Haley Barbour And Mike Huckabee
One of the headlining stories in Politico this morning was the apparent courtship of Mike Huckabee by Haley Barbour. And to be fair, both men have been saying many kind things about each other recently. More so than usual in my opinion.
Mike Huckabee was a Republican presidential candidate in 2008 and won the Iowa caucus in impressive fashion. Besides the socially conservative Iowa caucus, Huckabee had his best showings in the South (winning a number of Southern primary states). To translate: Barbour and Huckabee would probably be going after much of the same territory (although Barbour doesn’t appear to have the appeal with conservative Christians that Huckabee does) in the GOP primary next winter and spring should both men run.
Huckabee hasn’t made any formal announcements about if he is running again, but he is probably as popular as any Republican right now and certainly has plenty of name identification. So he doesn’t need to spend as much time campaigning right now as others do.
Should Huckabee opt against a 2012 run, it seems very likely that he would support Barbour and the Mississippi governor would have a much better path to primary victories in the South. Most importantly South Carolina. Would Huckabee voters automatically switch to Barbour? Obviously, we don’t know that right and as I said Huckabee’s appeal seems to be as much as a Baptist minister as it does a Southerner.
If Huckabee does indeed run, you would have to imagine it would make Barbour’s path to the nomination more difficult.
Some of Huckabee’s evangelical supporters would switch to Barbour if Mike leans his way, but the Huckabee supporters who are political independents would wait to see if Barbour has the keen intellect and balanced approach that makes Huckabee an outstanding candidate. For them, Mitch Daniels might be a better alternative to Huckabee.
This reminds me of 2008 when the question was “Will Huckabee take VP under Guiliani?” Clearly the more successful candidate was Huckabee. The question should have been would Huck take Rudy as his VP. I think its the same here. The question should not be will Huck endose Barbour but rather the other way around. Even in Barbour’s home state Huckabee outpolls the Mississippi governor.
“Should Michael Jordan not be in the running for MVP, as rumored by the press, our sources indicate he may throw his support behind Bill Cartwright for MVP honors instead. However, Cartwright’s path to the trophy may be more difficult if Jordan plays well this season.”