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Long Live Huckabee!By Dan SchnurIf Mike Huckabee didn’t exist, John McCain would have had to invent him.
First, Mr. Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses, sending Mitt Romney into a tailspin that gave Senator McCain the opening he needed to win New Hampshire. Mr. Huckabee then took enough votes from Mr. Romney in South Carolina and Florida to allow Senator McCain to win both states with scant support from conservatives. Finally, by winning a string of Southern states on Feb. 5, Mr. Huckabee stole Mr. Romney’s last chance to convince anti-McCain Republicans to rally behind his candidacy. In states that Mr. Huckabee did not win, he still pulled more than enough voters from Mr. Romney to allow Senator McCain to pile up a string of victories that has left him as the all-but-certain Republican nominee.
But from this point forward, the former Arkansas governor becomes even more valuable to Senator McCain. More than 60 percent of the voters on Feb. 5 registered their support for someone other than Senator McCain. In order to consolidate those conservative Republicans behind him, Senator McCain will need to continue to shore up his “foot soldier in the Reagan revolution” message. But he also needs a platform from which to deliver that message and a foil against whom he can frame it. Mr. Huckabee provides him with both.
If Mr. Huckabee were to withdraw from the race, the media coverage of Senator McCain’s candidacy would shrivel as the cameras immediately turned their full attention to the Clinton-Obama brawl. Even though Senator McCain would travel to the remaining states on the primary calendar, few would spend much time watching his political shadow-boxing exhibition. But a series of contested primaries, even lopsided ones, would bring a much greater level of public interest in what he was saying and doing in each of these states before their votes took place.
Even better for Senator McCain than an opponent is a conservative opponent. Even better than that is a socially conservative candidate who’s not as conservative as Senator McCain on economic or national security issues. And even better than that is a social conservative who likes and admires Senator McCain enough to rarely say a discouraging word about him. Enter Mike Huckabee, straight from central casting. To this point in the campaign, Mr. Huckabee has been Paulie Walnuts to Senator McCain’s Tony Soprano. Moving forward, he takes on the role of the Washington Generals preparing to play Senator McCain’s Globetrotters in a weekly barnstorming tour through the rest of the primary schedule.
