Huck's Hour of Power
By Patrick J. Buchanan

During his speech to CPAC, among the best he has delivered, Mitt
Romney suspended his campaign, so as not to imperil GOP prospects
in the fall. Said Mitt,

"If I fight on...all the way to the convention, I would forestall
the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that
Sens. Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I
simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to
terror."

Thus did Romney endorse the McCain view that the Democrats who
intend to pull all U.S. combat brigades out by a date certain, are
raising the "white flag of surrender" to Islamofascist terror.

But when Mike Huckabee, who also delivered one of his best at CPAC,
was asked if he would stand down for the good of the party, as his
winning the nomination is now a near-mathematical impossibility, he
brusquely dismissed such demands as "total nonsense."

"I didn't major in math," said the Baptist preacher, "I majored in
miracles." Good for Huck. Why should he drop out?

For too long conservatives have suppressed their convictions or
meekly submitted, so as not to oppose a Republican President or get
out of step with the Congressional leadership.

Because they did not wish to undercut George H. W. Bush, too many
went along with his tax hikes and quota bill. And they paid the
price in 1992.

Because they did not want to get out of step with their K Street
contributors, too many went along with the refusal of Bush I and
Bush II to secure America's borders. Belatedly, they have awakened
to what "going along" has done to their country.

Because they did not want to get out of step with Newt and Dole,
too many conservatives went along with NAFTA, Most Favored Nation
trade status for China, the surrender of sovereignty to the WTO.

Result: $800 billion trade deficits, de-industrialization of the
nation, and a dependency on foreigners for the necessities of our
national life and for the borrowed money to pay for them.

Now they all wonder why manufacturing jobs are leaving for China,
why median family income no longer rises as in the Reagan era, why
the Reagan Democrats are going home.

Because too many did not want to be seen as not supporting a
Republican president in time of war, only six House Republicans
voted to deny Bush a blank check for war.

Did the rest have no grave concern about the wisdom of invading
Mesopotamia to dethrone a tyrant and democratize a nation that has
never known democracy, when George H. W. Bush himself, wiser than
his son, halted the Army of Desert Storm rather than take Baghdad?

Because Bush demanded it, too many conservatives went along with No
Child Left Behind, Medicare funding of prescription drugs, and the
largest increases in social spending since LBJ. And what did their
capitulation to Big Government Conservatism do for them, except
earn them the contempt of the base, which they manifestly deserved.

Thinking is hard work, said Twain; that is why so few engage in it.
For too long, conservatives have not been thinking, but living on
the inherited intellectual capital of the past. They have failed
to see that the world has changed since Reagan's time and we must
change with it.

The truth is the prospective Republican nominee is frozen in the
past. Though an invasion of his nation is taking place on the
border of his own state, John McCain is still reciting Emma Lazarus
on the Golden Door. Though China manipulated its currency to seize
our markets and loot our industry, and the EU imposes VAT taxes --
tariff equivalents -- on U.S. imports, McCain is still babbling on
about Smoot-Hawley.

Though the Cold War has been over a generation, McCain has become
more bellicose. He warns us new wars are coming, demands the
ouster of Putin from the G-8, threatens Iran. If there is a single
trip wire for war laid down in the time of Acheson and Dulles that
John McCain thinks we should pull up, or a single alliance he has
urged us to review, this writer has not heard of it.

With the president at 30% and the party about to lose seats in both
houses, conservatives should not be closing ranks but demanding to
know why.

Huckabee has a chance to do himself a world of good by piling up
votes and delegates and making himself a conservative alternative
to McCain. But he also has a chance to serve his party and
country, by putting on the table the issues neither party is
addressing.

Are we as overextended strategically and militarily as we surely
are financially and fiscally? Should we stick with free trade, if
our rivals are rabid economic nationalists? If we let 12-20
million illegals stay, how do we stop the next 12-20 million from
coming in?

For his party's and his country's sake, as well as his own, Mike
Huckabee should keep the conversation going. Because right now,
his party is looking at Hillary, Obama -- or Bush's third term.

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