What Huckabee's Victory Says

As any fellow traveler in the blogosphere can tell you, I am not any big fan of Governor Mike Huckabee. I am probably not going to vote for him in the primaries (if he is still in the running when the primaries make it to Iowa, which he probably won't be.) But I am still happy that he won last night.

This is because, if nothing else, it revealed the Ann Coulters, the Rush Limbaughs, the Pat Robertsons, the James Dobsons, the Phillis Shlaflys, the Clubs for Growth, the constructionists, the libertarians, to be the charlatans that they are. The old GOP alliance between evangelicals, tycoons and defense hawks is over (and it probably should never have existed to begin with.) Finally, a break in the coalition--and the break could not have occurred in a better location. Now, instead of the libertarians fleeing, leaving the social conservatives and neoconservatives on the same boat together, the social conservatives (if not their leadership) has jumped ship, leaving the remnants of the old coalition to face defeat next November.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be defeated by any means. I would rather someone like John McCain were in the White House by this time next year. But Huckabee's victory in Iowa sent out an important message to candidates: the old coalition is dead, and it is time for forwardness rather than backward thinking.