Will the anti-Huck slash and burn hurt them?

Everyone is talking about Huckabee will never get the republican nomination because the republican establishment and media only like fake rural, plain talking, evangelical christians with no awareness of global issues beyond vague ridiculous platitudes and will just not stand for an actual rural, plain talking evangelical christian with no awareness of global issues beyond vague ridiculous platitudes. So there's no doubt that whoever they decide IS the man for them, that they will need to take out Huckabee lest he win the southern state primaries and get the nomination and then get trounced in the general election.

But do they have a problem now in that the Evangelicals finally see one of their own with a shot at the nomination and then watching him get taken down and slimed and smeared? Will they sit it out if he loses to someone who they don't like (McCain, Romney, etc.)? Will they pick up enough independents running someone like McCain so that it doesn't matter if they lose a portion of the evangelicals?

I'll be most curious to see how the establishment plays their hand with this whole Huckabee thing.

and I'm also willing to wager that he will gladly sell out to the highest bidder.

for a payoff is a naive idiot--all you have to do is look at his personal greed in Arkansas. I fully expect him to end up cutting a deal with McCain or Rudy.

I know how we should play him. We can criticize him on the very things most conservatives care about:

1. Taxes. While governor of Arkansas, Huckabee RAISED taxes by requiring service industries to start charging sales tax. At the same time, there was no reduction or elimination of the state income tax. Huckabee says he's for a flat tax, but when given the opportunity to try it out in Arkansas, he opted not to.


2. Government bureaucracy. While governor, Huckabee required small school districts to consolidate. He didn't make them bus all children to a central school--instead, he just made another tier of administrators. What happened was that the old small district superintendents became campus supervisors and an overall superintendent was chosen, adding another administrative layer. The other bad part about this was that when the districts combined, the smaller schools were often required to increase their school levies-so again Huckabee raised taxes and took away local control of schools.

They will bribe or blackmail Huckster as needed to keep him from actually implementing any of that populist stuff.