Posted on 01/06/2008 9:11:08 AM PST by Ol' Sparky
They're back, the out-of-state media types who want to know who this guy is, this presidential candidate out of Hope, Ark.
This year the subject is Michael Dale Huckabee, who's not just a highly effective preacher but a populist. He has a knack for reducing complex issues to simple terms.
There's a species of Republican true believers in Arkansas who've always suspected his bona fides as an honest-to-goodness fiscal conservative and social reactionary. Much the same anti-Huckabee line is now being repeated by the high-powered Club for Growth, which has launched an all-out effort to dub the Huck just another tax-and-spender.
The Club has a point - but only on paper. When you compare the dramatic tax cuts enacted early in the Huckabee administration with the later tax increases, you come up with some $500 million in additional taxes.
But some $400 million of that went to carry out the state Supreme Court's order to keep Arkansas' schools constitutional. Huckabee had little choice.
And as governor, Huckabee did more to improve education than pour money into it; he's been interested in improving outcomes, not just raising inputs.
There were other tax increases in his more than a decade as governor. But should he have left highways in miserable condition? Should he have left the poorest children without health insurance? He left Arkansas a healthier, wealthier state - economically, educationally, physically.
The Huck has his failings as a policymaker. He's got a weakness for untested schemes like the national sales tax he's supporting as a substitute for the income tax. His experience in foreign policy is a vacuum.
But his usual, practical approach to pressing problems isn't anything Huckabee need be ashamed of. Quite the contrary. If he's failed the Club for Growth's litmus test, he didn't fail his state.
You are right. A bible-thumping socialist, through and through.
Imagine a debate between Huck and Obama. The air would become so vacuous, the studio might implode.
I missed that interview but heard the interview provided answers in their context, so I'm willing to listen. Please ping me if you find or receive a link.
I don’t believe Hunter would be Sec of Defense for a guy that goes willy worm about national defense.
Just don’t see it. Huck is looking for a guy who should be the President to prop him up.
Your characterization of Huckabee being light on national defense don’t match reality. Huckabee and Hunter where on the same page in every debate esp on that issue:
Huckabee: There is nothing funny about President Hillary Clinton/We cannot be soft we must be strong and defeat Islamic fascism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n_EWdHfpi0
Mike Huckabee Challenges Ron Paul on Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-xN4BSDNNM
Duncan Hunter/Huckabee stand up to Clinton/Corrupt News Network plant/Romney flip-flops on gays in military
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU-AFU_OiFo
Huckabee: Congress spends like Edwards at a beauty shop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm1ARFKWdow
don’t —> doesn’t
Hunter is not a nanny stater or a lying panderer who has used his religion to appeal to a segment of voters, and not all of them as I can tell.
Huck stole Hunters lines on the fence, acting as though he would get it done. Hunter has worked on that for a long time. Has to get done through Congress. Huck is full of willy nilly blather he spouts by taking bits and pieces of other candidates and trying to make himself so.
He told the CFR is secret what he really thinks. The Huck is Jimmy Carter on Foreign Policy.
Just ask Wayne Dumond and his victims.
I live in Arkansas and the column was true. He did a good job. That doesn’t mean he would be a good president. but what Paul said is correct.
Mike Huckabee stops bythe 'beauty shop' (remind you of John Edwards?)
Heh. You got that right.
That is a most repulsive shot. He really really likes it.
Even Edwards does it in private....but then he only shaves his legs and armpits!
Only an indication of just how crappy Arkansas really is.
Mike Huckabee: He left Arkansas a better state
Mike Huckabee: He left, Arkansas a better state
There, fixed it.
I'll second that!
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