Huckabee not conservative enough for some (some?)

Mike Huckabee says he is the “conservative who is not mad at anybody,” but that doesn’t mean some people aren’t mad at him.

“The far left and the far right curse the ground on which I walk,” Huckabee told me Monday. “That is a great place to be. I am where far more of the country is.”

Some fiscal conservatives are beginning to worry that Huckabee might actually do well in the caucuses and primaries — if not well enough to win the nomination, then well enough to get a vice presidential nod.

His critics say that when Huckabee was governor of Arkansas, he was a big spender and a big taxer.

There may be another reason for some fiscal conservatives not to like him, however: Huckabee is anti-greed.

In his speeches, Huckabee rails against the “unbridled greed” of some Wall Street executives.

“I am not interested in being the candidate of Wall Street but of Main Street,” he says. “CEOs get paid 500 times what the average worker does, but they are not necessarily 500 times smarter or harder-working, and that is wrong.”

Last Friday, an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal quoted Randy Minton, a former Republican state representative from Arkansas, as saying Huckabee’s “support for taxes split the Republican Party and damaged our name brand.”

Huckabee, who was governor of Arkansas for 10½ years, was only the third Republican governor there since Reconstruction. And he says that, far from damaging the name brand of Republicans there, he beat the “Clinton political machine” in Arkansas four times.

“Nobody knows Hillary better than me,” Huckabee told me. “The Clintons campaigned for my opponents four times, and I won. When people talk about who can beat Hillary, I say I already have.”

On Monday, The Washington Times ran an article under the headline: “Huckabee stirs up third-party fear.”

The piece said a “bitter fight” was taking place in the party over Huckabee, and “most annoying to some conservatives are Mr. Huckabee’s positions on immigration.”

As John McCain found earlier this year, immigration has emerged as the true third-rail issue for Republicans this primary season.

“I do not believe in amnesty, I don’t believe in sanctuary cities, I believe [illegal aliens] who commit crimes ought to be deported, and I believe we ought to go after the employers,” Huckabee said.

“But do I have a seething anger toward immigrants?” he went on. “No. I definitely have anger toward the incompetence of our government; I am just livid over it. But immigrants just love our country like we do.”

A University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll released Monday shows Huckabee gaining ground in Iowa, moving into a statistical tie for second place with Rudy Giuliani and trailing Mitt Romney.

“If Huckabee can motivate religious conservatives to attend the caucuses in large numbers, he may well threaten Romney,” said David Redlawsk, director of the poll.

Mitt Romney has spent $53.6 million this primary season and has 36.2 percent of the vote in Iowa, according to the poll. Which means Romney has spent $1.48 million for every percentage point of support.

Rudy Giuliani has spent $30.6 million and has 13.1 percent of the vote. Which means he has spent $2.34 million for every percentage point of support.

Mike Huckabee has spent $1.7 million and has 12.8 percent of the vote. Which means he has spent $133,000 for every percentage point of support.

By my calculations, if Huckabee had Romney’s money, Huckabee would have 40.3 percent of the vote in Iowa and would be in first place.

Which doesn’t mean Huckabee will ever be able to raise that kind of money (nor does spending money always guarantee support).

But Huckabee says his fundraising is going better and better, even though he is now being attacked by conservatives as well as liberals. (Liberals don’t like him because he is anti-abortion, pro-guns, anti-civil-unions and a supporter of exposing children to creationism as well as evolution.)

“It has been the liberal side of the press that has been calling me a right-wing fanatic and a Neanderthal,” Huckabee said.

But he said he fully expected the attacks from both sides. “When they quit attacking me, then that means I am no longer a factor,” he said.

“First they ignore you,” Huckabee said. “Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then they attend your swearing in.”

HUCKABEE IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE.

Club for Growth was scathing on Mike Huckabee.
In return, Mike called Club for Growth the “Club for Greed”. Since the CfG is #1 RINO hunter out there, and spot-on group for conservatives, it seems the Huckster has been ‘outed’:
He’s a pro-life, pro-family, soft-on-crime-and-immigration liberal populist.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010782
JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL
* 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.”

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.”

The business community in Arkansas is split. Some praise Mr. Huckabee’s efforts to raise taxes to repair roads and work with an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature. Free-market advocates are skeptical. “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.”

http://taxhikemike.org/

* Mr. Huckabee was the only GOP candidate to refuse to endorse President Bush’s veto of the Democrats’ bill to vastly expand the Schip health-care program. Only he and John McCain have endorsed the discredited cap-and-trade system to limit global-warming emissions that has proved a fiasco in Europe.

* Tax hikes as Governor of Arkansas. These include:

* Sales Tax, 1996 (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11/07/96)
* Gas and Diesel Fuel Taxes, 1999 (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 04/02/99, 04/25/99)
* Sales Tax, 2000 (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 09/25/02)
* Cigarette Tax, 2001 (Associated Press, 04/02/01)
* Nursing Home Bed Tax, 2001 (Associated Press, 06/25/01)
* Sales Tax, 2002 (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11/15/02)
* Income Surcharge Tax, 2003 (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10/09/07)
* Tobacco Tax, 2003 (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10/09/07)
* Internet Taxes, 2004 (Bond Buyer, 02/24/04)

* Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. “Sooner or later, Mike Huckabee is going to have to answer for his liberal tax-and-spend record, and humorous one-liners and half-truths won’t cut it. The American people deserve honest answers, not a stand-up routine.”

* Cato Institute gave Huckabee a “D” rating - Thanks to a final term grade of F, Huckabee earns an overall grade of D for his entire governorship. Like many Republicans, his grades dropped the longer he stayed in office. In his first few years, he fought hard for a sweeping $70 million tax cut package that was the first broad-based tax cut in the state in more than 20 years. He even signed a bill to cut the state’s 6 percent capital gains tax—a significant pro-growth accomplishment. But nine days after being reelected in 2002, he proposed a sales tax increase to cover a budget deficit caused partly by large spending increases that he proposed and approved, including an expansion in Medicare eligibility that Huckabee made a centerpiece of his 1997 agenda. He agreed to a 3 percent income tax “surcharge” and a 25-cent cigarette tax increase. In response to a court order to increase spending on education, Huckabee proposed another sales tax increase. Huckabee wants to run for the GOP presidential nomination next year. He’s already been hailed as a viable big-government conservative candidate by some. That seems about right: Huckabee’s leadership has left taxpayers in Arkansas much worse off.

HUCKABEE: “Did we raise taxes on fuel? Yes. But 80% of the people voted on it because it was on the ballot” (“Meet The Press,” 01/28/07).

TRUTH: Governor Huckabee signed a gas and diesel fuel tax increase that was not contingent on voter approval. A second bill, which raised $475 million dollar in bonds, did require voter approval. Governor Huckabee shouldn’t falsely blame the voters for his tax increase.

HUCKABEE: “We were under a Supreme Court order to raise revenue for our schools” (“Meet the Press,” 01/2/07).

TRUTH: The Arkansas Supreme Court required the Legislature to devote more funds to education, but the Legislature had the option of cutting spending on other programs. It was not forced to raise taxes. When the Legislature raised sales taxes by 17%, Huckabee did not sign the bill, but he did not veto or fight the tax increase either. He also opposed repeal of the sales tax on groceries and medicine in 2002 and proposed a sales tax increase of his own shortly thereafter.

HUCKABEE: “I have always been staunchly opposed to any tax on Internet access. I am adamantly opposed, always have been. For them to say anything otherwise is an outright lie” (National Review, 09/10/07).

TRUTH: In February of 2004, Huckabee joined with two other Democratic governors in urging Congress to reject a bill that would make the Internet access tax moratorium permanent and embrace a temporary two-year extension of the ban instead.

HUCKABEE: “I’ve earned my stripes in government. I’ve run something. I’ve made tough decisions. I’ve balanced budgets” (Human Events, 06/18/07).

TRUTH: Balancing the Arkansas state budget is not a demonstration of Huckabee’s alleged fiscal responsibility but a function of Arkansas law that requires governors to produce a balanced budget each year. In fact, every Arkansas governor over the past fifty years has balanced the budget, from Orval Faubus, to Bill Clinton, to Mike Huckabee.

“If Governor Huckabee thinks he can wave away his tax-and-spend record with clever nicknames and half-baked stories, he has another thing coming,” Mr. Toomey added. “Make no mistake: Governor Huckabee is no economic conservative and—here’s a little bit of advice—making fun of the Club for Growth won’t actually make him one.”

NO TAX CUTS IF MIKE IS PRESIDENT:
* Huckabee said during an appearance on Iowa Public Television: “I don’t think it’s realistic to say we’re going to go in and slash taxes.”

* Ramesh Ponnuru writes: [Huckabee] seems to combine some of Pat Buchanan’s bad ideas with some of George W. Bush’s. He’s the protectionist compassionate conservative. No thanks.”

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