Romney vs. Huckabee

Mike Huckabee, I think, took a shot at former governor Mitt Romney with a line that should be a classic if it isn't already:

"I grew up in a family where 'summer' was never a verb."

This is true. Using the word 'summer' as a verb is a privilege of only the upper-class bourgeoisie. His wit aside, I can't imagine that Mike Huckabee would be a good presidential candidate. That being said, I am pretty sure that he is better than Giuliani and Thompson and I haven't decided whether or not he would be better than Mr. Romney. (My faith in Sen. McCain as an ideal candidate has not flagged.)

Since the order runs something like this (McCain, Huckabee/Romney, Giuliani, Thompson) from best to worst, I think that I should explicate on why I don't go ahead and support Romney over Huckabee. After all, he has more experience, doesn't he? Well, maybe. We ought to look at their tenures as governor to figure out the answer to this question.

Both have attacked one another as fiscally undisciplined tax-hikers (in other words, Democrats in Republicans' clothing.) From their records, I would say that this is true in both cases. Taxes rose under the governorships of Mr. Romney and Mr. Huckabee, although they rose to significantly higher levels in Mr. Huckabee's Arkansas than they did in Mr. Romney's Massachusetts. But the charge that Mr. Huckabee's governorship had a deleterious effect on the economy (the reason that tax-cut fundamentalists always give for cutting taxes further) is unfair, given that the growth of Arkansas economy was slightly higher (albeit by about 0.2%) during his time in office than was the national average.

That being said, I am not a fervent believer in the belief of certain Republican fundamentalists that the only good tax is a cut tax. There are times to cut taxes and times to raise them. And, from this point of view, both governors may have been right to raise taxes when their states were deeply in debt and on the verge of introducing brand new, government-sponsored social programs. (Both states implemented health-care programs under the two governors' tenures and Mr. Huckabee also created a state park system in Arkansas.) From this standpoint, both of them appear to have been fairly successful. Messr. Romney and Huckabee left behind surpluses when they moved out of their governors' mansions.

If we consider their governorships in terms of popularity, Mr. Huckabee is clearly the winner. Both men served in highly Democratic states, but Mr. Huckabee managed to be reelected to office twice, whereas if Mr. Romney had run against Deval Patrick in 2006 he would almost certainly have lost (his approval rating was around 43%.)

On foreign policy, Mr. Romney is certainly more informed the Mr. Huckabee. Mr. Huckabee has a tendency to sound like a buffoon: "I don't think America should import our food from China, our oil from the Middle East and our weapons from . . ." (I forget the place he names.) Like Rich Lowry said, there is so much foolishness in that statement. But Mr. Huckabee has also made some observations that any buffoon would know but, somehow, the Republicans have failed to figure out. For one thing, he suggested that he supported resuming diplomatic talks with Iran before it was popular in the Republican field. Such statements, though, are more exception than rule with him. By this point, when asked about foreign policy, he more or less ignores it, saying more simply that we ought to be nicer to other countries if we want to be more popular in the world (we might have tea some time.)

Between the two of them, Mr. Romney seems to be the more adaptable candidate. The one who would be the most studious for on-the-job training. In short, there is no clear way to choose between the two of them, and I am convinced that we have a really bad Republican field this year (with the exception of Sen. McCain, of course.)