Mike Huckabee says that in 2016, particularly among conservatives, there is “a seething rage that is beyond any ability to sit down and rationalize with it.”
Appearing on the “Hugh Hewitt Show” on Tuesday, Huckabee explained that the single biggest difference between 2008 and 2016 is “the anger of the voters.”
That anger, suggested Huckabee, is “beyond anything I think that I’ve ever seen or could have imagined going into the cycle. Voters were angry in 2008, there was a lot of frustration, a lot of weariness with [the] financial situation in the country. A lot of weariness with how long the war in Iraq and Afghanistan had dragged on. But there’s something about this cycle in which people now after seven years of Obama, I think are so angry and particularly on the conservative side and it’s almost a seething rage that is beyond any ability to sit down and rationalize with it. And people just are so ready to burn the whole thing down.”
Hewitt then asked the former Arkansas governor how to get the conservatives “back into the lane” and with direct overtures to both Donald Trump and Ben Carson’s lack of governmental experience, Huckabee said, “Just take a look at the field, the more qualified a person is, the more experience, the more background, preparation, judgement, moments of leadership challenges that a person has had, it’s almost as if that is the disqualifying factor.”
“Rather than somebody to say, ‘You know, it looks like you have done the kind of things that would prepare you to be president.’ This time, it’s almost like you have done nothing to prepare yourself to be President of the United States, that’s just who we want,” Huckabee argued.
“And I don’t know how to really resolve that,” Huckabee said. Referring to the last debate, he explained, “The four of us in the undercard combined had more experience, more than twice the total experience of actually governing and leading than did all nine of the people on the primary stage. And it just was to me symptomatic of something very unusual.”
“One of the things that I find is, that I’ve got to be able to just keep talking to the people about what issues really matter to them. And clearly, there are three big things: the economy, national security, and the underpinning morality of the country. That sense of just lack of character, the lack of consistency of our moral values. And then to be able to say to people, ‘You know, it might be good to have someone in the cockpit who’s flown the plane before, because we are going through thunderstorms. We’re flying against headwinds and this may not be a good time to put somebody in and give them a change to fly for the first time,” Huckabee argued.