The Republican Party is a coalition of various factions. There's the libertarians, the Federalists, the free-enterprisers, the Constitutionalists, the supporters of self-defense rights, and last but not least, the Social Conservatives/Christians/Evangelicals. Many people are simultaneously members of two or more factions. Broadly speaking, the factions can be abstracted into two: Anti-socialists and Social Conservatives.
A socially liberal GOP Presidential nominee who favors abortion-oon-demand and gay marriage would so alienate the social conservatives that they would at best stay home on election day. A more likely result would be the destruction of the Republican Party as we know it (think of the Whigs in 1860.)
A socialist GOP Presidential nominee who favors progressive tax and spending policies would so alienate the anti-socialists that they would at best stay home on election day. A more likely result would be the destruction of the Republican Party as we know it (think of the Whigs in 1860.)
Mike Huckabee is a socialist. So he is anathema to the anti-socialist factions of the GOP. If he becomes the GOP nominee, the GOP coalition disintegrates. It's that simple.
It was that way when he became governor. It stayed that way while he was governor. It's still that way and he's not governor any longer.
The state of Arkansas is "business friendly" and America's greatest retail chain, Wal-Mart, operates out of the place.
It is, by all accounts, a not too terrible place to live.
On the other hand, they've been prospering right along with the rest of America, business and individual income has grown, and total tax revenues have increased without much change in the percentage of tax load.
The evidence that The Huck is a Socialist is thin gruel ladeled out by Massachusetts apparatchiks.