“Keep an eye on Ole’ Huck,” Joe writes. “He’s got skills. He’s funny, decent and will, on occasion, violate the lockstep rigors of his party.” All true. But here’s the hitch: There’s little evidence to date that Mike Huckabee has any plans to run for president. A few data points to consider:
Huckabee is in the middle of building a $2.2 million home on an $800,000 piece of property in Walton County, Florida. That’s good for 8,224 square feet of living space, a 2,969 square-foot porch and one monster of a mortgage. Now, that might be a comfortable arrangement for a successful talk show host, but not so much a former public servant with no income. As Sarah Huckabee pointed out last year:
“He has one of best chances to win the nomination but also has the most to lose by getting in and not winning,” she said, noting that he has no political office to “fall back to.”
To give up his media deals would be to give up his income.
“That’s a big risk to take,” she said. “You have to go two years without an income” in a presidential race.
Huckabee intimate (and ’08 campaign manager) Chip Saltsman just took a chief of staff job on the Hill. Saltsman insists his move doesn’t augur one way or another for his old boss’s intentions, but this is the time when other prospective candidates are locking in top-level staff.
That’s not to say Huckabee couldn’t gear up later, fly lighter. He won Iowa last time around despite being far outspent by Mitt Romney et al., and things have been developing more slowly this time around. But what will Huckabee be doing on, say, June 7, 2011 when other candidates will be hurling red meat from a dais in Manchester, New Hampshire? He’ll be on an Alaskan cruise.
As for the “Jesus Primary,” it seems very plausible that social conservatives would be interested in an option other than the Mormon, once-upon-a-time “effectively pro-choice” Romney. But I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Tim Pawlenty’s credentials. Leith Anderson, Pawlenty’s pastor at Wooddale Church in Eden Prarie, Minnesota, happens to be the well-connected president of the National Association of Evangelicals. But I get Joe’s point. Anderson is no Chuck Norris.
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