Posted on 01/18/2008 7:20:12 PM PST by Daniel T. Zanoza
Commentary by Daniel T. Zanoza, Executive Director
I don't recall ever experiencing anything like it--a Governor from a small southern state rockets to national prominence and so many are threatened by it. Of course, I'm talking about Mike Huckabee, who many believe is the front-runner for the Republican Party's presidential nomination. You see, the former Governor of Arkansas and ordained Baptist minister has come literally out of nowhere and many in the dominant media and the GOP elite don't like it. Well, they don't like Huckabee's success. Huckabee won the Iowa caucus, came in third in New Hampshire and Michigan, plus Huckabee may win the South Carolina Republican primary scheduled for Saturday, January 19th.
But what are they afraid of? Huckabee is consistent with the GOP platform regarding all social issues, including favoring a Constitutional Amendment that would protect the innocent unborn and he would also amend the U.S. Constitution regarding the issue of marriage. You see, Huckabee believes that institution is reserved solely for one man and one woman, just like President George W. Bush.
However, as soon as Huckabee's campaign started to get traction, attacks began coming--hot and heavy. He was called a liberal tax and spender. Huckabee was criticized for being soft on illegal immigration. You name it, his opponents and special interest groups tried to make him look like Leon Trotsky in a well-tailored suit.
So, let's get down to the nuts and bolts regarding the attacks on Huckabee. When former Democratic Arkansas Governor Jim "Guy" Tucker committed so many crimes I don't have time to list them here, Huckabee--who was Lt. Governor at the time--took over Tucker's job. Remember, this was in a state controlled by the Clinton machine and 87% of its General Assembly were Democrats. Arkansas had the worst roads in America, according to many trucker magazines; and its school system was ranked 49th out of 50 in the nation after Bill Clinton and Tucker had left. Now Arkansas' roads are rated some of the best in America and its public education system has its head above water and children are learning.
Huckabee brought Arkansas back from the brink of oblivion. Yet groups like the Club for Growth have been on his case, claiming Huckabee would tax and spend Americans to death. But nothing is as simple as the Club for Growth would make it seem. Arkansas' public schools had been decimated by corruption, someone had to fix them and Huckabee did so. Plus, Huckabee has promised not to raise taxes, if elected President. Fred Thompson has not given the same guarantee and neither has John McCain. In fact, McCain refused to sign President Bush's tax cut which put billion of dollars back in the pockets of Americans.
Then came the attacks on Huckabee regarding illegal immigration. He was supposed to be soft on the issue. The truth is he allowed the children of illegal immigrants to get an education. What was he supposed to do? Leave them roam the streets? Huckabee did what Christians and compassionate Americans are supposed to do. He didn't blame the children. Huckabee put the blame where it belonged--with parents who came here illegally.
Now I disagree with Huckabee's plan that would have given discounts to the children of illegal immigrants who were seeking higher education. The discounts were fine, but those from other states were not entitled to this same opportunity and that was wrong and he has admitted so. However, the real blame regarding problems surrounding illegal immigration lie at the feet of the federal government, including Congress, John McCain, Ted Kennedy and the President of the United States, George W. Bush--who wanted to solve the problem by giving "amnesty" to over 12 million people who entered this country illegally. By the way, Mike Huckabee is the only candidate who said he would build a double fence on the United States border with Mexico and, eventually, through attrition and deportation, send those who are here illegally back to their native lands. No other candidate has included all of these components in a plan to deal with this problem. Here's a final tidbit. During his time in the U.S. Senate, Fred Thompson did not initiate one piece of legislation designed to deal with illegal immigration--not one.
Fast forward to the days before the Republican primary in South Carolina (SC), where Huckabee is favored to win or, at the least, do very well. While speaking to a group in SC, Huckabee was talking about the U.S. Constitution and the need to bring the document more in line with natural law. The media jumped all over him, saying, in effect, Huckabee wanted to turn America into a theocracy. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Huckabee was talking about a Constitutional Amendment banning abortion and restricting marriage to include only one man and one woman. That doesn't sound crazy to a vast majority of Americans and more and more, each day our country is realizing abortion is a sin against God and man.
Yet Huckabee's polling numbers keep rising in South Carolina. What to do to stop him, pondered the GOP elite and dominant media. The new tactic is to blame Huckabee for the attacks that were once being waged against him. For example, on Hannity and Colmes (FOX News) co-host Alan Colmes was talking about a group that was making phone calls in South Carolina (push polling), stating that Huckabee had signed the no-tax pledge and another candidate hadn't.
Personally, I don't see anything wrong with this, if it's the truth, and it is fact regarding Thompson and McCain. Huckabee said the calls were being made by an independent group, he disavowed their actions and would ask them to stop making the calls.
In the mean time, another organization was criticizing Sen. John McCain, saying he was not a war hero. This veteran's group was also saying McCain gave up military secrets while he was a prisoner of the North Vietnamese in Hanoi. However, this group had nothing to do with Huckabee, no one suggested it did, and most everyone didn't like what was going on. Yet Colmes implied Huckabee was responsible for these attacks on McCain as well. In fact, the liberal Colmes plied this tactic very well and, if listeners weren't paying close attention, they would have assumed Huckabee had literally gone crazy and was making all kinds of charges against anyone in sight because his campaign was desperate. What makes things worse is Sean Hannity sat by silently while he saw what his co-host was doing and said nothing.
There have been many tactics used against Mike Huckabee and most of them have been unfair. I hate to say this, but, for election coverage, I turn to CNN or MSNBC instead of FOX News these days because Roger Ailes, the President of FOX, is obviously taking marching orders from the Republican hierarchy. First the network pushed Rudy Giuliani. Then it was John McCain. After that, it was Mitt Romney. And now FOX is hawking the failing campaign of former Sen. Fred Thompson.
I don't have the answer for this question: Why isn't the mainstream media saying Mike Huckabee would be the easiest Republican to defeat in the general election? Or, maybe I do have the answer. Indeed, in Michigan, Democratic operatives were encouraging their Party's constituency to vote for Mitt Romney. Shouldn't they have told their fellow Democrats to vote for Huckabee, if he were indeed the easiest to beat? (NOTE: The Democratic vote was meaningless in Michigan because of infighting within the Party.)
What does this all tell me? There are those who are deathly afraid of a Huckabee presidency. Perhaps it's because the former Arkansas Governor is truly a Reaganesque candidate who would appeal to Reagan Democrats and social conservatives. That was the coalition which brought Ronald Reagan to power.
I don't have all the answers, but it is obvious there are significant forces lined up against a person who seems to be a good man and well fit to run this country.
“I didn’t raise taxes in Arkansas, I raised hope.”
Which slick, disingenuous political phony said this?
a) Bill Clinton
b) Mike Huckabee
Hard to tell the difference, isn’t it?
I like Huckabee, so bear with me as I say that if Mike didn’t want to get stones thrown at him he should not have entered politics. It is a battlefield and a place only for those who can take it. Mike needs to be one of those who can take it and persevere.
Sorry, but that's going to be quite a list.
You are out of your mind. The MSM LOVES The Huckster.
It’s the Conservative media and blogs that see right though him.
Oh Huck a boo hoo! Poor Huck! Huck it is a blood sport, remember? If you can’t take the heat stay out of the kitchen.
The first couple times Huckabee was getting slammed, I was right there defending him. Right here, in fact, defending him.
But the more this plays out, the more I’m getting so over, his “victim” act.
Buck it up. Quit whining.
Sheesh. He sounds like Hillery.
If your candidate could be trusted for any of his more conservative points, people like me might respond more favorably.
As it is, he is “Clinton-lite.”
You know he draws wisdom from Scriptures don’t you. I mean, the nerve of the man. /s
I see all the Ron Paul zealots are online tonight...at least they’re not out burning crosses.—Dan Zanoza
They won lots of elections...
To remain ignorant of history is to remain forever a child who'll be led by whoever sounds most pleasing or convincing.
- Thomas Jefferson
Bud Light presents:
...(Real men of genius)
Today we salute you, Mr. Mike Huckabee paid FR campaign shill!
...(Mr. Mike Huckabee paid FR campaign shill)
What does a liberal Republican do when he is afraid to face grass roots conservatives himself? He pays his coffee and errand boy minimum wage to do it for him
...(skim milk with three sweet and lows)
Sitting in a cubicle at campaign headquarters you search Conservative websites like the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Salon, CNN and Daily Kos looking for favorable articles about the Huckster to post on FR
...(oooh, here's one from DU!)
Armed with nothing but talking points from Hucks' website, you attempt to convince conservatives that your candidate is not a Christian socialist or a pro-life Democrat
...(Jesus would want amnesty for illegals)
When FReepers say Huck is a fiscal liberal, algore loving environmental wacko, open border amnesty pusher, Jimmy Carter foreign policy appeaser, nanny state smoker banner you provide the brilliant original response...a link to his campaign website
...(copy, paste, copy, paste)
Conservatives? We don't need no stinkin' Conservatives!
...(Highly overrated)
All we need is a leftist who is pro-life, has an R next to his name, and talks about Jesus.
...(Praise the Lord!)
So crack open an ice cold Bud Light, oh Karl Rove of the blogosphere, because when a FReeper runs for office, we'll be calling you...
...(Mr. Mike Huckabee paid FR campaign shill)
Bud Light beer. Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, Missouri.
"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path".
--Ronald Reagan
Inside Ronald Reagan: A Reason Interview from July 1975
Any questions Mr. Shill???
Hmm. It seems that The Huckster now finds the need to pledge against the very behavior and beliefs he held until the last televised debate started his numbers shooting downward.
Obviously you have a problem discerning character.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200712/POL20071204b.html
I don't think this article gives us anything different (really) to review him on immigration-wise. But I'd be interested in hearing from the Fredheads how it is that their candidate has not promised to raise taxes, but Huck has, yet Huck is hit up on that issue & Fred isn't.
His “pledges” - even if “followed” - will be nuanced to the point they have no shred of original intent left in them, but will otherwise be true to the “letter” of the word.
The Huckster’s “no amnesty” pledge could, due to his character, grant immediate citizenship to the illegals, but never be called an “amnesty program.” His tax pledge will be no more real than his stance that he reduced taxes more than raised them during his time in office (a lie he refused to fully counter Thompson on).
The Huckster’s words are worth only the air with which they were originally expressed and nothing more.
Trust him no farther than you can throw him.
Is it like Double Plus Vanity for DTZ to write a blog somewhere and then start a thread here about it because no one is gonna go to his block to read such a trite peice of pablum?
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."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.