Mike Huckabee says No

Mike Huckabee used his show on Fox News to announce this evening that he is not going to run for president in 2012. I have to say that the news came as no surprise. Once Huckabee said he would make the announcement on his show, it seemed a given to me that he would not run. If he had said otherwise, Fox would have had a mess on its hands. Would it then give equal time to each of the other candidates? Huckabee made clear that the choice was his alone and he based his decision upon his faith. We should all respect the decision and the basis for it.

No matter what the reason for Huckabee's decision, I am glad that he made this choice. Huckabee has always been a social conservative but not as much and economic conservative. What the country needs now more than anything is a president with economically conservative views. We need someone who understands the consequences of spending endless streams of borrowed money. We need someone who understands that shackling business with new costs, regulations and taxes will not result in economic growth. We need a president who looks at policies like energy self-sufficiency while understanding the impact that energy policies have on job creation and economic growth. We need a president who understands that profit is not a bad word, but rather is the fuel that drives out economy. We need a president who can recognize that while labor unions have a place in the American economy, they should not be given favored status over business. We need a president who can help unleash the American creative genius so that our economy can grow through innovation. We need a president who will be willing to have an activist foreign policy that will take on those countries like China who manipulate their currencies so as to foster their own growth at our expense. We need a president who understands that tax simplification is not a slogan to repeat without ever doing something about it. We need a president who both understands that Medicare and Social Security will fail in their current forms and that both programs can be saved with some needed reforms. We also need a president who is willing to take on the burden of explaining to the American people that reforms in the entitlement programs are not an option but a necessity. In short, we need a president who is everything that Obama is not. The future of the USA and of out children and grandchildren depends upon this.