Mike Huckabee launched his campaign for the Republican nomination today in Hope, Arkansas, the working/overworked town/metaphor where both Huckabee and Bill Clinton grew up. Spoiler alert: Huckabee is not going to be the next president of the United States because Mike Huckabee is not going to be the GOP nominee in 2016. The NYT—after noting that Huckabee has more challengers to his right now than he did when ran in 2008—stuck a knife in Huck and gave it a few brisk turns:

One problem for his candidacy is likely to be money. Mr. Huckabee raised just over $16 million in 2008, and despite victories in eight nominating contests saw his campaign expire for lack of funds to advertise in major states like Florida. The rules of campaign finance have changed in the new “super PAC” era, when as few as one or two super-wealthy supporters can fund an outside, parallel campaign. But it is unclear whether Mr. Huckabee has yet attracted such support. Unusual for an announcement speech, Mr. Huckabee’s address Tuesday included a plea for money, specifically donations of $15 or $25 a month. “I will ask you to give something in the name of your children and grandchildren,” he said. Mr. Huckabee, who moved with his wife, Janet, to a $3 million beach home on the Florida Gulf Coast a few years ago, seemed low on cash personally when he endorsed a dubious cure for diabetes earlier this year, a deal he ended, his spokeswoman suggested at the time, because it reflected poorly on him as a serious candidate.

The diabetes cure Huckabee backed involved chowing down on cinnamon rolls. Apparently someone out there doing science—bubba science—took note of the strong negative correlation between the number of Cinnabon franchises in a given area and the rate of diabetes and now we're all just a pan or two of these away from health. Anyway...

"Here in this small town called Hope, I was raised to believe that where a person started didn't mean that's where he had to stop," Huckabee said. "I always believed that a kid could go from Hope to higher ground."

We're going to hear a lot about income inequality from the occupants of the GOP clown car—and the clown who manages to win the nomination, too—but we won't be able to do anything about it until we stop pretending that where a person starts these days doesn't determine where that person stops. Because it does here in the United States: Social and economic mobility in the US is a myth. Republicans shouldn't be allowed to praise socioeconomic mobility while at the same time opposing the social programs and economic conditions that once created it and could restore it: a robust social safety net, the ability to get an education without taking on crushing debt, broad access to health care, and finally—and most importantly—a strong union movement.

Huckabee also went on to decry the "generous paychecks and pensions" that politicians typically get after their years of "service," noting that these things are "not available to the people who pay for them." True: The average American worker does not get a generous paycheck, and private pensions are a thing of the past. But Huckabee isn't coming out in support of a higher minimum wage—or a guaranteed minimum income—or for private pensions for working people (401Ks are a disastrous joke). To his credit, Huckabee slammed GOP candidates who've called for cutting Social Security benefits, but he hasn't endorsed expanding Social Security either. He may run on cutting the paychecks and pensions for politicians—which isn't going to happen even if Huckabee gets elected, which he won't, because pols are not going to vote to cut their own paychecks and pensions—but he won't pledge to do anything that actually might raise the paychecks of average workers or make their retirements more secure.

Because while Huckabee doesn't have the money other candidates have, he does share one important trait with the other occupants of the clown car: He's just as full of shit as the rest of them.

UPDATE: But, hey, it would totally make history if we elected Huckabee president (which we won't)...