New Huckabee Ads/Romney and Huckabee on Taxes/For Republicans And For America, There's Huckabee Or There's Business-As-Usual

There are two new Huckabee ads running on Iowa television before Thursday’s caucuses Two New Iowa Ads
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MA for Huckabee looks closely at the respective records in light of Romney’s Critical Ad About Huckabee Mitt Romney Attacks Mike Huckabee Again, The Truth Behind The Ad . The report is enlightening…if tedious.

The bottom-line is this: both men governed Democrat states with different established infrastructure, government structures, and public expectations. Is Romney due great criticism for his efforts to deal with those needs and expectations, which involved increasing fees? Not really, I think.

The issues are these: Unable to compete with Huckabee on the level of personal passion and appeal, Romney must engage in the Kabuki dance of ostensibly conservative criticism of Huckabee, which really amounts to no more than the same kind of Bush-bashing, posturing one-upsmanship that is going on among Democratic candidates. In terms of the reality of governing, it amounts to little or nothing, with the apparent possible exception that, having gained the Massachusetts governorship, Mitt Romney might have been looking ahead to a presidential dance in actions like raising hundreds of millions in “no tax” fees, shifting costs down to local levels to constrain “state” spending (which I really have no problem with: the nearer the responsibility, the better), and not even looking at the possibility of worthy pardons, for the sake of waving a “tough on crime" banner.

Besides being less visionary, less engaging, and less compassionate, Romney may overbalance these factors with personal interest and ambition. Maybe the question for voters is whether you want to exalt Mitt Romney or lift up America with Mike Huckabee.

Of course, all of the Republican candidates with the exception of Rudy Giuliani (at least he’s honest about it) wear the obligatory “pro-life” confession. Every Republican presidential nominee in the past 28 years has done that. And, politicians have not done a fraction of what technology has in terms of illuminating the reality of what the nation has been about, let alone informing the nation of a soul-sickness that is settling in to the American consciousness. In brief, a society that comes to assume that the sanctity of human life (even its own offspring!) is a question of perceived personal convenience is on a definite slide in terms of the most fundamental social civility. This is not the presumption of a ruling tyrant. It’s the passive indifference of the very people, themselves, and thus far without a leader to even shine a light in a more noble and civilized direction. Who do you trust, with what and WHY?

Unlike previous presidents and all of the other candidates, Mike Huckabee understands that there is something seriously amiss at the heart of American society, and he has the facility to make a case to the country. After over thirty years of a contrived state of “legal” abortion (legislatures make laws, not courts), America has the opportunity to chose a leader with the ability and the disposition to lead on this and other social problems like the complex, crooked, and unfair tax system. In 2008, it’s Mike Huckabee or business as usual.