A Vetting About to Occur
By Repair Man Jack Posted in 2008 — Comments (46) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Mike Huckabee has accomplished what at least one long shot in every Presidential Primary year manages. He has used his oratory and marketing skills to go from nobody to competitor, just in time to money up for the New Hampshire and Iowa primaries. Governor Huckabee deserves a certain amount of credit. Less than 10% of the unlikelies who declare presidential intentions ever make the headlines much after the day they announce.
Once that happens, however, the new kid in town will always invite a certain scrutiny. Picking on Dennis Kucinich or Allan Keyes could be seen as pointless, as long as the opinion polls always round the ones digit of their poll numbers down to zero. Give either Kucinich or Keyes 23% in the next Rasmussen Poll of Iowa and those of us not crossing the Canadian Border would be forced to put away the punch lines and actually figure out if we could seriously countenance either of these guys in a POTUS suit.
Huckabee just broke two figures in the latest national GOP Primary Tracking Poll. He also happens to be the only ordained clergyman in a field of candidates that religious conservatives have expressed profound dissatisfaction with. Perhaps the spark has been struck and lots of dry tinder is lying around ready to ignite.
However, as Huckabee has started to gain friends, he has also attracted animosity as well. This, vis-à-vis my earlier comments on the Kucinich Juggernaut, could be taken by The Governor as a compliment. Pat Toomey hasn’t penned many articles lately for or against Tom Tancredo or Mike Gravel. Tommey’s missive wasn’t in any way complimentary and seems to put to lie the old saw that all publicity is good.
On the issue of taxation, Cicero’s indictment of Cataline for bribery took a less aggressive approach to prosecuting a public official’s record in office.
During Huckabee’s tenure as governor, the average Arkansan’s tax burden increased 47 percent, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. A dyed-in-blue tax hiker, Huckabee supported raising sales taxes, gas taxes, grocery taxes, even nursing home bed taxes. He virulently opposed a congressional moratorium on taxing Internet access, and sat on the sidelines while his Democratic legislature pushed the largest tax hike in Arkansas history into law. What’s more, on his watch, and frequently at his behest, state spending increased by 50 percent, more than double the rate of inflation, and the number of state government workers rose by 20 percent. Yes, as a presidential candidate, Huckabee has signed on as a supporter of the Fair Tax and pledged against raising taxes, but when a candidate’s long and clear record flies in the face of his election-year symbolism, you can chalk it up to politics every time.
Pat Toomey doesn’t refer to Huckabee as a new man from Hope because he thinks of the place as a convenient place to exit I-40 and grab a bite of lunch. His not-so-subtle efforts to link Huckabee to Boogeyman Bill Clinton truly show that Huckabee now has to stand in against the major league brush-back fastball. While neglecting to classify Huckabee amongst the undead let loose in time for Halloween, Toomey ridicules Huckabee’s prospects of even serving as a viable VPOTUS and scores his positions on a list of contemporary GOP angst-issues.
Instead of talking about curtailing government spending, Huckabee refuses to endorse President Bush’s veto of a vastly expanded S-CHIP. He is an unabashed fan of No Child Left Behind and an opponent of private school choice. Huckabee is also quickly becoming the labor unions’ favorite Republican, recently gaining a union endorsement along with Hillary Clinton.
John Fund
Betsy Hagan, Arkansas director of the conservative Eagle Forum and a key backer of his early runs for office, was once "his No. 1 fan." She was bitterly disappointed with his record. "He was pro-life and pro-gun, but otherwise a liberal," she says. "Just like Bill Clinton he will charm you, but don't be surprised if he takes a completely different turn in office."
Fund then turns to a living icon of the Right-to-Life Movement.
Phyllis Schlafly, president of the national Eagle Forum, is even more blunt. "He destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles," she says. "Yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on George W. Bush as a 'compassionate conservative' are now trying to sell us on Mike Huckabee."
Having elicited condemnatory compurgations from the So-Cons, Fund goes Phising for Fiscons.
"He has zero intellectual underpinnings in the conservative movement," says Blant Hurt, a former part owner of, and columnist for, Arkansas Business magazine. "He's hostile to free trade, hiked sales and grocery taxes, backed sales taxes on Internet purchases, and presided over state spending going up more than twice the inflation rate."
To make absolutely sure the dagger penetrates to the vertebrae beneath, Fund then finds a disgruntled former staffer of Huckabee’s from Arkansas. The “former top aide” dishes, off-the-record, of course.
"He's just like Bill Clinton in that he practices management by news cycle," a former top Huckabee aide told me. "As with Clinton there was no long-term planning, just putting out fires on a daily basis. One thing I'll guarantee is that won't lead to competent conservative governance."
So Huckabee has been welcomed to the jungle. He rose from the dregs and is challenging the former Big Three, now Big Four and perhaps soon to be Big Five. But to get aboard that train, Huckabee has to pay for the ticket. He has to pick up the gauntlet with the same unflinching nerve that Fred Thompson displayed when James Dobson publicly referred to him as an infidel.
Huckabee will have to do what Rudy Guiliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson all had to do earlier this season. He has to answer these doubters. And if possible, make them all look like Glass Beauchamps. If he can’t get this accomplished, he won’t be joining the front tier for very long, and whoever wins will not be making him a VPOTUS candidate either.
Check out Rasmussen Reports, he's at 12% ... beating out Romney.
He's also raising more money now too..
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
Illegal immigration is my most important issue and there is no doubt that Huckabee has the most liberal approach to dealing (or not) with the illegal immigration problem. His record in Arkansaw was terrible and he has said or done little that makes me think he is in anyway rehabilitated on that issue. If there is a difference between Mike and Hillary on the illegal immigration issue it is too subtle for me to recognize.
I was actually glad when Brownback got out of the race...but was hoping support would go from him elsewhere - Thompson, almost anyone else...but with Huckabee picking up votes.
Immigration stand: http://mikehuckabeepresident2008.blogspot.com/2006/05/mike-huckabee-on-i...
Erik
http://www.betterimmigration.com/candidates/2006/HuckabeePres08.html
I had not given Mike much thought until recently because I didn't think he had a chance. Now I am starting to pay attention and generally be concerned.
I know he is a great communicator and has the best position on abortion of any Republican in the race. I know he supports the FAIR Tax which I like but give little probablility of ever becoming law.
Other than those things, does he have any conservative or even Republican credentials? My impression is that on other than social issues he is generally to the left of Rudy.
I swear it's like a broken record here when it comes to Mike Huckabee. Everyone's worried about this and worried about that. Huckabee's raised taxes, Huckabee wants illegal immigrants, Huckabee's going to increase the size of the federal Government, Huckabee's going to make us a communist state...
Holy Crap!
Does anybody do any real research on here anymore? I was a member of the Club for Growth, supported their intense research on Congressional Republican incumbents and their recruitment on challengers. Even their research is so plastic.
Support of Bill as Governor of Arkansas:
*They discredit 90% of the Legislature was Democrat
*They don't take into account him signing bills that were passed with a Veto-Immune Majority
*They fail to factor in his campaigns against higher taxes including the "Tax Me More" fund. Rather, they think he really wants to tax us more...
Immigration
First and foremost, the individuals barking up this tree with Huckabee are completely misguided, looking at verbal compassion and not looking at policy decisions.
*Huckabee favors building a fence first and foremost
BUT
*Huckabee understands that as a people we must be compassionate. Why? He's thinking of the children... He's been a pastor... He's a caring guy. Next thing you know words are placed in his mouth that he's for amnesty when he never said anything of the sort!
Huckabee is the only top tier candidate who doesn't favor an incredibly large increase to the federal cost share of the health care system and coverage. Rather, he takes a (dare I say this) Libertarian approach where it's an individual's responsibility to be healthy! ... Gosh, maybe we can cut through some red tape and make it more feasible for companies to cover preventative health care and therefore decrease costs?
Huckabee is the only candidate talking for a large scale restructuring of our income tax system. Conservatives... WAKE UP! The freaking tax code is 9 times longer than the Holy Bible. It's filled with injustices, filled with loopholes, filled with taxing people too much- individuals who can't find the loopholes. They lobbyists today are acting like spiders spinning more web into that which is our current tax system.
Do we not stand for justice anymore?
Do we not stand for equality in the tax system anymore?
No... rather we listen to what people have said, don't do our own research (aka not listening to opinions or articles, but looking at facts without spin) and work to draw our own conclusions.
To change the tax system does not mean it will be improved. Any tax system hurts some more than others. And they all will become distorted, the same way that simplifications, usually add hundreds of pages.
"*They don't take into account him signing bills that were passed with a Veto-Immune Majority"
If it's bad law, then you veto it anyways. Let them override the veto. Stand up for your principles, jeez!
I was sucked into the GWB compassionate conservative, new tone garbage and we all see how that worked. We DO NOT need another GWB i.e. no Huckabee. I wholeheartedly support G-dub on the GWOT, which brings up another point of contention for a POTUS candidate.
No matter who gets elected, the GWOT is going to be fought pretty much as it has been, even if...dare I say it...thunder-thighs clinton wins. So there's another irrelevent issue that brings everyone back to even standing, and there goes Rudy's edge.
The single-issue type voters need to get your head out of the sand and look at a more broad range of issues. Abortion is not the biggest issue in this nation (I find the practice barbarous and reprehensible), the fix for that particular problem and the rest of them comes from the more deeply seated problem of a too-large and too-involved imperial federal government. Yes, judges are important, but we don't need activism on the social conservatism side just as much as we don't need it on the lib side. We just need judges who follow the constitution and let social change happen in the legislative arena where it's supposed to be. This nation is sick and abortion, homo marriage, etc are all just symptoms of the same sickness.
Wow, what a diatribe. Sorry to place this erratic line of thinking into a comment, but I was rolling.
In Huckabee's own words from the link I posted above:
""I don't want to have an amnesty program. You can't let people break a law and say 'hey we're going to look the other way, don't worry about it, we're going to let you in, no problem.' People have to make restitution, there's got to be a penalty paid for the crime committed. But it ought to fit the crime; you don't put somebody in jail for ten years because they came across the border to make a living.
You make them pay something, you make them go through a process, you may put them in the back of the line for the process, but you create a process that's realistic. You don't say the back of the line starts and for the next 12 years you're going to be filling out paperwork.
What you do say is you're going to pay the fine, we're going to have a system that can be done in an orderly fashion, and you'll be able to be legal but we're not going to let you off scot free. That's important."
I don't see a lick of difference between Huckabee's position and George Bush's or Hillary's or Ted Kennedy's.
What he is advocating is a token punishment and putting them on a path to citizenship which is even less harsh than the one in the late and dead comprehensive bill.
Most conservatives considered that approach AMNESTY. I know I do. I don't want another 4 years of Clintonesque parshing of the word amnesty.
I spend a fair amount of time rooting around at NumbersUSA.
Here is a tabular comparison of how the GOP candidates stack up on the immigration issue. Click to Page 2 to find Hucklebee.
This site gets updated daily. Apparently Roy Beck has changed his mind on Hucklebee since you heard his last statement because he clearly lists Mike in SUPPORT of AMNESTY.
"He was an absolute disaster on immigration as governor," said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a group that played a major role in rallying the phone calls that helped defeat this year's Senate immigration bill. "Every time there was any enforcement in his state, he took the side of the illegal aliens."
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
He is on record opposing amnesty, supporting the fence, and reconsidering birthright citizenship. Plus he doesn't have the voting record that Fred has.
How do you reconcile "reconsidering birthright citizenship" with wanting to force AR taxpayers to subsidize the tuition of illegal aliens who want to attend their universities? Go ahead and try, please. It should be pretty entertaining.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
In the interest of vetting, I wonder how many of us are aware of Mike's position on Global Warming?
Huckabee Backs Mandatory U.S. Cap on Global-Warming Pollution
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20071013/pl_bloomberg/aydb2mpif0eu_1
So much for a strong economy because I have never seen anything to suggest that we could impose these caps without massive economuic disruption and damage.
stick a fork in him.
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men."
Huckabee has drawn a sharp line against environmentalism. He calls himself a conservationist. Both Huckabee and McCain have tentatively supported this cap. This is a very electable position.
Just because it is electable does not make it good policy or conservative policy.
In my mind it reflects incredibly poor judgement. Why would anybody sign us up for a policy that will have severe impact on our economy and which most experts agree would have neglible if any effect on the problem even if it is indeed human caused and the evidence is starting to swing in the direction that it is in fact not.
Why doesn't he go pro-choice while he's at it? Some would say that is "an electable position" as well. And by the way, "McCain supports it too!" isn't much of a defense.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
John McCain or Ron Paul before Huckabee.
I'm OK with him as a US Senator only because we have a fairly high tolerance for idiots. (see Arlin)
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
Tyson Foods?
Huckabee's close ties to chicken packing, illegal alien employing Tyson Foods suggest that he's a fan of amnesty and expanding guest worker programs. Huckabee even opened a Mexican consulate office in AR, at taxpayer expense and without the consent of the legislature, insisting on free college educations for illegals. Whomever said he's got a bad record on illegal immigration hit the nail on the head.
[He Who Shall Not Be Named] FOR PRESIDENT in 2008!
Now you all may not like him...however I thought that Colin Powell would be good. I mean I don't know a whole ton about his positions...but I'm thinking I would like someone like him more...or even Forbes. I even liked Mrs. Dole when she ran. The list is just so...blehhhh
Yuck, they are both entirely too old. :)
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
John McCain or Ron Paul before Huckabee.
I'm OK with him as a US Senator only because we have a fairly high tolerance for idiots. (see Arlin)
____
CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
I don't heart Huckabee. In fact, he's probably my least favorite candidate, on a personal level. Now, I realize that in the large scheme of things this is a petty concern, but on a selfish personal level, and as a smoker, drinker, and generally unhealthy eater, I really, really don't like his nanny-state health policies. Hey, I think it's great he lost 100 lbs. And I think it's great in a general sense for people to try to be healthy. But the fact that he cleaned his own act up doesn't give him the right to try to force anyone else to do so. And from personal experience, these kinds of people generally think they're somehow morally justified to force their own standards on the rest of us. Like I said, a petty complaint, but thought I'd add my 2 cents.
Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us. -P.J. O'Rourke
I'm just curious because I am a smoker. Does he go beyond banning it in workplaces and restaurants...because we have plenty of that across the country.
http://news.aol.com/elections-blog/2007/08/30/huckabee-commits-to-nation...
according to this he wants to ban smoking in all public places, and as in california, I think that is just a stepping stone to banning it outright. If he is elected I would invest in ALOT of chewing gum.
...He flip-floped on the issue? WHich statement was tru? the one he made in the first link, or the one he made in the second?
I trust Huckster about as far as I can spit a Buick.
Well, it appears from what I've read that it's similar to laws enacted in other states; it bans smoking in nearly all workplaces, including restaurants (not sure about bars, but I'd assume those as well). And I'm well-aware of how widespread it is; they did it in NJ (where I live when not at school) pretty early on. I wasn't really worried about them doing it in Tennessee, but lo and behold they did it just this month.
So, it's not any worse than a lot of other states, but it still makes me dislike him just a little bit more.
Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us. -P.J. O'Rourke
Share the LOVE!
Lord knows I'm lovin' it!!! (pardon me for a second while I dance...) ok, where was I?
"...a mile wide and 1" deep!" I'm sure ya'll will take him out of the running soon enough. But before that happens, I think he might very well take Iowa even though some of ya'll say it ain't nothin'. I also think he will do pretty well in NH but that ain't hittin' on nothin' either. SC... ain't nothin...
He has no support, don't ya know? Rasmussen ain't nothin' either.
But seriously now, don't be hatin' the playa' hate the game! If a miracle happens will you be voting for Hillary instead of Huckabee?
That's all right too. Well crap, my coffee cup is empty again. 'Must have a hole in it. Gotta go for now.
Ya'll have a GREAT day! ;o)
Jim Tomasik
He is an unabashed fan of No Child Left Behind and an opponent of private school choice.
I have no idea how this makes sense.
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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!
No Child Left Behind was a massive increasing in federal education spending, mandating testing on public schools and allowing kids in those that are constantly failing to switch to another public school. It's a step forward and a step back. No Child Left Behind does not allow private school choice and only alows public school choice to a tiny number of people.
I, like most conservatives, believe that parents should be able to use the public money that finances their child's education to send their child to any school they want. To doom their child to poverty by forcing them to go to an abysmal school is unethical, and children still languish in failing or near failing schools for years under NCLB. Even more importantly, the overall quality of education in this country would skyrocket if free market competition was injected into the system and there were more private schools with freedom from government bureaucracies and mandates.
I'm fully aware of what NCLB is. I'm fully aware of its strengths and flaws. I'm fully aware of why everyone who hates it, hates it.
We're sympatico on that reasoning.
What I mean is, How can one both favor NCLB and oppose school choice? (That's why I made the snarky title about hearting -- this seems self-contradictory.)
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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!
Bush's NCLB proposal emphasized vouchers. Post-Kennedy it came out w/o vouchers. NCLB w/o vouchers can be supported by one who loves gov't schools and just wants extra Fed money. Don't know whether that describes Huck.
Yes! It's about time to inject the dynamics of the market into the education system. People have been looking to politicians to fix the education system in this country for years now, and politicians don't know how to fix it. Market dynamics are the key.
Great insight and research. Give us more. Thanks.
When he calls himself conservative, Huckabee doth protest too much. Why did he raise taxes so much in Arkansas? This puts him to the left of Rudy Giuliani, and mandatory caps on CO2 would kill our economy.
If Huckabee wants to do conservatives a favor, he should drop out of the Presidential race and try to win Mark Pryor's seat in the U. S. Senate. With Huckabee's statewide recognition as a former Governor, he would have a reasonably good chance of winning.
The bad news: Conservatism is hard to sell. The good news is that it works.
Most of these attacks on Huckabee are refuted here:
http://roebuckreport.blogspot.com/2007/10/funds-column-assassination-of-...
Many people seem to view him as a threat. I wonder why.
Same excuses the Huckabots have be using for everything in his record. Yea, I know, don't pay any attention to what he has done, pay attention to what he is promising to do now. The attacks on the WSJ and NYC were pretty good, though. Who knew that the WSJ was the enemy. I guess the NYT is more inline with Huckabee on fiscal issues.
Many people seem to view him as a threat. I wonder why.
Yea, we hear the same thing from the Ronulans. I wonder why.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
Mike was my 5th of the big five as I've been working through who I am going to throw my support behind.
Oz
Read my most recent story, "The GOP race: My 2nd runner up -- John McCain" on First Cut Politics