Campaigning where the voters aren't.

As we covered Mike Huckabee's unconventional campaign, TAC found a candidate willing to differ from the neocon consensus. But his Super Tuesday strategy left us perplexed. Publishing an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post suggests some confusion about which country he's bidding to lead.

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The man who in December courageously suggested that Bush's foreign policy had been "arrogant" and stated that containment was the most sensible way to deal with Iran lost his bearings. He promised to stay in Iraq until the war is "won," claiming those who don't understand that the occupation is a "critical part of the war on terror don't get it."

The most charitable thing one can say about this fealty to the occupy-Iraq-forever crowd is that it is geopolitically illiterate. The American occupation of Iraq is a gift that keeps on giving to Muslim extremists. The more Iraqis we kill, the more Islamist propaganda resonates throughout the Muslim world.

Huckabee went on to claim that nobody was "more steadfastly committed to Israel's security" than he, making us wonder where America's security falls in his calculus. He promised the "military option" against Iran would remain on the table, then veered off into boilerplate about "Islamofascism," the neoconservative agitprop word that suggests all Muslims are potential Hitlerites.

We don't know what lay behind Huckabee's turn from his realism of a few months ago. But this rant strips much shine from a candidacy that had shown promise and saddened many who hoped that Huckabee would help Republicans turn the page from a failed Bush foreign policy.