I'm watching Mike Huckabee give a long interview on ABC's This Week. It's almost impossible to overstate how good this guy is on television, and how decent he comes off. For instance: When asked about Ron Wyden's health care plan and Giuliani's characterization of it as "socialized medicine," he agreed that we don't want our doctors working for the government. "But nor," he said, "do we want them working for the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. That's the problem in health care. They're not working for the patients." This sort of patient- and consumer-centered rhetoric might well mean Huckabee's an HSA-type whose health care plan will be a thuddening disappointment. But his calm, unprompted populism makes it much more effective, and makes him sound much more rational.
