Below The Beltway

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The Huckster Is Back

by Doug Mataconis @ 5:07 pm on November 17, 2008.

Back during the Republican primary, I was fairly hard on Mike Huckabee, and deservedly so. Though he campaigned as a small-government conservative it was fairly clear that he was anything but. For example, during his time as Governor of Arkansas he practically begged the state legislature to send him a bill raising taxes to sign. And, as his campaign took off, he became a fairly cynical flip-flopper.

Then there was the religion.

At times, his ads contained rather blatant appeals to religious conservatives, and even his Christmas ad caused controversy. As the campaign went on and he battled Mitt Romney for the support of conservatives, there seemed to be a not-too-subtle theme anti-Mormon bigotry emerging from Team Huckabee (see here and here). He even told religious conservatives that his campaign was nothing less than an effort to take over the GOP for the Religious Right, a fact which made the rest of the GOP rather nervous about the former Governor.

Then, Huckabee said through a spokesman and on his own that the greatest threat to the Republican Party came from libertarian Republicans.

Well, now he’s coming out with a book, and as David Weigel notes, he’s still gunning for the libertarians wing of the GOP:

The real threat to the Republican Party is something we saw a lot of this past election cycle: libertarianism masked as conservatism. And it threatens to not only split the Republican Party, but render it as irrelevant as the Whig Party.

Much of Huckabee’s ire is directed at the Club for Growth, which did a great job during the months leading up to the start of the primaries pointing out the truth about his economic record, a campaign which was arguably responsible for the fact that he was never able to gain support among conservatives outside of his religious base.

Apparently, he’s decided that the best way to prepare for 2012 is to piss them off in advance.

Don’t worry Tax Hike Mike, we’ll be waiting for you.