Originally Posted by host

jorgelito, since you asked.... I thought the following opinions of David Sirota explained what might be happening with Huckabee's increasing popularity, and I already knew his take on Edwards.

Edwards is flawed in that his reputation is maligned because of his background as an "ambulance chasing" "trial lawyer", a vain, out of touch consumer of $400 haircuts, and a hypocrite because of his newly constructed $6 million, 28,000 square feet home and out buildings. The people who are put off by those things weren't planning to vote for him, anyway. In addition to his populist concerns, Edwards is against the war, apologized for voting for the Oct., 2002 authorization that gave Bush the authority to do what he thought was best, militarily, in Iraq, and he described the "War on terror" as a "bumper sticker" slogan. Edwards is not against women's right to choose, he isn't influenced by christian evangelicals, and he grew up in a southern middle middle class home. He's lost a teenage son to sudden accidental death.

No other candidate in either party brings all of that and also even has the slightest chance of winning their party's nomination. Huckabee is too tied to evangelical beliefs and politics and has political views that come with those ties. He has the problem of the convict he helped free from jail who subsequently killed again, and he inaccurately dodged responsibility for his role in that controversy. He would, unlike Ron Paul, continue to waste US soldiers and assets on the Bush war on terror, as would Hillary Clinton.

If Huckabee's populism could be combined with Ron Paul's military and foreign policy ideas, republicans would have a stronger candidate. If one can only vote for a republican, I guess Huckabee would be the choice because he has a chance to win the nomination, and Ron Paul would be the principled choice, if one can accept his criminalization of abortion and dis mantling of government regulatory oversight and enforcement, and his tax and "free market" capitalism that gives advantage to those already most advantaged.