The Return of the Huckster

Well, waddaya know … look who’s speaking at the 2012 CPAC event, none other than the country’s number-one libertarian basher, Mike Huckabee.  It seems like just yesterday that the Huckster was attacking CPAC for embracing libertarianism and being “too extreme,” and was so upset that he declined to speak at its 2010 event.

In his book Do the Right Thing, Huckabee, in complaining about how unfairly he had been treated in the 2008 Republican presidential primary, said, “The real threat to the Republican Party is something we saw a lot of this past election cycle: libertarianism masked as conservatism.”

Really?  Gee, I wonder why the greatest conservative hero of the past fifty years, Ronald Reagan, said that “the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”  Many conservatives must have agreed with the Gipper, because Ron Paul won the straw poll at CPAC’s 2010 convention.

Now, what could possibly have caused Huckabee to have a change of heart about speaking at CPAC?  I think it’s pretty obvious.  As one of the two smartest hucksters to come out of Hope, Arkansas, I suspect he has one eye fixed on 2016 and the other on 2020.

And I don’t blame him.  With lots of $100,000+ speaking gigs, a highly rated TV show, and a syndicated radio show that’s carried by 600 stations, Mike Huckabee will be among the obscenely rich by 2015, when it’s time to throw his hat in the ring.  And he’ll still be comparatively young at age sixty.

If Obama is reelected, the Huckster could feature himself as the savior who brings the U.S. back from the brink in 2016.  The only problem is that if Obama is reelected, it will almost certainly be too late to save the U.S. and, worse, there may not even be a 2016 presidential election.  But ignorance is bliss, and I doubt Huckabee believes that such an extreme scenario is possible.

As to 2020, that would come into play only if a Republican unseats Obama next year and wins reelection in 2016.  By that time, Huckabee would be really wealthy, and still only sixty-four years of age.  Having an excess of money and fame, why not take a shot at the biggest prize of all?  It’s a risk-free challenge that I doubt he could resist.

We’ll learn a lot about how the Huckster intends to position himself for a future run at the presidency by what he says in his CPAC presentation in February.  Remember, this is a man who did an immediate hard right after sending conservatives through the roof with his lengthy but hard-to-stomach interview of Michelle Obama, so never sell him short.

He’s much, much sharper — and far more convincing — than the Mitt when it comes to flip-flopping.