An honest Huckster

YANA PASKOVA/Getty Images Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has been making great strides in Iowa polls over the last several weeks, and now he’s starting to make a surge in national polls as well. A new CNN poll released Monday found that the Huckster has doubled his support among likely Republican voters in the whole country, ...

597648_071212_huckabee_05.jpg
597648_071212_huckabee_05.jpg
DES MOINES, IA - DECEMBER 04: U.S. Presidential hopeful Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) leaves an open house for Iowa Campaign Headquarters after speaking there on December 4, 2007, in Des Moines, Iowa. A poll released December 2 by The Des Moines Register shows Huckabee with a five percentage point lead, 29 percent to 24 percent, over Republican opponent former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the lead-up to the January 3 Iowa caucuses. (Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images)

YANA PASKOVA/Getty Images

YANA PASKOVA/Getty Images

Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has been making great strides in Iowa polls over the last several weeks, and now he’s starting to make a surge in national polls as well. A new CNN poll released Monday found that the Huckster has doubled his support among likely Republican voters in the whole country, bringing him into a a statistical dead heat with GOP frontrunner Rudy Giuliani. With a higher national profile, Huckabee has to start paying more attention to higher profile issues, too.

In the case of Cuba, it means a flip-flop. A few years ago, Huckabee joined a bipartisan crowd calling for an end to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, saying it was bad for business. He even wrote a letter to President Bush in 2002 saying that it hurt Arkansas rice growers. On Monday, though, he took a hard right turn and said in a Miami speech that he supports the embargo and would not hesitate to veto any effort to end sanctions against Havana. Has he really had a change of heart? Or is this simply political move designed to appeal to voters of Cuban origin in Florida? Here’s the presidential wannabe, in his own words:

Rather than seeing it as some huge change, I would call it, rather, the simple reality that I’m running for president of the United States, not for reelection as governor of Arkansas.”

Credit where credit is due—Huckabee may be a flip-flopper, but at least he’s being brutally honest about the reasons why.

Christine Y. Chen is a senior editor at Foreign Policy.

More from Foreign Policy

Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.
Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak

Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.
Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.

Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage

The late statesman was a master of realpolitik—whom some regarded as a war criminal.

A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.
A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.

The West’s False Choice in Ukraine

The crossroads is not between war and compromise, but between victory and defeat.

Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi
Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi

The Masterminds

Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.