I know that a Mike Huckabee Republican nomination is a long shot despite his big win in Iowa last week, but nobody else in the GOP field worries me as much.  The man is just too likeable.  The popular meme around George Bush in 2000 was that he was someone you'd want to have a beer with.  I never bought into that because I find Bush's personality arrogant and irritating.  But Huckabee is someone I'd want to have over for Thanksgiving dinner.  As Ezra Klein put it, I'd vote for him for neighbor, maybe even for friend.  Every time I see him in an interview or giving a speech to a national audience, I have to consciously remind myself that he's wrong on almost every single issue I care about.  He's anti choice, pro death penalty, anti gay rights, and he believes the Earth is 6000 years old and rejects most of modern science.  Not to mention the fact that he advocates dismantling the IRS and his immigration rhetoric is xenophobic and crazy.  He's a kook, but he's so gosh darn nice (he makes me not want to curse out of respect)!

On the radio show on Sunday Steve and I likened Huckabee to that crazy right wing relative that we all have and adore so much, but who you realize is nuts the minute you start talking politics.  He's our "Uncle Mike."  Oh that's just crazy Uncle Mike...

I'm getting the feeling that nobody will be able to stop an Obama juggernaut of charisma to the White House, but of all the GOP candidates, Huckabee can almost give O a run for his money in that department.  As breathtaking and inspiring as Obama's Iowa victory speech was, Huckabee's was it's soft spoken, intimate equal.  Huckabee's rhetoric about inclusiveness sounds to me just as sincere as Obama's, and if I am almost fooled by his tone, even knowing how awful he is on the issues, just imagine how someone less engaged will respond to all that likability.

My boss and I were talking about this recently and he told me that a friend of his was defending Huckabee the other day, insisting that he was pro-choice and basically liberal on social issues.  My boss challenged his friend, knowing he was dead wrong on this, and came to find out his friend's only exposure to Huckabee has been his appearances on The Daily Show.  He'd just assumed that Huckabee was good on social issues because he was so affable and good natured and because Stewart seemed to like him so much.  My boss' friend actually thought he remembered them talking about social issues on the show -- he'd retroactively inserted a whole conversation based upon the warm friendly feeling he got from Huckabee in the interview.  That's scary -- next President scary.

We'll see what happens in South Carolina...