Watching Mike Huckabee before the State of the Union address, I realized that most all politicians are doomed.As a Republican party hopeful for President, Huckabee was noteable for numerous reasons - his Southern Baptist roots, his guitar playing, the fact he was Governor of Arkansas like Clinton. But he didn't seem to get any real attention until he started playing the populist card of Free Trade = Bad Trade. His rallies against Free Trade and support of American populism allowed him to be brought into the forefront.
He claimed the leadership of this issue to allow himself to get noticed. This is not a new strategy. McCarthy used the Red Scare to take him from obscurity to notoriety. There is a downside to this strategy
The greater you use this issue to get noticed the more it will come to doom and haunt you. It happened tonight on TV with Huckabee. While being interviewed before the State of the Union address, he started backtracking on his positions. He said he was never totally against Free trade but wanted Fair trade. As the interview ended, I think I heard the first nail be hammered into the coffin.
This issue was bound to doom him; he was on the wrong side from the beginning and his ideas were too radical to be taken seriously. But these radical ideas got him noticed in the first place. He found a populist issue that got him noticed, ran with it, and it will ultimately doom him by being too radical and impractical. Without this issue, he is a guitar playing, Southern Baptist, Governor - another name on the list of also rans who wanted to be President but could not do it.
Let this be a warning to everyone eyeing 2012. Substance counts.
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