I detailed my major concerns with Mike Huckabee in this post last week, dealing exclusively with the former Arkansas governor’s decidedly unconservative fiscal record.
But frankly, to a large swath of GOP voters on the Christian right, the Huckster could be the second coming of Bill Clinton but as long as all of his religious “I’s” are dotted and “T’s” crossed, he’s their guy.
Nevertheless, the Club for Growth is planning to launch a series of ads to run in Iowa and New Hampshire (as well as nationally on Fox News) that urge viewers to ask Mike Huckabee about his tax record.
Needless to say, Mr. Huckabee has a lot of explaining to do:
To emphasize Mike Huckabee’s eager support for tax increases, the ad excerpts a 2003 clip of Mike Huckabee rattling off a list of tax increases he deems acceptable. While the former governor will argue that he had no choice and was bound by state law to balance the budget, the 2003 clip is emblematic of Huckabee’s ten-year tenure in which raising taxes was his first resort. Many cities and states have balanced budget laws like Arkansas, but not all governors and mayors embrace higher taxes the way Mike Huckabee did. Some actually cut government spending and waste in order to make ends meet. But under Mike Huckabee’s tenure, the average Arkansas tax burden increased 47%. Mike Huckabee’s support for tax hikes include:
Just to let you know, Huckabee has also expressed support for an internet sales tax that would make shopping online an adventure.
I don’t believe The Huck is a closet liberal or anything. He’s just stupid:
Then tell me, what does he mean here when he asserts that Bush had the new NIE “for four years� The whole point of the NIE is that it reversed the previous NIE from 2005 that claimed Iran had a covert weapons program. The one that just came out is brand new, compiled over the last year or so and reportedly reliant on intel that was recently obtained. He didn’t misspeak, either; he hinted that the report was four years old in an interview on MSNBC this morning too.Between this and the “INS†gaffe yesterday, if he doesn’t watch out the narrative’s going to shift from Dumond, immigration, and religion to whether this guy has even a basic sense of what he’s talking about.
The “INS gaffe” was an eye popper. In a position paper he released on immigration, Huckabee (or some amatuer hour staffer who wrote it) referred to the “Immigration and Naturalization Service,” an agency that when folded into DHS in 2003 became the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services).
Holy Christ! Doesn’t anyone vet these things before releasing them to the press?
And not only did Huckabee accuse Bush of having the NIE on Iran for four years, when questioned about the document on Tuesday, almost 24 hours after it became available, Huckabee hadn’t even heard about it.
Scared yet? Let’s go to Huckabee channelling Pat Robertson. The TV preacher, as I’m sure you know, conducts regular conversations with the Almighty about all sorts of things. Here’s Huckabee on his recent surge in the polls:
There’s only one explanation for it, and it’s not a human one. It’s the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of five thousand people. (Applause) That’s the only way that our campaign can be doing what it’s doing. And I’m not being facetious nor am I trying to be trite. There literally are thousands of people across this country who are praying that a little will become much, and it has. And it defies all explanation, it has confounded the pundits. And I’m enjoying every minute of them trying to figure it out, and until they look at it, from a, just experience beyond human, they’ll never figure it out.
I want to make it clear I am not complaining that the guy has faith. I think that’s just fine.
Just don’t expect me to support someone for president who explains his rise in the polls by intimating that God is on his side.
Are we really going to hand the nomination to this neophyte? This man whose knowledge of foreign and defense policy is deficient, whose grasp of large issues like immigration questionable?
And we haven’t even gotten to the “electability” issue. This guy is a walking disaster for the Republican party. In a general election against Hillary Clinton he will be lucky to take 8 states – all in the south – and make the GOP debacle of 1964 look like a walk in the park.
So go ahead, indulge yourselves my Christian right friends. Nominate the man who can quote parables from the bible but doesn’t know that the INS isn’t in business anymore. Elevate a man who is “right” on all your issues but is as unschooled in foreign policy as George Bush was when he took office in 2001. Except we weren’t at war then and didn’t think it necessary to have a president who had a broad, adult, outlook on the world.
What do you think now?
Nominate Huckabee and I won’t be the only one shopping my vote somewhere else next November.
7:47 pm
[...] I’m just as concerned as Rick, but I covered my qualms with the Huckster here. Rick writes about how important it is for conservatives to get off the Huckabee train as fast as possible in this post. Make sure to read it. [Print This Post] [permalink] [Trackback URI] [...]
8:12 pm
I guess as a Huckabee supporter all I can say to you is, bye bye. It’s no surprise the club for greed is out for blood on Governor Huckabee, this ad will backfire because everybody knows these fools are just out there to make themselves richer and richer. That’s why I like Governor Huckabee he does just want to help one segment of our population, but help all Americans. The club for greed should be ashamed of themselves. Go Huckabee
9:00 pm
Hack’s…I mean Huck’s Iowa resurgence isn’t so much due to his Bible thumping, I heard, but rather his sole support for the “Fair Tax” fairy wand. Other candidates look at the idea of a national sales tax as a poison. Because, let’s face it, the whole idea of a national sales tax reeks of one of the “Wouldn’t it be cool…” BS-fests in a dorm room in the grad student tower, taking place in a haze of hippie lettuce and Haagen-Dasz
10:10 pm
We’ve gotta stop Huck, I’m in total agreement, and not just because he’d be our Jimmuh Carter. I think he’d be even more damaging to the conservative coalition than Rudy.
10:26 pm
I couldn’t disagree more with you Rick. Mike Huckabee is the best of the bunch and will give Hillary Clinton the best run. Sorry to say, I don’t think you get it yet. Most republicans don’t want a murde…. ahem, a pro-abortionist leading the way for them (you know who that excludes). They don’t want someone who calls themselves Christian, but believes all kinds of strange things (take a guess). Nor do they want someone blaming America for all the troubles in the world either (got that one right did you). I’m not trying to be mean, but you don’t get it (yet) Rick. These are the concerns of every day people. No political correctness here. Christians are fed up with the athiests, evolutionists, secularist, homosexuals, and everyone else taken over most everything the Christians started and ruining good institutions like… Yes, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton were once Christian schools, funded by the government and families that could afford it. Most of the colleges in the United States that started over 300 years ago were Bible-proclaiming schools originally. Now look at your Universities – an infestation of liberal nut cases who favor America’s enemies over America itself! (ie, Iran’s president Ahmadinnerjacket’s invitation at Columbia University to speak – they clapped and cheered him on!!). We want a GOD fearing man in the White House. Mike Huckabee is a good start! We’ll throw in Duncan Hunter or Tancredo as Vice President too!! (Proverbs 1:7)
Best regards.
12:02 am
Huckabee Second in National GOP Race…
Mike Huckabee has vaulted from nowhere into second place in the Republican presidential race, riding…
1:05 am
LOL it’s not human alright, it’s the CFR. After all, he’s under their wing now, just like Clinton was.
I don’t for one minute believe he is ‘surging’ in any way.
His fundraising numbers are paltry compared to front runner Ron Paul’s and Rudy Giuliani’s.
7:50 am
I am the Christian Right guy he is targeting. I study the Bible, believe it. I am even a member of a Southern Baptist church. So this is supposed to be “Red Meat” to me, right?
Give me a break. What he is is a light-weight specifically designed to be the anti-Hillary. If he were nominated, I doubt I could hold my nose an vote for him. At least Hillary knows people who understand the geopolitical world, even though they view it through leftist glasses.
I trust that my fellow God-botherers will have more sense as they learn about Huck than to vote for him.
7:51 am
I am one of your Christian right friends, and there is NO way that I would ever vote for Huckabee!! In many ways, he’s the second coming of George Bush. The last thing we need is another compassionate conservative in the White House.
Although I believe having Christian moral values and not just talking the talk but walking the walk is a big plus for me when voting for president, it is not the most important thing. I’d vote for Mitt or Rudy before I’d vote for someone like Huckabee.
3:05 pm
Yahoo:
Your comments were deleted because you are a fraud and because they insult other commenters.
No real Christian – even on the left – would gloat.
6:17 pm
The Republican party gets what it asks for aligning themselves with fundies.
7:35 pm
The Christian right, to the extent that such a group actually exists cannot nominate Huckabee or anyone else. They do not have this kind of influence. They may be able to have some influence but they cannot tell teh Republicans who to nominate. I don’t know enough about Huckabee to know if I would vote for him or not. I think his true value is he may be in a position to get the Republican party leadership to take seriously the concerns of Christian conservatives.
4:18 am
The High Reverend Huckster is a bigger fraud than Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and a Laetrile salesman all rolled into one.
It is not just “The Club for Growth”. I happen to think that they are mainly out for their own $$ too.
The High Reverend Huckster, who when the Goobernator of Arkansas, called those who did not want to roll out such a plush red carpet for illegals and their plantation owner “employers”, un-Cristian, un-American and anti-life, yet he now, without explanation for such a 180 degree transmutation, has on his web site illegal “immigration” pronouncements that make him look like Tom Tancredo on steroids.
The man is a pathological lier.
7:18 am
[...] Rick Moran also wrote a post about Huckabee, from a slightly less objective angle: “Stop the Huckaboom!” [...]
8:11 am
I’ve been telling folks that my distrust of Clinton runs so deep that if she’s nominated, I’ll do something I last did in 1984—vote for a Republican. However, Huckabee would convince me to vote for Clinton.
10:27 am
Im a born again right wing gun owning Christian and I would rather not see Huck win. If it comes down to Huck against Clinton or Obama I will of course vote for him.
But if Fred Thompson is still in the race come March I will vote for him in the Illinois race.
11:38 am
I can’t vote for Huck. The world he lives in doesn’t exist.
6:19 pm
There is something very, very wrong when you have a candidate who can get up on a pulpit and start preaching and quoting passages from the bible yet is blissfully unaware that (1)the “INS” no longer exists (2)the NIE report (natl security OR current events OR both) (3)AIDS patients do NOT need to be quarantined(I think most everyone was aware of this by the late 80’s).
Let’s not forget the guy wants to close Gitmo and head on over and start talking with Ahmendinejad, Castro, and Chavez thinking that this was the answer all along (remind you of anyone?). Is it just me or does this guy remind you of the ‘president’ from Season 5 of 24? Hopefully he goes down just as hard.
7:24 pm
The Huckaberry Shuffle…
Every time I hear Mike Huckabee on a debate or news show, I genuinely like listening to him. His demeanor, cadence, comportment are all appealing somehow — probably because I grew up as a member of a Southern Baptist congregation. However, and it…
7:28 pm
I wrote the following today:
“The last time I looked, Baptists believed that man has free will — freedom to choose either right or wrong, good or evil, salvation or destruction — and that God allows this to be so. Meaning, for Huckabee’s rise in the polls to be caused by God, either the nature of mankind has been modified or the big guy is deciding to meddle a bit in Election ‘08. I find either of those two scenarios more than highly unlikely — so if Mike actually believes this, he’s bordering on being delusional.
Not really a quality one wants in the man with his finger on the button!”
I keep being drawn to the Huckster, can’t really say why. It’s not gonna work though. I’m actually getting a little fed up with all the religious labels being slung around on the GOP side this time. The Dems must be having some good guffaws all around!
9:58 pm
Today FOX News reported the Huckster tried to explain away his letter to the President demanding the Cuban ban be lifted inthat his mistake for doing so was due to its “proximity” to Arkansas.
If The Huckster can’t figure out what’s going on in Cuba because it’s “too far away”, what does that suggest his competency will be for the rest of the world??
1:02 am
I like Mike Huckabee. Until I started looking at the candidates last month, I didn’t know what I would do with my vote. I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to vote for Giuliani, and I couldn’t vote for Romney. Since then, I see that Huckabee most closely represents my point of view of the entire field.
His opponent, if it were Mrs. Clinton, is not a huge worry. She has ridden the Bill Clinton tide. That shouldn’t carry her to the presidency. Obama has less experience than any of the candidates in the two major parties. He should be easy to beat. Edwards is a trial lawyer who is not likeable.
If Huckabee is inexperienced, I don’t care. I would take character over experience any day. Look at the most experienced candidates. Joe Biden. Who would want that to be their president? Certainly not me.
1:49 am
Well, as an athiest, evolutionist, secularist Republican, Huckabee’s rise shows just how lost the party has become. We’ve got a war to win. A real war, and we’re spending our time arguing over who’s a proper Christian and who isn’t? These are sad times.