The political media were fairly breathless this week about a Republican fundraising dinner held in Washington and whether Sarah Palin would show up or not. Would the Alaska governor upstage keynote speaker Newt Gingrich? Would she be allowed to speak? Would she see Mitt Romney from her kitchen window?

While this American Idol-esque silliness was going on, Mike Huckabee was in Iowa -- his third trip to the Hawkeye State since he won the presidential caucuses there last year.

A visit to Iowa obviously has implications for 2012, but Mike Memoli, writing in Real Clear Politics, says the former Arkansas governor insists there's "nothing formal yet":

He's focused now on helping individual candidates like Bob Vander Plaats, who's seeking the governorship in Iowa. "We'll certainly see many of the people who helped us get back into the fray for him, and I'm certainly hoping for that," he said. ...


Huckabee said there needs to be "a clarity of conservative principles," and said he was "stunned when I saw many people who pretended to be conservative who went out there and supported everything from the TARP bill to the bailouts." "There's nothing conservative about that," he said.

"Huckapedia," writing in the Des Moines Register blog, sees only good things in the future:

Ronald Reagan made a comeback win in 1980 after a loss in 1976 against Ford. Mike Huckabee is on his way to repeat another Reagan comeback huge upset in 2012. And his Huckabee Fans keep multiplying and expanding our 2012 Presidential organization day by day.

And conservative blogger Kevin Tracy envisions an even easier time for Huckabee in the caucuses in 2012 than last time, especially if Vander Plaats, a strong social conservative, is elected governor next year ...

... meaning Governor Huckabee can focus a lot more on South Carolina and possibly even New Hampshire in 2011 to prevent a stumbling [expletive] like Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney from seeing any success with a ruthless negative campaign against Governor Huckabee.


Additionally, it's also good for the conservative movement because the stronger Huckabee is in Iowa in 2010 and 2011, the less likely it is that Sarah Palin will foolishly get in the race and divide the conservative vote.

categories: Is It 2012 Yet?

5:20 - June 10, 2009

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