Mike Huckabee stands no chance of being elected president of a country in which six out of 10 people are OK with gay marriage. Many are too liberal now to vote for him. Many others who are conservative enough to support him realize he's not the best candidate for these times.
Still, our former governor's campaign isn't the cynical grab for enhanced celebrity and marketability it's sometimes portrayed to be. He's a preacher. There's nothing he and his followers would love more than to lead a revival. They believe in miracles. More than that, they have faith. Therefore, they believe they must try whether they succeed or not.
It will be interesting to see how many GOP primary voters nationwide still believe in miracles. I don't think there are many left.
Remember the night the 2012 presidential election results came in. The faces in the crowd at the GOP watch party at the Embassy Suites in Rogers wore the same expression as nominee Mitt Romney's did: stunned disbelief. They had all perceived President Barack Obama as so utterly awful, they simply could not credit the idea he could possibly be re-elected. They tried to blame their candidate, but that didn't stick.
That was the cold, hard reality check Republicans should have felt in 2006 or 2008. That night in 2012 was the one in which everyone but the most devout realized that the great conservative counter-revolution wasn't just around the corner. There's no clear consensus in this country. The future is up for grabs.
And Hillary Clinton is trying to grab it. Republicans know there's a chance she will.
Therefore, Republicans now possess the single most important advantage in any contest, from war to business to political campaigns, football games, volleyball matches or rival courtship. They no longer underestimate their opponent's chances. Now they know they can lose the upcoming election.
Related to that, it's beginning to dawn on conservatives -- and should dawn on the liberals who don't like Clinton -- that there's no convenient career-ending scandal on Hillary's horizon. The latest "scandal" drove her approval ratings up, polls now show.
Too much is at stake to let bias, sentiment or inertia make GOP choices now. This steely-eyed realism is why Jeb Bush's campaign so far has been greeted with what can charitably be described as a lack of enthusiasm.
If the 2016 election comes down to a "Rocky V"-like rematch between the Clintons and the Bushes, the Bushes will lose. Clinton is running as the "buyer's remorse" candidate, the one the Democrats should have picked in 2008. Her support within her own party is overwhelming, both by donors and voters. Jeb Bush's level of support within the party, meanwhile, is great among donors and terrible among voters.
The donors seem to want to recoup their lost investment in George W. -- and for that matter, his one-term father. The GOP rank and file know better. They aren't buying it. Jeb Bush's poll numbers show he still wears the chains his brother forged in life, link by link and yard by yard.
The promising start shown so far by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., surprises me. I thought he was toast after showing a moderate approach to immigration not so long ago. If he continues to do well, then Republican primary voters are even more anxious about their chances than I think they are. Perhaps they're more worried than they should be.
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is also doing extremely well, helped slightly by some seriously misguided attempts by enemies to derail him with "scandals" that didn't pan out. That's about the only thing he and Clinton have in common.
The Republican dilemma is that they're between generations. The flood of their governors and congressmen elected in 2010, 2012 and 2014 aren't seasoned yet. There's surely great talent in there somewhere, but the leaders haven't emerged. Older Republicans, meanwhile, are either too tied to the failures of George W. or came of age during the great conservative backlash of rage against Obama, making them are too radical for an electorate that just wants peace and prosperity.
Republican voters are in the right frame of mind to make a good choice, but it's going to be a difficult one. Republicans need to take their time. People will try to rush them into a decision, claiming Hillary's getting a head start. She isn't. She's a known quantity. There's time.
Commentary on 05/09/2015