Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:41 pm
Mike Huckabee, trailing far behind in the polls and contemplating withdrawing from the race if he does not place in the top 3 in Iowa come February, suddenly scented blood in the water when tapes emerged revealing Ted Cruz’s bogus culture war platform.
It’s amusing to think that no sooner had the Religious Right leaders thrown their weight behind Cruz than Cruz stabs a knife through their backs and into his own. After all, we were just told that Cruz is supposed to be the “godly president” who will bring about “radical change” in America.
The former Arkansas governor unleashed a series of tweets in response to the revelations, not naming Cruz, but only a fool could fail to see where they were directed.
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Like this tweet:
Should conservatives support a corporately-funded candidate that says one thing at a Manhattan fundraiser & another at a Marshaltown church?
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) December 23, 2015
Huckabee is quick to point out that Cruz is telling people what they want to hear based on where they are, and that his vaunted conservative principles are not to be trusted:
Shouldn’t candidates be expected to have authenticity & consistency, instead of looking at a map to decide what to believe & what to say?
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) December 23, 2015
With this tweet, Huckabee shows that he has fallen victim to the myth of Trump’s integrity, ignoring all those things Trump used to say that were far more liberal:
Whether you agree w him, 1 reason I respect Trump: he doesnt pretend w his principles or change his message depending on location/audience.
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) December 23, 2015
Huckabee then cleverly turns Cruz into a lackey for the elites in Manhattan while lying to the base in places like Iowa, where Cruz leads Trump:
If marriage & sanctity of life are truly issues of principle-not politics-there shouldn't be geographical boundaries to what's right & wrong
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) December 23, 2015
So far Ted Cruz has not tweeted any response to Huckabee, or in defense of his two-faced lies. And normally you’d see Donald Trump jump all over a candidate so badly exposed as Cruz, but the the Cuban senator’s BFF has also been uncharacteristically silent, preferring instead to continue bashing Hillary Clinton while claiming women love him.
On Wednesday, Huckabee told conservative radio talk-show host Simon Conway on WHO-AM in Des Moines, “If we can’t come within striking distance of the victory or win it, then I think we recognize that it’s going to be hard to take that onto the other states.”
It is unreasonable to expect Huckabee to do that well, and almost as unreasonable to expect finishing even among the top three in the Iowa caucuses is going to save his failing campaign. Right now, he is pitting his paltry 2 percent against Cruz’s 18 percent.
Jake Tapper tweets the reality of the 2016 race with a CNN/ORC poll that doesn’t even go low enough to show Huckabee:
CNN poll: Trump ends 2015 lapping the pack https://t.co/L998fAnoHq – @SunlenSerfaty reports #TheLead pic.twitter.com/r7YNMRVs9b
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 23, 2015
Ted Cruz may have blown it by revealing political relativism takes precedence over Evangelical relativism, but he can’t blow it badly enough to help Huckabee, whose feeble swipes go mostly unremarked.
Politico’s Marc Caputo tweeted that “Jeb has a Jeb problem: GOP voters like him less than the object of his criticisms,” and the same will likely be true of Huckabee in this case.
It is more likely Huckabee will rise or fall based on his own lack of merit, and so join Lindsey Graham on the sidelines regardless of what happens in February.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
