From The Economic Conservative's Mouth

Many of us have already written and speculated about what’s up with conservative groups criticizing Mike Huckabee’s credentials on fiscal conservatism, especially The Club For Growth, which started with a critical review shortly after Huckabee announced an exploratory committee early this year, and aired a critical television ad in Iowa just before the Straw Poll in Ames. If it had any effect, how well do you think Huckabee would have done without it? I doubt it had much effect, because Huckabee’s voters weren’t motivated by ads (Huckabee didn’t run any), but by their personal experience with the man, which would have told them that this was not relevant and probably nonsense. And as I said, governors are responsible for the administration of a state and accountable to the citizens. Legislators aren’t. Huckabee was elected as a Republican once as Lieutenant Governor and twice as a Governor, in a state where elected officers were nearly 80% Democrats!

Not that it was an eye-opener for those of us who knew better, but I was on the blogger conference call this morning, and this issue was raised, giving Mike Huckabee the chance to clearly and directly explain: when he speaks out about financial managers who pocket hundreds of millions of dollars while depriving faithful employees of paychecks and pensions, he isn’t knocking the profit of capitalism or well-paid company officers. And he isn’t proposing government intrusion into the management of private affairs. He’s just saying that both morally and practically, Republicans shouldn't be derelict about calling out practices that cross the line from wealth-creation to outright greed that slights or crushes the faithful work of those workers who helped them build that engine of wealth creation.

And on both moral and political considerations, HE’S ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! I have suggested that maybe a group like The Club For Growth is just ignorant of the misplacement of their criticism. The fact that they behave that way, says at least that they are ignorant of the individual that they are talking about. But, if The Club For Growth is incapable of sorting out what’s healthy for the maintenance of both capitalism and The Republican Party, they are certainly in the wrong business.