What does Huckabee do now?
With Mike Huckabee and John McCain the only men left standing in the Republican race, Huckabee faces a dilemma. Up to now, Huckabee has been nothing but respectful of McCain; hence all the talk that he is running to be McCain’s VP. But in this new landscape, Huckabee’s best chance of getting on the ticket is to win a bunch of the upcoming contests so that McCain can be prodded into picking him on a unity ticket. The only way he can hope to win in these places is to do some contrast but doing that could alienate the notoriously prickly McCain and cost him a shot at the VP slot. Huckabee has to decide whether he is certain enough in his ability to win, and wants it enough, to go negative on McCain.
The other problem for Huckabee is that he deviates even more than McCain from Republican orthodoxy—he actually raised taxes as governor of Arkansas. On McCain’s biggest weakness with the Republican base—immigration—Huckabee was himself close to McCain’s position until very recently.
My hunch is that Huckabee will stay positive and try and charm his way onto the ticket. Huckabee has two great advantages as a possible VP pick. He would turn out evangelical voters in huge numbers, something that McCain is ill equipped to do. He is also able to attack with wit and without seeming mean—a crucial quality in a VP considering that the Republicans will be running against either a black man or a woman and appearing nasty would be politically toxic to the party’s chances. However, Huckabee also has two great weaknesses. First of all, the party establishment will not be happy with the idea of Huckabee—with all his ideological quirks—as the heir apparent. Secondly, he lacks credibility on national security—a serious problem given that McCain’s age and health problems are going to lead to a bunch of heart beat away from the presidency questions. This last point will likely be a deal breaker. Indeed, it seems most likely that McCain will go the Clinton-Gore route and choose to double down by picking a fellow national security expert as his VP.