The destroyer?

LITTLE ROCK — DON'T GO noising this about, Gentle Reader, but did you know that Mike Huckabee-your former governor-is running for president? Or vice president. Even the national press and the punditocracy in general have started to take notice. The e-mails and phone calls haven't yet reached epic Clinton '92 proportions around here, but they're definitely picking up. Visiting journalists are starting to form familiar lines. Uh, oh. What with all the interviewing, we ain't never gonna get any work done around here.

Michael Dale Huckabee is a-makin' some noise, y'all. He's sometimes quoted first in stories about the GOP debates. He's making Charles Krauthammer columns, even if he hasn't made Mr.

Krauthammer a complete fan. Not yet. But here's the easiest way to tell that Mike Huckabee's presidential candidacy is picking up speed: Those who oppose his candidacy wind up talking him up even as they try to talk him down.

Phyllis Schlafly, for instance. Bless her right-wing heart,she's quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying our Other Man From Hope "destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles."

Goodness. Destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas? Wouldn't that be like destroying the Ozarks? Conservatism in Arkansas has always been less a movement than a natural feature of the landscape marked by populist streaks. This is basically a conservative state no matter which party may be on top or in shambles at the time.

Despite Ms. Schlafly's going into mourning, the conservative movement, impulse, or just general worldview in this state ain't dead yet. It may not even be sick. It could just be taking a breather. Why, here even our liberals, or most of them anyway, have a conservative streak by national standards.

MISS PHYLLIS, thank you for your heartfelt condolences, but reports of the death of Arkansas conservatism may be a bit premature. Some of us still have dreams of a vast, right-wing conspiracy arising in these latitudes, i.e., the people. Democrat or Republican, most of the pols you meet around the state are conservative. Or claim to be.

We have very few Vic Snyders around, and even he's a liberal of the practical, patriotic sort. We noted the other day that he wasn't about to cut off funding for the troops in the midst of a war. He definitely has a place in Arkansas' congressional delegation-especially when you consider the caliber of Republicans the GOP puts up against him with dismaying regularity.

In the rubber-chicken circuit around here, the term Conservative Democrat is probably used almost as often as Gun Rights Supporter, and runs a close second to Go Hawgs. Come the next session of the Ledge, try asking for a show of hands from all the Dukakis Democrats out there. If anybody raises a hand, it'll probably be because their hands went up involuntarily at the word "Democrat"-it's an automatic response in these latitudes; some say it's even inherited.

Mike Huckabee destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas? We wouldn't bet on it.

But it is a fact that the Republican Party in Arkansas is in a shambles. We'll give you that, Miss Phyllis. And how do we know? Easy. The Democrats in Arkansas' congressional delegation have everything they need to run for re-election next year except a Republican opponent. Not oneof them, not even Mark Pryor, a U.S. Senator, has a GOP challenger. Yeah-we'd call that a shambles. And a shame. The goal of a two-party system in this state seems to recede with every election.

But that's hardly the fault of one Michael Dale Huckabee. The party didn't exactly blossom when The Huck was governor, but look at what he had to work with.

When a Jim Holt sees a Marxist plot in everything from the minimum wage to early childhood education, is that Mike Huckabee's fault?

When an Andy Mayberry is the best the Republicans can put up against Vic Snyder in Central Arkansas' congressional race, is that Mike Huckabee's fault?

When the Gunner DeLay/Jim Holt/Denny Altes types start pushing away the largest and fastest-growing ethnic minority in the state and country by shouting about ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS! at every turn, is that Mike Huckabee's fault?

When the scaremongers in what remains of the state's GOP talk about cutting offfunding for medical care-even pre-natal care-for illegal immigrants, that's certainly not Mike Huckabee's fault; he understands the danger of trying to reduce the Republican Party to an exclusive club of the native-born. Besides, every one of those babies is going to be a native-born American citizen right out of the womb, and don't you know they're going to remember how their mamas and papas were treated?

Talk about an effective way to produce a whole generation of rip-roarin' Democrats. Cut off health care for innocent children? Deny them a fair chance to compete for college scholarships? No wonder Mike Huckabee famously said he doesn't drink that kind of "Jesus juice." Neither do most of us Arkansans when we think about it.

Those kinds of ideas just push even more people away from the GOP here in Arkansas.

BUT YOU know who's most to blame for the weakness of the Republican Party in Arkansas? That is, besides the Republicans themselves? We'd nominate a guy named Bill Clinton.

Come on. He's the first and only native Arkansan to become president of the United States-and a mighty popular one for a good long while. There'll be people voting Democrat in Arkansas for a generation, or more, simply because one of our own made it to the White House. We'd imagine there are a lot of people in Georgia voting Democrat to this very day because of Jimmy Carter. And Mr. Carter's administration was an almost unmitigated national disaster. Even his post-presidency has become a mean little embarrassment. But they still pay attention to him in Georgia, or at least at the Carter Center. Oh, how we do root, root, root for the home team.

Everybody in Arkansas seems to have met Bill Clinton, at least twice, and, because of that, a good many wouldn't vote for a Republican on a good-sized bet. It'll take a while-or a Huckabee administration in Washington, District of Columbia-to turn such allegiances around. Bill Clinton's probably done more to keep this a yellow-dog Democratic state than any influence since The War or The Depression.

So even if the Republican Party in Arkansas is in a general mess, don't blame Mike Huckabee. He's its hope, not its destroyer.

Oh, and Ms. Schlafly, don't give up on finding conservatism here in Arkansas. Just ask the first few folks you meet on the street.