Just Found The Solution To The Huckabee Problem!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/ke...=MIKE+HUCKABEE
Huckabee not all he appears to be
Conscience of a Conservatarian ^ | October 24, 2007 | Sturm Ruger
Posted on 10/24/2007 11:29:30 AM PDT by Sturm Ruger
Stronger than expected showings in the Ames Straw Poll and the Value Voters Summit Straw Poll have catapaulted former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee into the upper stratosphere of the latest political buzz. He's a likeable guy, he projects himself well and he said all of the right things to the summit and in the recent Florida GOP debate. Indeed, many social conservatives seem to be especially eager to annoint the one-time Baptist preacher as their choice for the GOP presidential nomination, given the recent difficulty the Christian Right has experienced in their quest for a white knight who will represent their interests. But before conservatives of any stripe peel off the backing of an "I'm fer the Huckster" bumper sticker, they should do a little homework.
Fortunately, some more thoughtful conservatives have been doing just that. There's been a flurry of research done on Huckabee, and the results are readily available on the web. Much of it tells a tale that is scarcely good news for conservatives. In my analysis of the findings, I've discarded all of the ad hominem attacks and any questions about the man's ethics. When you get into discussing a candidate’s ethics, the potential for smear increases geometrically, and besides, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'm willing to give the bass-playing politician (Huckabee has a band called Capital Offense) the benefit of any doubt that he's a nice guy and a man of good and decent character. On the issues, however, I'm not quite so easy, and that's where the ammo against Huck can be found aplenty.
Let's begin with The Club for Growth, a well-regarded fiscally conservative interest group which is not impressed by the former Arkansas guv's record:
"Governor Huckabee says he is a fiscal conservative," Club for Growth President Pat Toomey said, "but his ten-year economic-policy record as the governor of Arkansas is mixed, at best. His history includes numerous tax hikes, ballooning government spending, and increased regulation. To be sure, Governor Huckabee's record displays an occasional deference to a pro-growth philosophy, but that is only a small slice of a much bigger picture. The Club for Growth feels citizens deserve a full picture of where Governor Huckabee stands on the critical economic issues of the day."
The Club is so concerned about Huckabee’s carefully planned re-invention of himself that it has put up a website, Tax Hike Mike, to warn voters not to be fooled by this "other" Man From Hope (also Bill Clinton’s home town).
What do Arkansas conservatives think of their former governor? Not much. The Arkansas Republican Assembly, an organization whose members are among the most fiercely conservative in the state, held a presidential straw poll at its annual convention in July. Huckabee was trounced in the poll by Fred Thompson, who received 86% (that’s right - 86%) of the votes cast by the ARRA delegates.
Freedom Works, the special interest group chaired by former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey and dedicated to less government, lower taxes, and more freedom, has posted a video clip of an interview with The Incredible Huck from his appearance on MSNBC’s “Hardball.” In the clip, Freedom Works observes, Rev. Mike had “his anti-corporate, anti-wealth creation talking points” ready for the program’s mostly left-wing viewing audience. The blog post is titled “Huckabee sounds like a leftist on health care.”
On immigration, Huckabee is not quite the strict enforcement guy his campaign would like you to believe he is. As the Arizona Republic reported:
Gov. Mike Huckabee on Thursday heaped criticism upon immigration legislation in the Arkansas Legislature, describing it as "inflammatory . . . race-baiting and demagoguery." He also challenged the Christian values of its main sponsor.
Huckabee said the bill, seeking to forbid public assistance and voting rights to undocumented immigrants, "inflames those who are racist and bigots and makes them think there's a real problem. But there's not."
...Huckabee, also a Republican and a Baptist minister, said Arkansans should be welcoming hard-working immigrants of all races.
The organization English First reminds its members that Huckabee, in a 2003 radio address as governor, advanced the notion that Arkansas taxpayers should be generous to the offspring of illegal immigrants in their state:
"I looked into the eyes of immigrant Mexican children and was moved. These children often don't have enough to eat, don't have good clothes and don't have a dry place to sleep at night... And I was reminded we can give something back by offering a helping hand to those who follow the American dream along Interstate 30 and Interstate 40 into Arkansas."
By all means let's feed and clothe these children, and let's give them a warm and dry place to sleep as we provide them with free transportation back home. But let's allow charitable oranizations to do the feeding and clothing, because our rich Uncle Sam will have to pick up the tab for deportation of entire families because their parents chose to break the law and enter our country without going through the process that legal immigrants follow.
So far, not so good. But it gets worse...
You don't have to be a libertarian to find the CATO Institute’s evaluations useful on fiscal and federalist issues. Here’s CATO’s take on Huckabee:
“Thanks to a final term grade of F, Huckabee earns an overall grade of D for his entire governorship... Huckabee’s leadership has left taxpayers in Arkansas much worse off.”
Then there’s this excerpt from an Arkansas Leader editorial comparing and contrasting Huckabee and Hillary:
“It would be hard to separate the former Arkansas governor and the former Arkansas first lady on... education and health care...”
“You will remember that ArKids First, the great expansion of government-paid health insurance for children, was Arkansas Advocates’ suggestion to the newly sworn in Gov. Huckabee in 1996. He eagerly embraced it and calls it even today his proudest achievement...”
“As governor, Huckabee sought and won a federal waiver for a plan to have the federal government — that’s you — subsidize health insurance for poor adult workers. Other Republicans, including President Bush, are opposing that remedy as creeping socialism.”
Finally, Huckabee had his own Willie Horton moment, turning loose a monster on the public that even Bill Clinton wouldn’t pardon:
... there is one man Huckabee believed deserved a second chance, convicted rapist Wayne Dumond, who continues to haunt Huckabee’s burgeoning presidential campaign.
... Dumond - now dead - was paroled from an Arkansas prison, with then- governor Huckabee’s endorsement, only to sexually assault and kill a woman in Missouri.
“It was one of those things I just feel horrible about. You just ache all the way to the bone over what happened,” the former Arkansas governor said in an interview. “But nobody could know that” Dumond would attack again, he said.
Dumond’s case is notorious in Arkansas. In 1984, he raped a 17-year-old girl. While awaiting trial at his home, he was castrated by, he said, masked intruders. Later, after Dumond went to prison for life, some people in Arkansas saw the sentence as excessive, especially given his mutilation.
Huckabee was one, and, after becoming governor in 1996, he announced his desire to commute Dumond’s sentence. Dumond’s rape victim, Ashley Stevens, saw it differently.
Stevens, now 40 and living in the western United States, said she tried to persuade Huckabee not to shorten the sentence for Dumond.
“I told [Huckabee]: If you ever let him out, he’s going to do it again,” she said in an interview.
She was able to get a meeting with the governor - who, she said, had not spoken to her before announcing his intention to commute Dumond’s sentence - but realized Huckabee had “made up his mind.” So Stevens stood up, she said, walked over to Huckabee, who was seated on a sofa, squatted down and thrust her face inches from his.
“I said, ‘This is how close I was to Dumond’s face for an hour,’ “ Stevens recalled. “ ‘I’ll never forget his face, and you’ll never forget mine.’ “
The parole board - following a closed meeting with Huckabee - decided to let Dumond go. The following year, Dumond committed the Missouri slaying. He died in prison in 2005.
In the final analysis, Huckabee appears to be even more of a “compasssionate conservative,” big-spending, big-government guy and open-borders advocate than George W. Bush, without the dedication of the current president to lasting tax cuts.
Danger, Will Robinson, danger...
- Ruger
A tip of the Ruger cap to Tommy Oliver for his research in finding and making available the CATO, Arkansas Leader and Dumond pieces.
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