Huckabee’s Anachronistic Brand of Progressivism

Mike Huckabee doesn’t have a lot of prominent defenders, and I am not volunteering for the job. Huckabee has always struck me as a right-wing populist-progressive. A deeply religious — and by all accounts decent — man, Huckabee nonetheless has a view of the state that would have jibed almost perfectly with such forgotten titans of the Progressive Era as Richard Ely, Josephus Daniels, and even William Jennings Bryan.

Ely, a mentor to Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt and the founder of the “Wisconsin school” of progressivism, believed that “God works through the state in carrying out His purposes more universally than through any other institution.” It “is religious in its essence,” and “a mighty force in furthering God’s kingdom and establishing righteous relations.”

Daniels, Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of the Navy, was a devout Evangelical who banned alcohol (and condoms) from the service. At Daniels’ insistence, officers were forced to replace wine with coffee in the officers’ mess. They took to calling their replacement beverage “a cup of Josephus,” which was quickly shortened and immortalized to “a cup of Joe.” Daniels ordered that prostitutes be kept five miles from every port, and with the aid of a young assistant secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, oversaw a heavy-handed crackdown on homosexuality at the Naval Training Station in Newport, Rhode Island. Their tactics were so unseemly, Congress rebuked them both in 1919. Bryan, the dashboard saint of populists for the last century, largely for his assaults on monied elites and his opposition to World War I, had no problem imposing his values on others — at home and abroad. After Prohibition was passed, he proclaimed, “Our nation will be saloonless for evermore and will lead the world in the great crusade which will drive intoxicating liquor from the globe.”

Huckabee isn’t as severe as the progressives of yore, but the same impulses are there. When he was governor of Arkansas — and on a weight-loss kick — he wanted Arkansas schools to track the body-mass index of students. In 2007, he favored a national ban on smoking and argued that we have a Biblical duty to fight global warming. In 1992, he told the Associated Press, “I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public-health risk.”

It’s worth noting that the progressives of yesteryear Huckabee resembles were not “right-wing” back then. The original progressives, so beloved by contemporary liberals unburdened with historical knowledge of their forebears, were overwhelmingly religious (and quite often very, very racist). The main reason Huckabee is placed on the right side of the political spectrum today is that liberals have largely jettisoned the Christian rationalizations for government activism. But their pious faith in government activism itself remains intact. For liberals today, it is right and good to use the state to impose your values on others, but don’t you dare suggest that Jesus told you to ban smoking or cut down on sugary soft drinks. The new preachers in the pulpit are public-health activists and social-justice warriors imbued with religious fervor sans religion.

In the 1990s, Hillary Clinton famously pushed for a “politics of meaning” that she hoped would “remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being in the 20th century, moving into a new millennium.” Barack Obama has defined sin as “being out of alignment with my values.”

Against this backdrop, Huckabee is an anachronism — again, not for his statist meliorism, but for his openly religious motivations. And while I have as little use for a nanny state anointed by Jesus as I do for a nanny state anointed by bureaucrats, Huckabee has more of my sympathy. He can at least point to something outside and better than himself — i.e., God — as his lodestar. He can also invoke traditions grounded in how people want to live. The meddling busybodies of the left only have their own innate sense of superiority to guide them. Huckabee recently earned a lot of criticism for denouncing the “false god of judicial supremacy” in the context of the Supreme Court’s ever-growing role as the all-wise shepherd of our society. His grasp of the legal niceties no doubt leaves something to be desired. But he has a point. I certainly don’t want robed priests dictating how America should define life, death, and everything in between (including marriage), but I’m at a loss as to why having robed lawyers (i.e., judges) make such decisions is such an obvious improvement.

Again: Before I post a thread I search that title. I cannot search alternative titles because I’m not a “mind reader” and my crystal ball is in the shop. The fact that this article was under another title somewhere has nothing to do with me. Now do you understand?

I like Huckabee. I do not think he is ready to be Pres. He is not a progressive. He has ticked a few groups off.

He may not be a progressive on social issues, but he certainly is not a fiscal conservative:

Huckabee: The Biggest Big-Government Conservative

If you liked George W. Bush’s brand of big-spending, big-government conservatism, you’ll love Mike Huckabee.

Most of the leading Republicans running for president show some support for Bush’s ideology, but no other candidate so completely embodies it.

As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee dramatically increased state spending. During his two-term tenure, spending increased by more than 65 percent — at three times the rate of inflation.

The number of government workers increased by 20 percent, and the state’s debt services increased by nearly $1 billion. Huckabee financed his spending binge with higher taxes. Under his leadership, the average Arkansan’s tax burden increased 47 percent, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, including increases in the state’s gas, sales, income, and cigarette taxes. He raised taxes on everything from groceries to nursing home beds.

Huckabee answers these complaints by pointing out that he “cut taxes 94 times” while governor. True. But most of those tax cuts were tiny, like exempting residential lawn care from the sales tax. Some cuts reduced overall state revenues by as little as $15,000. On net, Huckabee increased state taxes by more than $500 million. In fact, Huckabee increased taxes in the state by more than Bill Clinton did.

“He truly appears to believe that if something is a good idea it should be a federal government program.”

On its annual governor’s report card, Cato gave Huckabee an “F” for fiscal policy during his final term, and an overall two-term grade of “D.” Only four governors had worse scores, and 15 Democratic governors got higher grades, including well-known liberals like Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, and Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania.

But Huckabee doesn’t just embrace big government in the form of big taxes. He truly appears to believe that if something is a good idea it should be a federal government program.

For example, having become health conscious while losing more than 120 pounds (a remarkable feat), he now calls for a national smoking ban. Because he believes that “art and music are as important as math and science” in public schools, he wants these programs funded — and thus, directed and administered — federally.

Huckabee is, incidentally, the only Republican candidate for president who opposes school choice.

Huckabee has called for increased federal spending on a variety of programs from infrastructure to health care. He wants more energy subsidies, including, naturally, more subsidies for ethanol. In fact, he supports increased agricultural subsidies generally. He is the only Republican candidate who opposes President Bush’s veto of the Democrats’ proposed expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and he is skeptical of most conservative proposals for entitlement reform.

Calling himself “a different kind of Republican,” Huckabee often appears to be channeling John Edwards or Lou Dobbs. He rails against high corporate profits and attacks free trade agreements. As governor, he raised the minimum wage and increased business regulation. He says it is “a biblical duty” to pass more regulation to fight global warming.

Perhaps Huckabee’s only claim on conservative credentials is that as a former Baptist minister, he is more anti-abortion and anti-gay than the other candidates. In many ways, he has been running an overtly religion-based campaign. But even here, his preference is to increase and centralize federal government power. Unlike Fred Thompson, John McCain, or Ron Paul, Huckabee rejects federalist solutions to these issues and would have the federal government overrule state abortion and marriage laws.

Under the Bush administration, the Republican Party has increasingly drifted away from its limited government roots. It has come to be dominated by a new breed of conservatives who believe in increasing the size, cost and power of government to achieve “conservative ends,” even if that means limiting personal freedom in the process. Bush has brought us No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and a 23-percent increase in domestic discretionary spending, and Huckabee’s been right there with him.

On election night in 2006, 55 percent of voters leaving the polls said they believed the Republican Party had become the party of big government. Mike Huckabee is doing his best to convert the other 45.

Are all your links are CATO?

Aren’t they the followers of Ayn Rand who said:

I am done with the monster of “we,” the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: “I.”

Lucifer said:
Isaiah 14:14
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Aren’t they the followers of Ayn Rand who said:

Donna, I deal with facts and I am a Chrisitan CONSERVATIVE, not a Christian who thinks it is OK, like Huckabee, to use the Government (and the US Taxpayer monies) to force my idea of what a fair society is.

Do I agree with Ayn Rand's athiestic positions, NO.

Do I agree that the Government should be used, like Huckabee does, as a tool to make a fair society?

Absolutely not!

Neither did the founders.

They believed that government was inherently evil and they did everything in their power to reign in it's powers and to decrease it's size.

They were not about equal outcomes or fairness in that regards. But they were all about protecting the rights of individuals and guaranteeing, as much as possible, equal opportunity.

No, it doesn’t. It says that Huck is a rare bird these days, being both strongly Christian in political positions AND a progressive.

Early progressives were much more likely to combine the two, but you don’t see it much these days.

(I’d argue that Santorum is someone in the same general line.)

That’s not ignoring the founders or the Christian underpinnings to the country’s origins at all.

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