Posted by Nick Beaudrot
To respond to some comments in the Huckabee thread, let me say that in no way am I endorsing the nascent Huckabee '08 campaign. But given the non-McCain, non-Giuliani alternatives (since, let's face it, neither of those guys will get through the primary), I'd rather roll the dice with Huckabee than with Brownback, Frist, Romney, or any other oft-mentioned potential Republican candidates.
A commenter writes on another potential Grown-Up Republican, "I'm alright with occasionally reminiscing about soft spots for Newt Gingrich, but Huckabee is much worse." At the risk of piling on, the burgeoning "Newt wasn't that bad" meme is highly dangerous, because he really was that bad. The are three good things about Newt: he's a significantly more honest conservative than the current bunch; he's learned enough political lessons from the Clinton years that he wouldn't try to dismantle the federal government completely; and he does a lot of reviews at Amazon.com [full disclosure: Amazon.com is my employer]. But it ends there; Newt advocates a completely deregulated market for everything, very few controls on federal spending, would still like to shutter large portions of the government if he could. Whether he would be willing and able to wage war with the likes of Tom DeLay is unclear. Let's not take that chance, please.
