HUCKABEE: THE OTHER JEB?

This has me somewhat puzzled:

​Former Arkansas Governor turned Fox News host (and now Florida resident) Mike Huckabee says he won't run for President in 2012. Well, he won't if former Florida Governor Jeb Bush decides to run....

"Having gone through the process before and knowing just what it entails, it's not a decision I'll make lightly," Huckabee tells The National Journal. "If I did run, I do think I would have very significant strength going into it. The real question for me is, do I get through the nomination process?"

Other familiar names are also expected to mount a bid in 2012 as well, including Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. Though, only one person would keep Huckabee out of the race altogether, and that's Jeb.

"I love Jeb, I think he's brilliant," Huckabee says. "He could certainly raise the money, and I think he'd clear the deck." ...

It's interesting that the right-wing Protestant Huck sees the right-wing Catholic Jeb as the guy who could "clear the deck," and who could make a Huck candidacy unnecessary. There are still some rifts between the Protestant right and the Catholic right, but I tend to believe they're less and less meaningful to most right-wing Protestants, who really seem to like the Catholic righties' style. I sense that that's how Huck's thinking.

I wonder if Huck thinks he has a role he's obliged to play in 2012 -- namely, that he needs to be in the race to put a dent in Sarah Palin vote totals among Christian-right voters, on behalf of the GOP establishment. That recent poll of Protestant pastors revealed that most don't think Barack Obama is really a Christian (by whatever their definition is), and neither is Glenn Beck -- but Palin and George W. Bush certainly are. I wonder of this perception (which I suspect is shared somewhat by the religious right rank and file) would rub off on W.'s Catholic brother.

I still think it's a real longshot, but I don't think we should rule out a Jeb candidacy altogether, much as that notion appalls me. I'm sure the Bush clan is making much of the Gallup numbers that seem to show W passing Obama in popularity, as well as W's apparently unshakable #1 status at Amazon.

Be afraid -- be mildly afraid.

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On the other hand, Jeb may be too busy positioning himself to rake in big online education dollars from Governor-elect Rick Scott's proposed education privatization "reforms." Story here.