Dick Morris: Huckabee can beat Hillary

Mike Huckabee

Political analyst Dick Morris, who once stood firmly in the camp of the Clinton family, said in a written op-ed he was sure Mike Huckabee could beat the former secretary of state in a contest for the White House – he's done it before, he said.

"I was there in 1993 when Mike Huckabee beat the vaunted Clinton machine in its Arkansas backyard, even as the president pulled all the strings he could to defeat the Republican's upstart bid for lieutenant governor," Morris said, recalling the days that followed Bill Clinton's transition from Arkansas governor to U.S. president, the Hill reported. "Those who, today, question his ability to match up with Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail in 2016 should examine the record of that race to see how well Huckabee ran."

Mike Huckabee looks at America's culture, where divisions of "class, race, politics, religion, gender, age and other fault lines make polite conversation dicey, if not downright dangerous," in "God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy."

Morris then recounted how both Bill and Hillary Clinton's mode of political operation was "hair trigger reaction" to attacks, and how their speed practically froze enemies.

"Nobody was able to equal their speed or audacity in the give and take of paid political advertising dialogue – not the right wing of the Arkansas Democratic Party in the '70s, nor the Arkansas Republicans of the '80s, not Clinton's primary rivals in 1992, Bob Dole in 1996, or Kenneth Starr in the impeachment proceedings," Morris wrote. "They all found themselves outmaneuvered and tied into knots by his canny dialogue and smart rebuttals."

And then came Huckabee, who announced on Tuesday a run for the White House.

"The only campaign that beat Clinton was the 1993 effort to overturn the state's Democratic establishment and elect Huckabee as the fourth statewide Republican elected official since Reconstruction," Morris wrote, the Hill reported. "And he did it by beating the Clintons at their own game."

Morris then said Huckabee does have "a problem" he needs to overcome in order to win the presidency.

"His strength among religious voters can be his ticket of admission to the final rounds of the campaign, but can also bar him from winning, just as it did when he took on Sen. John McCain in 2008, only winning Southern Bible Belt states," he said.

Morris recommended Huckabee seek the high office with a campaign that paints him as a "former governor, not as a former Baptist preacher" and focus on "secular language" to bring forth his views.

"If Huckabee evolves as a candidate – he has always been a fast learner – he alone in the field has had the kind of give-and-take experience in battling the Clinton media machine," Morris said. "It should pay off."

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Dick Morris: Huckabee can beat Hillary