Don't underestimate him. He can't win the nomination, but he has LOTS of social conservatives that love him. He can get a really big chunk of so-con support in the primaries, which may have the effect of splitting conservatives enough to allow another moderate to win the nomination. Don't forget, Huckabee continued supporting Akin long after it was obvious he couldn't beat Claire. There are a lot of social conservatives that refused to believe Akin couldn't win in Missouri. Those are the same demographic that will enthusiastically support Huckabee nationwide.
I'm both a socon and supported Akin. And I wouldn't vote for Mike Huckabee for dog catcher.
I’m one of those “so-cons” you refer to and Huckabuck has NO chance of getting my vote.
The huckster has his cult followers. I know of no one in history that left in the middle of a campaign to go to the Cayman islands...for a book signing and speech(?). Said he needed the money...while his wifey was flying back and forth on a private jet to Vegas....
Id say he rated between Clinton and obama.....
I'm one of those social conservatives who supported Huckabee in 2008 and Santorum in 2012.
I'm not denying that Huckabee has problems. Same for Santorum. If you can find a better social conservative candidate, I'll listen. But if your goal is a perfect candidate, I think we'll find the only perfect candidate died on a cross two thousand years ago, and even He doesn't qualify because He wasn't a natural born citizen of the United States. Anyway, the King of kings and Lord of lords isn't interested in being demoted to a mere presidency.
Let's get things clear up front: we all know the Republican Party is a three-legged stool of economic conservatives, national defense conservatives, and social conservatives. I happen to support all three legs of that stool and I'll vote for someone whose passion is economic or military conservatism as long as they're not in support of abortion, homosexuality, and some other key culture-destroying forms of wickedness.
But if we're going to win as conservatives in 2016, we need **ALL THREE WINGS** of the conservative movement. Don't tell social conservatives to go to the back of the bus — we're just as conservative as the rest of you, and I'd argue that ethnic white Catholic voters, southern rural voters, and practicing Hispanic Roman Catholic voters are key groups which can be pried away from the Democratic Party **ONLY** by social conservative candidates.
Criticize Huckabee for his failings. Same for Santorum. But don't argue that social conservatives have no place in the Republican Party, or that we can't win elections. On the contrary, I think consistent social conservative candidates may be some of the very few people who have a realistic chance at getting non-Republicans to vote Republican.