Gov. Mike Huckabee appeared on the Laura Ingraham Show today, and Laura grilled him on the issues. She asked him about education (he’s won the NEA’s endorsement in New Hampshire), the “Jesus and the Devil are brothers” line (for which he has apologized), illegal immigration, and why the right’s pundits are not flocking to support him as his poll numbers have improved.

He’ll score some points for advocating Compean and Ramos’ pardon. He’ll lose some points nearly everywhere else, especially for dodging a direct question on matricula consular cards.

One answer of Huckabee’s bears immediate debunking. Gov. Huckabee explains his lack of support among the commentariat by his being an “outsider,” and goes farther, arguing that when Ronald Reagan ran for president in 1980 the commentariat was scared of him taking the presidency because he had no foreign policy experience. You’ll hear Huckabee use this line about a minute into this clip. But there’s a glaring problem with that analysis: Beginning in the 1940s and 50s, Reagan spent a great deal of time thinking, writing, speaking and strategizing about the Soviet threat. Communism was the foremost issue on Reagan’s mind for several decades. By the time he ran in 1980 (his second run for the presidency, having been defeated for the GOP nomination by President Ford in 1976), Reagan had delivered hundreds of speeches on the subject. He therefore had a very long and very deep paper trail on foreign policy. When Reagan won in 1980, he entered office with a well-developed strategy for defeating the USSR, and implemented that strategy in spite of enormous opposition from the Democrats and the media. Huckabee’s foreign policy experience thus far amounts to not knowing anything about Cuba and taking the left’s line on closing Guantanamo. For him to bring up Reagan as an example to help himself is nearly appalling. There is no comparison at all between Huckabee’s foreign policy acumen and Reagan’s as the Gipper ran for the presidency.

More: Peter Schweizer’s Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism is a great resource on Ronald Reagan’s nearly lifelong battle to defeat Communism. I can think of one person who would benefit from reading it.