Trouble for Huck

Mike Huckabee has been on fire lately. He has finally emerged as a viable candidate for the bible-thumping wing of the GOP, is looking good in debates and may even be in first place in Iowa. More impressive, he did so by spending like $27, which is by necessity because he is being outraised by the local Girl Scout troop. But as any politician knows (see Hart, Gary), the moment you get out front is the moment people start to dig into your history.

That means trouble for Mike Huckabee, who aside from a pile of ethical problems, appears to have helped free Wayne DuMond, a convicted rapist, who upon release, committed another rape and a murder. Worse still, this would seem to go far beyond any sort of Willie Horton “soft on crime” troubles the plagued the Dukakis campaign. That was a generic policy question. In the DuMond case, Huckabee personally intervened to get him paroled and then denied that he had done so. Showing poor judgment is bad enough, lying about it is even worse. As the old saying goes, it is not the crime but the cover-up that gets you. Time will tell.