Mike Huckabee as Vice President

Mike Huckabee's chances to be named John McCain's running mate on the Republican ticket are negligible, and certainly were not helped by his refusal to quit the Presidential primary race, where Huckabee continued to Christian-soldier on despite the impossibility of his being able to win the nomination. The refusal to quit against such long odds revealed Huckabee's character to be skewed towards fanaticism of the kind that mainstream voters are suspicious of, particularly among a born-again believing evangelical Christian such as Mike Huckabee.

The little-known Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, was the surprise of the Republican presidential nominating season. Quick-witted and funny, he shot to the head of the class among conservative contenders for the nomination, and ranked behind John McCain and Mitt Romney when the votes began to be tallied.

After the honeymoon period of the Huckabee candidacy wore off, voters began to perceive a different man than the one who had charmed reporters and the public after the initial Republican debates. Huckabee, on closer inspection, came across as glassy eyed and somewhat robotic. More importantly, his economic message was rooted in populism and was more appropriate to a Democrat than a 21^st century Republican. He sounded more like John Edwards than Ronald Reagan.

Still, Mike Huckabee managed to "win" eight states during the first months of the Republican nominating season. Mike Huckabee's appeal was to the rock-ribbed, reactionary Christian evangelicals who have been a stalwart member of the Republican coalition since the Reagan Administration, the kind of person who believes that The Flintstones, in which Fred Flintstone & Barney Rubble cavort with dinosaurs, is a documentary, not entertainment. Huckabee tapped into the deep reservoir of Know-Nothingness that has been part of the American political scene for over 150 years. He was deeply disliked by mainstream Republican commentators, such as George Will.