Not Huckabee, Not Romney, Giuliani, or McCain

With two years until the next presidential election, several of the Republican candidates from the 2008 election cycle are trying to posture themselves for another run at the GOP nomination.  To be blunt, none of the major players from the last election should be anywhere near the 2012 nomination.  They have too many skeletons and too little backbone.

Huckabee is a committed social conservative.  From what I have seen, he is devoutly religious, and often shares his views about faith. Huckabee seems like a nice guy, a good neighbor.  But America is not craving a social conservative.  We don't need a "feel-good," "compassionate," president, we need someone willing to take radical liberals like Pelosi head-on. We need a fiscal conservative willing to slash the runaway entitlement spending built up by Congressional Democrats.  Huckabee may be the most moral presidential candidate in recent history, but I struggle to imagine him rolling back liberal regression.

Before there was ObamaCare, there was RomneyCare, the Massachusetts health care plan.  I don't often advocate single-issue politics, but this is a major issue.  How can we trust a man who brought an equally destructive—albeit constitutional—health care takeover to his own state to repeal the Democrat takeover of our health care at the national level?  The simple answer: we can't.

Politically, Giuliani is probably the most dependable, but he is a New England Republican.  He is a "moderate" who supported "comprehensive immigration reform" to provide a "path to citizenship" on the 2008 campaign trail.  Amnesty never has worked; amnesty never will work; it fails every time it is tried.  If the immigration snafu isn't enough to take down Giuliani among Conservatives, Democrats are sure to break out the scandal file and bring up the same ethics charges that stymied his campaign the last time around.  All-in-all, unless he's facing a weak Democrat with a continued GOP upswing, Giuliani  is a losing candidate.

And finally, if McCain chooses to run in 2012, he is a fool.  If the Republican party selects him as the nominee, then it deserves to go down in flames.

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