reporters are just democrat political activists posing as reporters)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The frightening thing is that after 8 years of Obama and the lunatic left in DC even Huckabee looks reasonable. (flame suit on).


3 posted on 01/13/2015 9:14:27 PM PST by Seruzawa (All those memories will be lost,in time, like tears in rain.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Huckabee is too big government to be a conservative.


4 posted on 01/13/2015 9:23:20 PM PST by Mozilla
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Reporters took joy in the first Mike Huckabee campaign in 2008.

Of course liberals love Huck!

5 posted on 01/13/2015 10:09:16 PM PST by iowamark (I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Mike Huckabee and Maurice Clemmons.....chained together in eternity.


6 posted on 01/13/2015 10:41:26 PM PST by TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig (Hope the holland tunnel gets the makeover I suggested.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Don’t like Huckabee. Could be because I’m from NY but he is just too cornpone for me.


7 posted on 01/13/2015 10:58:00 PM PST by Beowulf9
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To: iowamark

Helped them win the White House. Why wouldn’t they love him?


8 posted on 01/14/2015 12:10:58 AM PST by Politicalkiddo ("I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!")
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To: Mozilla

Tax Hike Mike isn’t a conservative. He just plays one on television.


9 posted on 01/14/2015 12:22:24 AM PST by tschatski
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To: Beowulf9

Don’t like Huckabee. Could be because I’m from NY but he is just too cornpone for me.
*******************************************

Or it could be because you’re conservative


10 posted on 01/14/2015 12:24:52 AM PST by tschatski
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Another reason not to like Huckabee’s politics. Common. Core.


11 posted on 01/14/2015 2:36:10 AM PST by Tuscaloosa Goldfinch ( I would LOVE to have my old "substandard" insurance back. It didn't cost $1300 a month.)
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To: Tuscaloosa Goldfinch

Or dead cops.


12 posted on 01/14/2015 2:37:28 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.)
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To: tschatski

Lol. Yes, and that too.


13 posted on 01/14/2015 8:17:04 AM PST by Beowulf9
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