Huckabee Legitimizes Tea Party Movement, Sounds Like A Candidate

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee joined Greta Van Susteren on Fox News yesterday to discuss what will become of the Tea Party Movement, lending legitimacy to a group that has been met with derision and mockery. The conversation allowed Huckabee to adopt populist language in support of an organization that, according to him, has been sick of conservatives, too. “I’m hoping the Tea Party people will be absorbed into a solid and principled Republican party, instead of the Republican party that many of them have been fed up with,” said Huckabee, sounding like he was certainly running for office.

“If the Democrats are smart, they would hope that the tea party movement would turn into a bonafide political organization to the point of nominating candidates,” said Huckabee, presenting a worst-case-scenario for the right. He cited spending and government intervention as reasons the Tea Partiers are angry, even at Republicans.

The talk seemed to forgo any debate about whether the Tea Partiers are already a faction of the Republican Party, painting them instead as a possible repeat of Ross Perot’s grassroots support in the 1992 presidential election. This comparison has surely been made, and yet, with the Tea Party media narrative more concretely defined as a viable alternative, Huckabee seems to be positioning himself to grab those votes as if he were already a full blown candidate. Here’s the clip:

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