Posted on 04/22/2007 12:42:22 PM PDT by unspun
SPARTANBURG, S.C. - Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee charmed some of South Carolina's Republican faithful Saturday, besting all his opponents on a poll measuring how well each spoke on the issues Spartanburg Republicans consider most important.
"If Huckabee can ramp up his fundraising efforts, he could be a real top-tier player," Spartanburg County Republican chair Rick Beltram said.
Nationally, Huckabee has been polling in the single digits, well behind frontrunner Rudy Giuliani. Both men spoke at the Greenville and Spartanburg county Republican conventions Saturday morning, joined by four other candidates: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, Chicago businessman John Cox and California Rep. Duncan Hunter.
Absent was Sen. John McCain, whose campaign was represented by former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating.
McCain placed last in the Spartanburg poll.
"The only thing I know is, I think it was an error in strategy not to come to these debates," Beltram said, noting that the county conventions are attended by the party's most-active members who'll be the ones out campaigning for candidates on a grassroots level.
Huckabee, on the other hand, "was on his game today," Beltram said.
Huckabee emphasized the need to take care of returning veterans and to overhaul the country's tax system.
"We need a flat tax, not the kind of fat tax we have now," he said.
Noting that, like Bill Clinton, he's from Hope, Ark., Huckabee smiled, "Ladies and gentlemen, give us another chance."
Roebuck resident Sandy Shen is willing.
Shen likes Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney because they have leadership experience candidates coming from Congress don't.
"They all have good intentions," she said.
All of the candidates focused on core Republican values, including lower taxes and tough stances on terrorism.
Giuliani led with references to his extensive experience combating terrorism, even before Sept. 11, 2001.
Then he pledged, if elected president, to nominate the type of strict-constructionist Supreme Court judges responsible for last week's decision to uphold a ban on partial-birth abortions.
"Justices who interpret the Constitution, not make it up as they go along," said Giuliani, who supports abortion rights.
Romney wants to shore up the military.
He said standing together against the country's enemies is vital.
Romney criticized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for saying the war in Iraq is "lost" and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria.
"Politics stops at the water's edge," Romney said.
Governor Mike Huckabee, GOP candidate for United States President
...When people say illegal immigrants take jobs from Americans, Huckabee said he asks them to name someone “who cannot get a job because a Mexican illegally here has taken the job they want.”
“If that’s the case, if you can get me their name and phone number by five this afternoon, I can have them making a bed, plucking a chicken, tarring a roof or picking a tomato by the morning at 8 o’ clock,” he said.
WHO ISN'T???
The Democrats choice for the Republican nomination.
When you hear someone say Mexican are here doing jobs Americans won't do, it's a lie.
Forget it; Huckabee’s a nice guy and right on most social issues, but he’s a nanny-state socialist.
Huckabee the pro-illegal alien loving candidate? WOW there is a lot of morons in SC.
Of course he loves them. So do I. We're Christians.
And, he wants a just and practical solution. (And so do I.)
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/interview_with_mike_huckabee.html
RCP: Let's switch gears again to immigration. I believe you said when President Bush sent 6,000 National Guard troops to the border that you supported that decision but that "militarizing" the border was not the answer. In the interview earlier today, you said that we have to secure our border. If securing our borders is first and foremost, how do we go about getting control of the border?
HUCKABEE: A physical border coupled with an electronic border, to me, is paramount. It's essential. And it's going to be expensive but it's probably less expensive than to continue to do what we're doing now which is to leave these borders open with no idea of who's coming and where they are and what they're doing.
I've never really worried about someone slipping across the border to pluck chickens or pick tomatoes or make beds, but it does worry me that somebody could also slip across the border with a shoulder fired missile launcher. That's pretty darn serious and we've just left ourselves vulnerable for that.
And it's not just the Mexican border; we've got to be just as concerned about the Canadian border. And it's not a matter of it being an insult to these other countries; it's to protect them as much as it is us, from people who traverse those borders without any real sense of authority. That's critical, and it's important to everyone.
When I've said we shouldn't militarize the borders, the purpose of the military is to fight wars; it's not to provide police action. What I'd rather see us do is to have border security that is run by an entity that is geared toward just that, it's the role of security and it's a police action, not a military action. We're not fighting Mexico, we're not fighting Canada. It's not a war. We're not putting that military border up. It's a civilian border. Just like when I go to the airport it's a civilian function of the TSA to check me out and to make sure that I am who I say I am and that I'm going where I say I'm going. That's why they check my boarding pass and my photo ID to make sure that I'm not bringing something on that could be harmful, so that's why I go through all that X-ray and patting down process.
In the same way, we need to know that a person coming across the border is not bringing something harmful, whether that's a weapon or a communicable disease. We need to know that. It should be conducted in a civilized and civilian manner.
RCP: Are you in favor of the fence?
HUCKABEE: I am. Again, whether it's electronic or physical, in some places electronic may be more practical than a physical one, but the border ought to be secure. I don't see why that's controversial to some people, they say that it is. The reason I say, "why should it be?" is because if you go to any high rise in Manhattan and there are physical barriers between the sidewalk and getting up to the fourteenth floor. Go to any airport and there are many barriers between getting out of your car and getting on that airplane. You can't even go to the stadium without having some barriers and borders. We're used to that, it's part of our system, we understand it. And it's not all related to terrorism, some of it is related just to an orderly process so six people aren't all trying to sit in the same seat.
I don't think there is anything that is unfair, unkind, or uncivil about that. I think, in fact, that it's being uncivil to not have some understanding of who's coming, where they're going, what they're going to do, and how they're going to be functioning.
RCP: So what's the other half to the Huckabee immigration plan?
HUCKABEE: The other half is to make sure that on this side of the border we have a manner in which we can actually process people who do want to cross the border and, frankly, that we need in our economy to do jobs that are going unfilled because nobody here wants to do them.
You know, when people say, "they're taking our jobs" - I used to hear that as Governor - and I started asking this question, "can you name me any person, give me their name, who can't get a job plucking a chicken or picking a tomato or tarring a roof that would like to do that work? In fact, I won't ask, I'll challenge you: give me their name and their phone number by five this afternoon and by eight o'clock tomorrow morning I can have them at work."
And I'd hear "well, it's a lot of people," and I said, "no, no, don't tell me it's a lot of people, don't tell me you heard, or that your friends have said, or that you have this uncle. Tell me their names. Take a few hours. Go get them. Give me their names."
I never, ever, had a person who could come up with the name of a person who could not get a job because an illegal immigrant had stepped in front of them because it was either a job that person didn't want to do or didn't exist. I'm not saying there aren't folks out there like that, but so much of it was more about emotion than it was about the reality of saying "gee, I can't get a job because somebody was in front of me."
RCP: So you're essentially supportive of the Bush administration's position.
HUCKABEE: I don't want to have an amnesty program. You can't let people break a law and say "hey we're going to look the other way, don't worry about it, we're going to let you in, no problem." People have to make restitution, there's got to be a penalty paid for the crime committed. But it ought to fit the crime; you don't put somebody in jail for ten years because they came across the border to make a living.
You make them pay something, you make them go through a process, you may put them in the back of the line for the process, but you create a process that's realistic. You don't say the back of the line starts and for the next 12 years you're going to be filling out paperwork.
What you do say is you're going to pay the fine, we're going to have a system that can be done in an orderly fashion, and you'll be able to be legal but we're not going to let you off scot free. That's important.
He supports Bush's amnesty for ILLEGALS scheme; that's "pro-illegal alien" enough.
Whatever makes you think that?
We’ve got to be practical. Go through the temporary process or be deported.
sw
A just and practical solution? Not only is Huckabee for blanket amnesty, he has actively encouraged Mexico to send illegals into the US.
In fact, in his last year of office as Governor, he violated the US Constitution and negotiated directly with Mexico to build a consulate in Little Rock. The truth is just now coming out about the illegal funding, support, and activities of this consulate.
Thanks, but no thanks.
And before you throw around the "Christian" word - I am a fundamentalist Christian who does have a love for his fellow human - but that does not condone blatant socialism and law breaking. Huckabee supports both, apparently.
Well, to begin with, he was the guy pushing for a minimum wage increase in Arkansas, thus demonstrating economic illiteracy. Second, he backed a ban on smoking in restaurants, thus demonstrating a lack of respect for property rights. He’s a statist; he thinks he knows how to run people’s lives better than they do, and thinks it’s his right to make them live how he wants them to.
For the record, I’m not *that* far from Huckabee on immigration (flame suit on), but I’m worlds apart from him on economic freedom and property rights.
“Well, to begin with, he was the guy pushing for a minimum wage increase in Arkansas, thus demonstrating economic illiteracy. Second, he backed a ban on smoking in restaurants, thus demonstrating a lack of respect for property rights. He’s a statist; he thinks he knows how to run people’s lives better than they do, and thinks it’s his right to make them live how he wants them to.”
Truer words were never spoken.
And, FWIW, the smoking can (or so-called “Clean Air Act”) bans smoking in all public work places in Arkansas, not just restaurants.
Don’t worry, folks - Huckabee’s from the government and here’s here to help. /s
“Governor Mike Huckabee, GOP candidate for United States President”
I could live with that. Much much better than John McInsane, and Rino Rudy.
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