One who is getting good buzz as he makes the rounds of activists is retiring Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister regarded as one of the nation’s most successful Governors. “At this point, if there is a candidate out there that has a chance to come out of the weeds as the dark horse, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was Governor Huckabee,” says Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s policy arm. Huckabee says he senses that conservatives feel “a need to coalesce around a person whose record matches his rhetoric.”

Time CNN

I thought this was an interesting article being that Huckabee doesn’t seem to have gotten much attention. At this point, limited government conservatives don’t have much of a choice in the Presidential election of 2008, though the verdict is still out on Romney in my book. It seems very likely that Brownback will make a go, but I don’t think he’ll be very successful, so someone like Huckabee could certainly emerge over the others being that more conservative Republicans make up about 1/3 of the party.

I don’t know much about Huckabee, but I have heard some criticisms from others regarding his positions on the issues as Arkansas governor. I did some digging around and I have found him to be a bag of mixed goods.

What I like:

He believes that states should independently determine estate taxes, not the Federal Government, and no Federal taxes should be implemented without consulation of the state governments.

Strongly supports the Second Amendment

Opposed to socialized healthcare. “Not a responsibility of government”

Opposes the Kyoto Treaty

Supports creation of charter school and did so as governor

Wants tougher juvenile crime penalties

Eliminate public funding for abortion

What I don’t like:

He’s a welfare supporter, favoring maintaining the Federal Social Services Block Grant funding and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families

He supports an Internet sales tax.

He opposes using a national sales tax to replace the Federal Income Tax on the basis that an NST would intrude on the ability of state and local governments to fund themselves.

Supports continuing the Social Security and Medicare programs.

Wants teachers’ salaries raised

More Federal funding for “War of Drugs”

I’ll certainly choose him over McCain and Rudy, but I still think we can do better. I don’t know that he would necessarily be a slam dunk for conservatives, except perhaps for the religious conservatives. They could be taken in by him being a Baptist minister. The religious right has a tendency to be lambs to the slaughter. After all, Dubya fooled them twice and Huckabee kind of sounds like another Dubya to me.