Mike Huckabee = Jimmy Carter--UPDATED

Remember last week when I said that I don't like Mike Huckabee because he reminds me of Jimmy Carter? Well, evidently I'm not the only one whose made the connection. This is what I said:

I don't like Mike Huckabee and it's not because I have antipathy for politicians from the great state of Arkansas, although I can't quite shake that either. No, I don't like him because he reminds me of another politician who I really, really don't like: Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter wore his folksy, unforgiving morality on his sleeve disguised as Christianity when it was just a method to intimidate people of lesser moral stature (anyone who disagreed with him). Like Carter, Huckabee loves government solutions. The government can make everything better, he believes. That stands in stark contrast to the considerable evidence to the contrary.

Ann Althouse voted for Ford instead of Carter because of Carter's "smallness", "I'd decided he was a small man. He didn't fit the Presidency." And then she references Huckabee. While Carter would go back to his peanut farm, this is what Huckabee said:

Today, I read an email from my son John with the following quote and the question: "Remind you of anyone?"

‘‘If you aren’t for some reason elected president, what cabinet position would you be suited for?’’ I asked. Huckabee paused, considering. ‘‘Secretary of health and human services would be one,’’ he said. ‘‘Secretary of transportation, or the interior.’’ Perhaps aware that this wasn’t a Mount Rushmore self-evaluation, he quickly added that he doesn’t really want a cabinet position or any other government job. ‘‘I’d be just as happy to go back to Arkansas and open a bait shop on a lake,’’ he said.

That's exactly my feeling, too. Huckabee's a small man. He isn't big enough for the presidency.

He can keep his folksy wisdom and banal platitudes. I just don't want to hear it. Too many important world events face the new American president. We don't need a guy playing his harmonica on the front porch of the White House. We need a leader.

Update: Rich Lowry has more thoughts on Huckabee. Ones you'll recognize here:

After many false prophecies, Dean circa 2008 has finally arrived. He is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Not because he will inevitably blow himself up in Iowa. But because, like Dean, his nomination would represent an act of suicide by his party.

Like Dean, Huckabee is an under-vetted former governor who is manifestly unprepared to be president of the United States. Like Dean, he is rising toward the top of polls in a crowded field based on his appeal to a particular niche of his party. As with Dean, his vulnerabilities in a general election are so screamingly obvious that it's hard to believe that primary voters, once they focus seriously on their choice, will nominate him.

You can like him, but he won't ever get elected in America. You might as well vote Hillary and get it over with.