[Brilliant]

Let me just remind you that when Huckabee first came on the national scene, he was in favor of the welfare state. He may have been a religious conservative, but he wasn’t any friend of capitalism or free markets. He wasn’t a supporter of low taxes. He played the McCain game of trying to manipulate the media by saying that government was our friend. Since then, he’s learned that it doesn’t get the votes in the GOP, so he’s toned it down. But you can best believe that if he ever gets the nomination, he’ll once again be a friend of the welfare state.

[nhwingut]

Bingo. Huck likes to package himself now as some tea party founder. BS. He was a big government compasssionate conservative type (i.e. Social Con/Fical Lib) when he first came on to the scene.

Here's a piece from Club for Growth:

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.