Mike Huckabee is not an asshole

Mike Huckabee was always the only Republican I actually feared. He's smart. He's likable. He's a southern governor. And, unlike the rest of the homophobic, xenophobic, logiphobic folks running for the GOP banner, he is quite simply not an asshole. It's a pretty low bar for those folks, eh?

I may not agree with Huckabee on a lot of things, but I don't question for a second that his heart is in the right place. He honestly thinks poverty is one of the greatest threats to America and the world. He thinks all people deserve a modicum of dignity and respect. His stance on immigration is so honest and decent -- it stands in remarkable contrast to the "Kill the Wetbacks" mentality that has sadly infected the entire GOP. Check out this bit from a recent interview with ABC News (brought to my attention by TPM Election Central, one of the best sources of smart election analysis):

"We penalize law-breakers. We don't penalize their children for something they can't help.
"If a child is gasping for air, asthmatic, and he's on the hospital steps, what do the other candidates suggest we do, let him sit there and gasp until he doesn't have any air left and he dies? If a child comes to our school -- and our law, by the way, in most of our states, mine certainly says you've got to educate a child if he's of child age -- what do you, break your own law and say, `No, you can't come in the schoolhouse door'?

"No, you don't do that. What you do is you elect a president who will fix the problem where it needs to be fixed: At the border. But if your government at the federal government is so incompetent that it fails to secure the border, you don't then grind your heel into the face of a 6-year-old child over it. That's not what this country does. We're a better country than that."

His choice of language is remarkable, visceral and highly effective. The imagery of "grinding your heel into the face of a 6-year-old child" is stunning -- and can really make reflexive xenophobes at least pause.

As I said earlier, I used to be afraid of Huckabee. Thankfully, he did an abysmal job of raising money and has virtually no campaign infrastructure outside Iowa. Hooray!