Huckabee’s exit widens an already open field

Mike Huckabee

BRADLEY KLAPPER

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Mike Huckabee’s deci­sion to forgo a shot at the U.S. pres­i­dency fur­ther mud­dies the field for a wor­thy Repub­li­can chal­lenger to Pres­i­dent Barack Obama, and leaves America’s social con­ser­v­a­tives with­out a clear can­di­date to throw their sup­port behind.

Huck­abee on Sat­ur­day night became the lat­est Repub­li­can to opt out of run­ning, declar­ing that he would stick with his lucra­tive career as a tele­vi­sion and radio per­son­al­ity over a race that promises to be both costly and caus­tic. By join­ing Mis­sis­sippi Gov. Haley Bar­bour, South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Indi­ana Rep. Mike Pence on the side­lines, the for­mer Arkansas gov­er­nor under­lined that for all of Obama’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties on the econ­omy, tak­ing on his re-election machine and poten­tial $1 bil­lion trea­sure chest remains a daunt­ing task.

The 55-year-old Bap­tist min­is­ter, who won sev­eral state Repub­li­can pri­maries and cau­cuses in an unsuc­cess­ful 2008 pres­i­den­tial bid, insisted that he could have cap­tured the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion, cit­ing polls that showed he could score strong even in the North­east and among the less con­ser­v­a­tive rank-and-file party mem­bers. “All the fac­tors say go, but my heart says no,” Huck­abee, the win­ner of the 2008 Iowa cau­cuses, said on his Fox News Chan­nel show.

“All the fac­tors say go, but my heart says no,” Huck­abee said Sat­ur­day night on his Fox News Chan­nel show. He described the deci­sion as a spir­i­tual one.

“Only when I was alone, in quiet and reflec­tive moments, did I have not only clar­ity but an inex­plic­a­ble inner peace,” he said. “Being pres­i­dent is a job that takes one to the limit of his or her human capac­ity. For me, to do it apart from the inner con­fi­dence that I was under­tak­ing it with­out God’s full bless­ing is sim­ply unthinkable.”

The announce­ment makes an already wide-open Repub­li­can field even more unpredictable.

Huck­abee is a promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive who would have been a seri­ous con­tender for the party nod with instant sup­port among Chris­t­ian evan­gel­i­cals who dom­i­nate the Iowa cau­cuses and the early South Car­olina pri­mary. And with him out of the race, there is no clear can­di­date out there to for them to rally around.

One­time House Speaker Newt Gin­grich has been mak­ing a con­certed effort to reach out to the right. Although he’s been not­ing his recent con­ver­sion to Catholi­cism, he’s ham­pered by two divorces and an adul­ter­ous his­tory. For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney must explain his change of heart over the years on posi­tions on guns, gay rights and abor­tion; health care also is a prob­lem for him. Minnesota’s ex-governor, Tim Paw­lenty, has had to apol­o­gize for back­ing cli­mate change leg­is­la­tion. Don­ald Trump? Highly unlikely.

With so many social con­ser­v­a­tives look­ing for a home, the void could prompt 2008 vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Sarah Palin or Min­nesota Rep. Michele Bach­mann to get in the race. Palin has yet to say if she will run, while Bach­mann is inch­ing toward a bid. Sev­eral other pos­si­ble can­di­dates, includ­ing Indi­ana Gov. Mitch Daniels, are in wait­ing mode.

The lack of a clear Repub­li­can fron­trun­ner reflects Obama’s per­ceived strength as a can­di­date less than a year-and-a-half before the elec­tion. Despite uneven eco­nomic growth and con­tin­ued slug­gish­ness in the employ­ment mar­ket, Obama will have the advan­tage of being an incum­bent pres­i­dent with a seem­ingly unmatch­able capac­ity to gen­er­ate cash for his cam­paign. And while events could change dra­mat­i­cally between now and the pres­i­den­tial vote, polls show Obama in a stronger posi­tion now than he was before the mis­sion that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Repub­li­can can­di­dates were quick to praise Huck­abee after his announce­ment, mak­ing obvi­ous plays for his backers.

“His vot­ers are very inde­pen­dent and they’re going to go where they believe that Amer­ica needs to go both in con­ser­v­a­tive and spir­i­tual val­ues,” Gin­grich said Sun­day on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ”Gov. Huckabee’s is going to remain a very impor­tant fig­ure in the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment and I sus­pect that he’s going to have a role to play for years to come.”

Paw­lenty said he’d work hard to gain the sup­port of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans who have backed Huck­abee, while for­mer Penn­syl­va­nia Sen. Rick San­to­rum praised the TV host for pray­ing before decid­ing not to run. San­to­rum added that he wanted to talk with Huck­abee about fight­ing for tra­di­tional val­ues even as some Repub­li­cans “seek to form a ‘truce’ on social issues.”

That was a slap at Daniels, who is con­sid­er­ing a run and has sug­gested that Repub­li­cans down­play their focus on cul­tural issues like abor­tion while the nation’s econ­omy is so fragile.

Huck­abee praised sev­eral poten­tial Repub­li­can nom­i­nees who, he said, hold points of view sim­i­lar to his own. A notable omis­sion from the list: Romney.

“There has been a lot of talk about Mitt Rom­ney and me. And we don’t social­ize together. We’re not close, you know, in per­sonal ways,” Huck­abee said on “Fox News Sun­day.” ”But I want to make it very clear today, if Mitt Rom­ney is the nom­i­nee for our party, I will sup­port him because I believe that Mitt Rom­ney would be a bet­ter pres­i­dent of the United States than Barack Obama on any day.”

Had he cho­sen to run, Huck­abee would have been forced to give up the lucra­tive media career he’s enjoyed since his unsuc­cess­ful pres­i­den­tial bid four years ago. In addi­tion to his TV show, he hosts a nation­ally syn­di­cated radio pro­gram, gives paid speeches around the coun­try and has even launched a series of ani­mated videos for chil­dren on Amer­i­can history.

“I just some­how believe deep within me that it wasn’t the right time and it wasn’t to be,” he told “Fox News Sun­day” while revis­it­ing the decision.

The for­mer gov­er­nor said that rais­ing the nec­es­sary cash to run for pres­i­dent wasn’t an issue in his deci­sion, though it may play a major part for oth­ers. One can­di­date who wouldn’t have that prob­lem is Trump, the bil­lion­aire real estate tycoon and real­ity TV star who’s been toy­ing with the idea of a Repub­li­can run.

“Mike, enjoy the show,” Trump said in an on-air mes­sage on Fox, directly after Huckabee’s announce­ment. “Your rat­ings are ter­rific. You’re mak­ing a lot of money. You’re build­ing a beau­ti­ful house in Florida. Good luck.”

Posted by AP News on May 15 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.