POLITICO: Huckabee, Tea Party, and 2012

As Ben Smith notes, POLITICO has a long article this morning on the Tea Party and 2012 — "a Huckabee party." I can't disagree. Who are the anti-establishment candidates in 2012? Palin, Huckabee, and (possibly) Ron Paul. We haven't seen Palin actually run a campaign, but we know Huckabee can — on less money and powered by grassroots:

Putting the issue matrix aside, imagine a primary that looks more like the Iowa caucuses in 2008, where Mike Huckabee had little cash and less infrastructure but won in a romp because he was in sync with the grassroots and running against the establishment.

“There are moments I think, gee, I got into this two years too early,” Huckabee quipped in a POLITICO interview Wednesday.

As veteran Republicans like Sen. Robert Bennett in Utah and Rep. Mike Castle (the front-runner knocked off by O’Donnell) go down in flames, it may also signal an end to the venerable GOP tradition of presidential primogeniture. Grassroots conservatives right now want a candidate who will take on the status quo, not one who has waited his turn to carry the party’s banner in the fashion of Bob Dole or George H.W. Bush. This time out, Romney has figured to be the beneficiary of the it’s-his-turn instinct.

Issues such as TARP—the bipartisan program to bail out failing banks--could join abortion and other cultural issues as new litmus tests in the Tea Party era.

“Every person who voted for it is going to have explain if not apologize for their vote on it,” warned Huckabee, of the 2008 financial bailout. “It doesn’t wash to say, “Things would have been so much worse if we hadn’t done it.’”

Money will still be important in 2012, Huckabee said, but he added: “The wonderful thing out of the Tea Party movement is it causes money to matter less.”

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Huckabee to Endorse, Campaign for Rand Paul

From today's edition of POLITICO's Morning Score — Huckabee to endorse and campaign for Rand Paul and Todd Lally in Kentucky later this month.

This is surprising (at least, in the case of Paul), because Huckabee has always had well-reasoned reservations about libertarian ideology. It is unsurprising, because Huckabee knows he will need Tea Party support in 2012 — and because, since January, his former campaign manager, Chip Saltsman, has been consulting the Paul campaign.

2012 SNEAK PEEK - HUCKA-TEA - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will travel to Kentucky this month to campaign for two of the 2010 cycle's original tea party insurgents: Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul and House candidate Todd Lally. He'll formally endorse both of them and hold separate events to boost their campaigns, likely on Sept. 25. It's almost a distant memory in a post-9/14 world, but it was in Kentucky back on May 18 that the tea party revolt first exploded this year.

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As Alexander Burns, the man behind Morning Score, points out — this is all about 2012.