Huck and Jive

I never thought I'd say it, but Mitt Romney has now been soundly beaten in the flip-flop game. Aside from abortion, Mitt hasn't flipped that far on that many big issues--you might make a case on gay marriage--though when he said in 1994 that he would be "better than Ted Kennedy on gay rights" ("better" being in Massachusettensian terms, I'm quoting from memory), gay marriage was simply not being talked about.

Meanwhile, Huckabee has flipped a full 180 degrees on:

• Treatment of illegal aliens: as governor he preached about Christian charity, now he wants to round them up and bus them out
• A national smoking ban: for it, before he was against it
• The Confederate flag: NRO's David Sanders recalls Huck's nobler anti-racism stand as governor of Arkansas here

For all of the Mittster's alleged evil mastermind skillz, he is right now looking a lot more Dr. Evil than Dr. No as he gets repeatedly and resoundingly pwned by a fellow former governor--from Arkansas no less:

• Mitt is a plastic CEO action figure, while Huck is a genuine Joe-next-door type
• Mitt's slippery for changing his mind once in a decade on one big issue; Huck changes his on everything depending on which state's primary is next
• The press rides Mitt like a rented mule, while treating Huckabee like an amusing human-interest story

As I see it, there are two possible explanations for Huckabee's constant changes of opinion: either he is a scatterbrained semi-moron who changes his mind every time his alarm clock goes off, or he is really that shameless a pander bear to think he can get away with making shit up as he goes along.

Just as Ron Paul's crypto-crackpot newsletter (written by no less than Lew Rockwell) has deservedly left a few libertarians with that "went to bed at 2 with a 10" feeling, I am now starting to hope that some similar gotterdammerung is in store for the evangelicals throwing themselves behind this slick-talking preacher-man.