Is Huckabee the next Reagan?

The strange bitterness of the Thompson vs. Huckabee fight is a reminder that the Republican Party is far more philosophically diverse than the Democratic alternative. Huckabee is loathed by conservatives of a more libertarian, anti-state hue. They suspect that he is a big-government conservative. By that they mean a ruthless populist who will spend money to buy votes while keeping die-hard conservatives on board with appeals to religious prejudice.

A more generous interpretation is that Huckabee was a Republican elected to office in a traditionally Democratic state (Arkansas) which also had a serious poverty problem. He eschewed low-tax, anti-government rhetoric in favor of spending money in the interests of the common good — a cautious, rational position that is widely regarded as philosophically conservative everywhere but at the wealthy think tanks of Washington.

The libertarian Reason magazine provides a list of Huckabee quotes intended to damn him, including one in which he describes their anti-tax agenda as “a heartless, callous, soulless type of economic conservatism because it says ‘look, we want to cut taxes and eliminate government. If it means that elderly people don’t get their Medicare drugs, so be it. If it means little kids go without education and healthcare, so be it.’ Well, that might be a quote pure economic conservative message, but it’s not an American message. … That’s not historic Republicanism. Historic Republicanism does not hate government; it’s just there to be as little of it as there can be.”