Huckering down

Here's an interesting article from The Weekly Standard about Mike Huckabee's (seemingly) increasing populist rhetoric on the stump.

Some of the rhetoric rubs me the wrong way, but I think it matters that he is making the comments in response to an onslaught of recent "vetting" from Romney and others. Getting called "Huckster" or a "Pro-Life Liberal" starts to get on your nerves after a while I'd guess.

But it reminded me of a recent article in National Review about the GOP's apparent challenge in 2008. Lowry and Ponnuru assert that the GOP seems to be answering questions noone is asking and needs to apply Conservative principles to existing problems and existing "realities." I use the quotation marks because political "realities" (despite the meaning of the word) are rather subjective and often used to rationalize departing from orthodoxies.

The Lowry/Ponnuru article didn't resonate at first, but I can see how--and perhaps why, Huckabee's campaign is striking a chord with voters . . . even though it isn't striking a chord with me in those particular aspects.

For three decades, the Republican party has absorbed increasing numbers of socially conservative working-class and middle-class voters while losing affluent social liberals — until the 2006 elections, in which Republican totals fell among every category of voter except for full-spectrum conservatives. The most plausible path toward a renewed center-right majority involves consolidating and deepening the trend of the decades before 2006: holding on to as much of the existing conservative coalition as possible while adding more downscale voters who lean right on social issues.

That task will force conservatives to explain how free-market policies can address the economic anxieties of this group of voters. We don’t have to support “universal coverage” on health care. But we ought to talk more about health care than about the budget; and when we talk about health care, we should explain how Republican policies will help people keep and control their own health care. We don’t have to abandon attempts to reform the tax code and to drop the top tax rate. But we should put much more effort into providing tax relief for middle-class parents. We don’t have to open the borders. But we should make it clear that our immigration policy isn’t based on anger. We don’t have to give up on the idea that sometimes the U.S. must fight wars, even going it alone; but we need to persuade people that we see unilateral military action as a last resort — that we’re not spoiling for a fight.