At the end of his Fox News show Saturday, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas made it official: He is not running for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. This brings the official number of GOP candidates to six -- Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Gary Johnson, and Herman Cain -- and the number of potential candidates to four: Mitch Daniels, Jon Huntsman, Michele Bachmann, and Sarah Palin.
Of the GOP presidential hopefuls (official or otherwise), Huckabee fell easily into the top tier. Not only could he claim popularity among Republicans and self-identified conservatives but he enjoyed high favorability ratings among voters as a whole, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. In fact, behind
Romney, Huckabee fared best in hypothetical matchups with President Barack Obama.
In McClatchy's most recent national survey, for example, the former governor fell only five points behind the president among all voters and surpassed him by three points among independents.
Like his competitors, however, Huckabee had real weaknesses as a Republican primary candidate and as a general election candidate. In addition to bad fundraising skills (which limited his reach in 2008), Huckabee would have faced opposition from anti-tax conservatives for his willingness to raise taxes as governor of Arkansas. What's more, with his conciliatory rhetoric toward President Obama, Huckabee was somewhat out of touch with his fellow Republicans.
As for a general election, Huckabee risked alienating moderate and independent voters with his conservative views on gays and abortion. To wit, in 1992, Huckabee called homosexuality "an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle" and stuck by those comments when asked to clarify in 2007.
Even still, Huckabee would have been a strong candidate, if only because of his ability to articulate a coherent and compassionate economic narrative. Here is a portion from his speech at last year's Values Voter Summit: "The real reason we have poverty in this country is because of a breakdown in the basic family structure. A child who grows up in a stable household has a 91 percent chance he'll never see a single day in poverty, and a child in an unstable household has a great chance he'll spend time in poverty. There is a direct correlation between the stability of our families and the stability of the economy."
This is far from true (poverty is a complex thing, and family stability is only one variable among many that affect it), but it offers a compelling explanation for the nation's ongoing economic problems and resonates with the millions Americans who have both suffered in the recession and share Huckabee's socially conservative values. Indeed, thanks to his long tenure as governor of a lower-income state, Huckabee is one of the few high-profile Republicans who can talk about working-class life in ways that resonate with actual working-class people. And judging from his relatively high favorability among African Americans and Latinos (25 percent and 29 percent, respectively, according to a recent Public Policy Polling survey), Huckabee's conservative populism could have had crossover appeal in a general election, making him a dangerous opponent for Obama, who relied on minority votes for his 2008 victory and will need them again in 2012.
Now that Huckabee is out of the race, that's all a moot point. But what happens to his base? As the standard-bearer for Republican social conservatives, Huckabee had the strong and enthusiastic support of conservative evangelicals and was poised to win the Iowa caucuses if he entered the race.
The obvious successor to Huckabee is Michele Bachmann, with her similarly strong ties to evangelicals and her pro-life bona fides. She is, however, far from credible with large swaths of the party. Tim Pawlenty, as the other evangelical in the race, could become the focal point for former Huckabee supporters, particularly if he presents himself as the anti-Romney candidate.
Given the extent to which this is a convoluted primary season for Republicans, it's hard to predict the future for Huckabee and his supporters. But if we can say anything for certain, it's this: With Huckabee out of the race, President Obama's re-election team can breathe a little easier.
