The Best Arkansas Has to Offer

Arkansas reporter John Brumlett has an interesting juxtaposition of two politicians from Hope, AR - Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee. After detailing his experience with out-of-state reporters in 1992 he tells of his current experiences with the reporters asking about Huckabee:

Now they're starting to come around asking about Mike Huckabee, also of our little town called Hope, our former Republican governor of 10 years. He's a glib Baptist preacher who, because of dissatisfaction with others in the field, is catching a bit of fire as a candidate for president himself.

It now appears that Huckabee might get up to second or even first in Iowa, and then, if Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney or John McCain or Fred Thompson can't catch on, who knows?

They're telling me that Huckabee is by far the best speaker in the field, the most likable, the best campaigner and a candidate with an intriguing philosophical dexterity that positions him to appeal simultaneously to the evangelical right and the center.

So I tell them that this same Huckabee has a history of ethical shortcomings, taking outside money for speeches from anonymous benefactors and accepting numerous and expensive gifts while in office. I tell them that this same Huckabee was given as governor to lofty rhetoric but not the essential hard work of policy detail. I relate that this same Huckabee can be petulant, huffy and irresponsibly hyperbolic against critics.

They nod and take notes and say I ought to talk to people in New York about Giuliani's ethics or to people in Arizona about McCain's temper. If I want to know about rhetoric not matching reality, they say, then I should talk to people in Massachusetts about the ever-evolving Romney.

After all, they tell me, Ronald Reagan wasn't all that much for policy detail.

Are they trying to tell me that Huckabee is the best the Republicans have to offer?

Not yet. But they're warming up.

He also adds a note or two about Hillary. Read the whole thing.