Huckabee is charming, likeable, eloquent, witty. He excelled in all five debates I watched and delivered outstanding speeches both at the Value Voters Summit and at the National Rifle Association. I think he is the only GOP candidate (apart from Ron Paul) who made it clear that the Second Amendment is about allowing individuals to protect themselves against out-of-control government if necessary. He is also in favour of a Pro Life Amendment specifying once and for all that life begins at conception thereby overturning Roe versus Wade and protecting the unborn. And he wants to abolish the IRS, income tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax, and replace it with a 23% sales tax, the Fair Tax. Mike Huckabee (apart from Ron Paul, of course) may be the only GOP candidate behind whom both religious right and libertarian right could unite. He would sweep the religious South (which Giuliani might have trouble winning against the former First Lady of Arkansas), and keep the libertarian West. His compassionate conservative credentials may even appeal to the blue collar Mid West, and he might even make inroads in New England!
arkansasleader.com - 08/01/2004
If you're wondering how Gov. Huckabee's hundreds of clemencies compare with neighboring states, get ready for a shocker. Huckabee leads the pack. He has issued more commutations and pardons than all of the six neighboring states combined.
Governors seldom reduce sentences in other states – and almost never for murderers serving life without parole or for rapists or for habitual drunk drivers, while in Arkansas it's a regular habit with Huckabee.
Other governors use their clemency power only rarely, while Huckabee has made it routine. As we've told you before, he has issued more than 700 pardons and commutations during his eight years in office – more than 137 this year alone – and more than his three predecessors combined.
Here are the figures for neighboring states since 1996, when Huckabee took office (and keep in mind the population of these states is nearly 20 times ours): Louisiana – 213. Mississippi – 24. Missouri – 79. Oklahoma – 178. Tennessee – 32. Texas – 98 (includes 36 inmates released because they were convicted on drug charges with planted evidence).
Total: 624 vs. Huckabee's 703
Governors in neighboring states almost never grant killers clemency, while Huckabee has commuted the sentences of a dozen murderers. "That is extremely rare here," said one corrections official in a neighboring state. She recalled one case in the early 1990s when the governor commuted a killer's sentence and none since then. In Texas, we could find only one clemency case for a killer.
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Although Huckabee changed his mind about commuting DuMond's sentence, DuMond went free after the governor met with his parole board. DuMond is now serving a life sentence for murder in Missouri, where, the record shows, it's unlikely the governor will pardon him any time soon.
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Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts