"his stealing from the governors mansion and taking gifts to Arkansas when he left office..."IMHO, from what I have heard so far, these alledged ethics violations do not seem very serious to me, even if they are true. It seems like there are a few people who are really gunning for him in Arkansas, and they are playing the alledged ethics thing to the hilt for what's it's worth.
Here is a statement from Team Huckabee related to these charges:
Truth Squad: Ethics
November 09, 2007
The Arkansas Ethics Commission created under the rein of Bill Clinton, has been misused as a weapon against Republicans. Governor Huckabee has been unfairly attacked regarding his ethics history while Governor of Arkansas. The overwhelming majority of the complaints were filed in the midst of one of Governor Huckabee's campaigns, and filed by Democrats to a commission made up of a vast majority of Democrats. The end result of those complaints was a series of negative headlines-and NOTHING else. Here are the facts:
The overwhelming majority of ethics complaints filed against Governor Huckabee in the state of Arkansas were regularly dismissed and / or proven to be frivolous.
It is important to note that many of these complaints were either filed by a member of the Arkansas media with his own agenda or were filed by a Democrat activist using the so-called reporter's story as the basis for the complaint.
The REAL story is that in the end, despite the many attempts, the only finding of an illegal gift was reversed on appeal.
Source: Huckabee's issues website