LOOKING TO '12: OL' HUCK

Former Arkansas gov Mike Huckabee made a failed but not disastrous bid for the GOP nomination in '08. Huck is different from the others, and not just because he's a sometime clergyman who became an anti-obesity crusader. There's something else that's interesting about him.

You know, it used to be a prime ingredient of the successful politician that he could get people's votes just because he was able to make them like him personally and could impress them. They might not care for his stands on the issues, but he could get around that. "I don't usually vote for Dems, but just I gotta vote for ol' JoJo."

Obama has that quality, though today people seem more impervious to it than ever in the past. JFK had it. Reagan did. Ike did, more than any of them. But today's Repubs? Do you think anybody would support a Sarah Palin or a Mitt Romney in spite of their views rather than because of 'em? Shows you how things have changed.

Huck is a throwback. You might expect a Repub to be a throwback, of course. But he's a throwback to when people voted the person, not the party.

He does funny, atypical things. He has a twinkle, rather than rage, in his eye. He'll voice the usual nonsense with conviction, but then unexpectly he'll do something disarming. He'll suddenly praise Bill or Hillary for this or that. He'll say something generous. He'll say something that's actually fair. He'll take you by surprise. Not all the time, certainly, but enough for it to get noticed and soften folks up.

You can imagine someone saying, "That guy is pretty conservative for my taste, but I just freepin' like him."And that could amount to something at the polls.

A candidate who's personable could be a secret weapon for a party that otherwise seems determined to shrink its base with every intolerant and ill-considered position. When your issues hurt you, run a candidate who can make people forget about them.

What's with him? Perhaps it's just his temperament. Or possibly his training as a minister convinced him that something permanent matters, so that partisanship doesn't carry him completely away.

Of course, his record as governor was nothing exceptional. But again, once in a while he'd do something neat. When refugees from a neighboring state flooded into Arkansas after a natural disaster, he ordered the bureaucracy to forget the paperwork and get immediate help to them. That kind of thing.

Huck may not have the stomach for a run in today's climate. He seems to be hanging back. He has hinted that he may not go again.

And, let's face it, the teabaggers would be deeply distrustful of someone who isn't a hater, someone who doesn't think the other side ought to be exterminated. So he may be through.

It's a shame, in a way, that someone who makes the atmosphere less sulfurous is wrong for our time. But now, at least, those who vote against the GOP nominee won't have to do so with a twinge of regret.