Wedding Ring is a Millstone for the Huckabees in Arkansas [FLASHBACK: Janet's ambitions]

New York Times ^ | Oct 31, 2002 | David M. Halbfinger

[nwrep]

Gov. Mike Huckabee was supposed to glide to re-election over Jimmie Lou Fisher, a Democratic Party functionary whose job in her 22 years as state treasurer has involved little besides signing government checks.

But suddenly he is in a dogfight: a poll for the Arkansas News Bureau gives Mr. Huckabee a lead of only 46 percent to 44 percent. The poll was released last Thursday, the same day a fund-raising letter turned up in which the governor warned that his campaign was in ''crisis.''

What is more surprising is that even loyal Republican legislators are openly saying now that the ball and chain around Mr. Huckabee's campaign is, to be blunt, his wife: Janet Huckabee is running for secretary of state, and she is getting clobbered. She consistently trails Charlie Daniels, the state land commissioner, by more than 20 points in the polls.

''Her candidacy is clearly struggling,'' said State Senator John Brown, a retiring elder statesman, ''and that has crossed over into the governor's race.''

State Representative Randy Minton said Mrs. Huckabee's campaign was probably costing her husband four or five percentage points. ''I've heard a lot of people say things,'' said Mr. Minton, who is running for a State Senate seat. ''They just don't feel there needs to be two from one family on the ticket.''

Other Republicans, who say her drag on the governor's re-election campaign could be as much as 10 points, are less charitable, if also less publicly. ''Janet Huckabee running for secretary of state was a brilliant idea for about four and a half minutes,'' one party official said.

The Huckabees' joint venture is the first in Arkansas, possibly in the nation, in which a husband and wife are nominees for statewide office in the same election. Mrs. Huckabee says she and her husband anticipated that some people might object to a couple's holding two of the state's seven statewide elective offices.

''We talked about it, how it might hurt his election,'' she said.

But neither expected the avalanche of criticism and ill will that their dual candidacies have set off.

Many accuse the governor and his wife, both 47, of arrogance, power-hogging and losing touch with the common folk -- charges reminiscent of those that were aimed at Little Rock's last power couple, the Clintons -- and Mrs. Huckabee has been a lightning rod on all three counts.

That she wants the office is enough for some critics. The secretary of state is Arkansas's chief elections officer, keeping and purging voter registration rolls. Along with the governor, that official wields great influence over disputes in local elections, where Democrats still dominate in most of the state's 75 counties.

The position also comes with a staff of 120 employees, more people than the governor directly appoints, and control over the Capitol building itself, from parking spaces to office assignments. That means Governor Huckabee, through his wife, could have even more power to reward or punish lawmakers and other officials. ''That's just a lot of power in one family's hands,'' said another Republican legislator, State Representative Jake Files.

To be sure, Mr. Huckabee -- a former Baptist preacher who succeeded the indicted Jim Guy Tucker in 1996 and won a full term with 60 percent of the vote in 1998 -- has his own problems. His opponent, Ms. Fisher, after sleepwalking through the summer, came on strong after Labor Day, issuing a $133 million education plan sure to energize schoolteachers and attacking Mr. Huckabee for glitches and a cost overrun of nearly 100 percent in what became a $57 million computer system linking all state agencies. Ms. Fisher is running particularly aggressive television advertisements assailing Mr. Huckabee for granting clemency to violent criminals; one rapist who was paroled now faces murder charges in Missouri.

Mr. Huckabee was already being accused of having pretensions to royalty. For example, he accepted $23,000 in clothing and gift certificates from Jennings Osborne, a wealthy supporter and appointee, in 2000 alone, then sued to block the state ethics commission from investigating such gifts. But his wife's campaign difficulties have added to the governor's burden. Her insistence on her own 24-hour state police detail, her crisscrossing the state to campaign events in a giant trooper-driven Ford Excursion provided by the state and her travel in and out of Arkansas on the state airplane, both with and without her husband, for reasons the governor's office refuses to disclose all produced a month's worth of bad press for both Huckabees at the start of the fall campaign. ..................."

[maggief]

(no link)

`DON’T REGULATE MY FRIENDSHIPS,’ HUCKABEE SAYS OF PAL OSBORNE
The Commercial Appeal - February 9, 2000
Author: David A. Lieb The Associated Press
Gov. Mike Huckabee said Tuesday that he has a clear conscience about accepting tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from a philanthropist with extravagant ways whom he considers a friend.

Huckabee defended the gifts from Jennings Osborne by saying he’s never asked Osborne for anything and that Osborne has never sought anything in exchange for the gifts .

Financial disclosure forms for Huckabee , his family and office show he received $112,000 worth of gifts during 1999 - almost half from Osborne.

“If you have a clear conscience about what you’re doing, then the issue is not for someone else to decide what my conscience should be,” Huckabee said while appearing on Little Rock radio station KSYG. “Don’t regulate my friendships and don’t prohibit my friendships,” the governor said.

Huckabee made similar comments Monday when questioned by reporters after a press conference at the Governor’s Mansion.

State law requires public servants to list gifts received by the official or a spouse valued at more than $100 and those valued at more than $250 received by dependent children.

Osborne donated $53,382 in goods and services, including $23,032 worth of clothing and $11,700 for once-a-week pastries sent to workers at the Governor’s Office and the mansion.

Other Osborne gifts included $10,400 for a year’s worth of flowers for the Governor’s Mansion and $7,500 for a May 12 party for the governor’s staff.

“I’ll admit when I found out how much the value of this was, I was astonished,” Huckabee said.

But the governor said he had no qualms about keeping the gifts .

“A lot of the things he just had sent over,” Huckabee said Monday.

“I guess I could always say no. But I’m not going to let being governor keep me from having friends.”

Osborne has said he had no idea of the total value of the gifts and, in fact, does not check the price when buying such things as suits.

Osborne is known for his extravagance, including his grand Christmas light displays, free fireworks and his mammoth-sized barbecue servings at various events. He operates Arkansas Research Medical Testing Center.

Last February, Huckabee appointed Osborne to the War Memorial Stadium Commission, which currently is fighting a proposal to move one of three annual University of Arkansas football games from Little Rock to the Fayetteville campus.

Huckabee has come out in favor of keeping three games a year at War Memorial Stadium.

But the governor says his friendship with Osborne goes back to before he became the state’s chief executive.

(snip)

[no dems]

You know what, I completely & totally forgot about his wife running for State office while he was running for reelection as Governor of Arkansas. Why is this stuff not being brought out?

I’ll tell you why. Because the Liberal Media wants Huck to be the GOP nominee then they’ll kill him. They’re “keeping they’re powder dry” knowing that when they finish with him in the General Election, it will make ‘08 look like 1972 and 1984, only this time it will be the Republican getting trounced. And be trounced he will be.

Anybody who thinks America will elect a Baptist preacher POTUS, is kidding themselves. They will elect a Muslim (Barack Hussein Osama Obama) but not a Baptist preacher.

[Miss Behave]

WOW, maggief. I don't know what's more sickening--Mountebankpulpit's actions, or his REactions.

Thanks for all of this invaluable information, magg.

[maggief]

Huckster ping

[good old days]

Thanks for the additional info that you’ve posted. This guy sickens me.

[maggief]

(no link)

HUCKABEE : MORRIS STILL ‘FRIEND’ - RAPS AFFAIR, BUT WON’T SCORN EX-ADVISER
Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, TN) - September 4, 1996
Author: Joan I. Duffy The Commercial Appeal Little Rock Bureau
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee expressed ‘’sorrow and sadness’’ Tuesday at the scandal that has befallen a campaign consultant the Republican governor shared for a time with President Clinton.

Dick Morris, the consultant credited with driving Clinton’s move to the right, resigned on the day of Clinton’s Democratic Convention acceptance speech after a tabloid published a story that Morris carried on a nine-month romance with a $200-a-night prostitute. The story said Morris told the woman confidential White House information and allowed her to listen in to telephone conversations with the President.

‘’I consider him a friend and I don’t turn on friends who do something I don’t approve of,’’ Huckabee said Tuesday.

Morris, who helped direct Clinton’s 1980 comeback election for governor, became Huckabee ‘s consultant in the 1993 special election for lieutenant governor. Huckabee won that race after losing a 1992 contest against U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.). Huckabee and Morris teamed up again in the 1994 lieutenant governor’s race and the consultant was with Huckabee at the start of his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by David Pryor (D-Ark.)

Huckabee announced last year that he and Morris had parted company after Morris resumed consulting with Clinton. At the time, Huckabee cited the possibility of conflicts and concern over campaign security.

Huckabee was asked Tuesday if Morris ever shared White House information with him.

‘’I would characterize the relationship as one strictly focused on the races in 1993 and 1994,’’ Huckabee said. ‘’I was always confident with the level of confidentiality.’’

Huckabee skirted questions about when he last spoke to the consultant. News reports have identified Morris as the person in the White House whom Huckabee contacted last month when he needed the administration’s help on an abortion issue.

Huckabee refused last month to allow the state to pay the Medicaid bill for an abortion performed on a 15-year-old retarded girl raped by her step-father, citing Arkansas’s constitutional ban on publicly-funded abortions.

The governor announced a plan to send Medicaid abortion bills to a private fund for payment after saying he cleared the arrangement with the White House.

[IM2MAD]

I remember reading one time, and I think it was after Iowa, about how she said they were going to have so much fun in the White House after winning the election. Does anyone else remember reading that?

[Saundra Duffy]

I thought Mrs. Huck was supposed to “graciously submit” to her husband. Hypocrite alert.

[AuntB]

Some of the people of Arkansas are suing Huck for some of his more outrageous ventures.

Arkansas Citizen to Sue Mike Huckabee Over His Involvement With Establishing Mexican Consulate
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1942884/posts

http://www.katv.com/news/stories/0807/448893.html
Huckabee Asks Judge to Dismiss Lawsuit Over Hard Drives

“Huckabee said in court papers filed Monday that Parsons’ lawsuit violates the qualified immunity public servants are granted in Arkansas under the state’s constitution. He also said Parsons has not served him in the lawsuit.
“

[maggief]

In a small departure from most of Huckabee’s campaign events, his wife, Janet, took the stage to address the crowd and introduce the band.

“I can’t wait to be your first lady because I think it is going to be too cool, and we are going to have too much fun,” Janet Huckabee said.

http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/huckabee-packs-them-in-and-puts-on-a-show-2008-01-01.html

[good old days]

Ping

[EverOnward]

gotta keep this for reference!

[Museum Twenty]

Bump

[County Agent Hank Kimball]

WOW.....This guy gets creepier and creepier, almost by the hour.

He simply cannot be the GOP standard bearer. Can’t happen.

Thanks for the ping.

Hank

[dforest]

OH No, shes a power hungry bigin’.

Just what we need.

[toddlintown]

S-h-h. Listen. I think I hear some Bibles thumping...

[Doofer]

I know this is the New York Times and I like to take anything they say with a large grain of salt but something about Huckabee doesn’t pass my smell test and this coming from a Fundamentalist Christian.

[good old days]

WOW.....This guy gets creepier and creepier, almost by the hour.

He sure does.

Thanks for the ping.

You're welcome!