Posted on 01/18/2008 12:40:04 PM PST by america4vr
The Republican presidential candidates on Thursday moved to appeal to different types of conservative voters before the South Carolina primary, with Mike Huckabee using colorful language to declare the Confederate flag a states’ rights issue and Senator John McCain embracing a supply-side tax cut proposal.
“You don’t like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag,” Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, told supporters in Myrtle Beach, according to The Associated Press.
“In fact,” he said, “if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d tell them what to do with the pole; that’s what we’d do.”
At a news conference on Thursday night, he said, “It is not an issue the president of the United States needs to weigh in on.” Mr. Huckabee, who did not say whether he considered it offensive to fly the Confederate battle flag, made his remarks as he toured the state with David Beasley, a former South Carolina governor, who had angered some conservatives by removing the flag from the Capitol dome in Columbia and displaying it elsewhere on the Capitol grounds.
And a radio advertisement paid for by an independent group used the flag issue to attack Mr. McCain, of Arizona, and praise Mr. Huckabee. “John McCain assaults our values,” it said. “Mike Huckabee understands the value of heritage.”
Mr. McCain unveiled a tax-cut plan here in Columbia with a speech that was designed to reassure voters worried about the economy as well as fiscal conservatives who have been wary of him ever since he initially opposed President Bush’s tax cuts. Many who voted Tuesday in the Michigan primary, which Mitt Romney won, listed economic anxieties as their top concern.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
But it is an issue that a nominee for the president of the United States ought to.
Referring to it as a state's rights' issue is tantamount to having it both ways an issue that requires it to be addressed less ambiguously.
How many of the Democrat candidates have been asked about this issue this election?
IF only it was a Confederate Twinkie or Moonpie, heck even a Southern Cig., then Huck would weigh in on it.
If the First Amendment protects desecration of the ‘stars and stripes’, it certainly protects the display of the ‘stars and bars’.
Sometimes he's almost as slick as the Clintons, while Romney's pandering is just embarassingly amateur.
The most important issue confronting out nation is whether South Carolina should fly the Confederate Flag on its statehouse. Haven’t you heard?
Gee, thanks, Huck. Thanks for taking a dead issue, using a backhoe to dig it up out of the ground, and dumping the smelly carcass in front of the vultures in the Drive-By Media so they can gorge themselves on it and then crap all over Southerners and conservatives again.
BTW, David Weaseley didn’t anger conservatives because he proposed removing the flag from on top of the SC Statehouse dome and moving it to a memorial (at least, not this one). He angered conservatives because he ran for office saying that the flag would stay where it was, AND THEN turned around, did a 180 on it, and started talking about pulling the flag down. The flag (a replica Army of Northern Virginia battle flag) now flies in an appropriate place, behind the Confederate Soldiers Memorial on the Statehouse grounds. And as far as the vast majority of South Carolinians, of all races and political motivations were concerned, it was a dead issue before Huckabee decided to bring it up. Moron.
}:-)4
Huckster is spouting off on a non-issue in the campaign, in process making it easier for the Democrats to tag us the rebel redneck party down the road.
I guess it is a substitute for the fact that Huck is an idiot on the REAL issues at hand...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1955886/posts?page=36
Huckabee sure is a flipflopper and panderer extraordinaire. And is another Clinton.
People who accuse Romney of that should be embarrassed that they are not tagging Huckabee with that. Romney changed on one issue, life, 2 plus years back, while Huckster flipflopped on both immigration and the FUNDAMENTAL INTERPRETATION OF THE CONSTITUTION *THIS WEEK*!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1955886/posts?page=36
The flag controversy offers an intriguing microcosm that provides illuminating insight with considerable ramifications for the national interest.
Likewise if the First Amendment protects federal funding of a piece of "art" portraying a crucifix dipped in a jar of urine, then it also protects the celebration of that same religion in the public square.
bttt
Simply put, Southerners stood by while their symbol of righteous defiance and pride was turned into a symbol of hate and racial opression. God, I wish someone had had the backbone to stand up during the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s and defend this symbol of Southern heritage.
The sad truth is, however, that no one did. Trumpeting its virtues today is too little too late. If you care about something (I’m talking to Islamic moderates) then stand up and fight to preserve its meaning; if you don’t then do not be surprised when it is stolen from you and turned into something that makes you an outcast for believing in.
People that keep bringing up the Confederate Flag as a problem ARE the problem.
“Likewise if the First Amendment protects federal funding of a piece of “art” portraying a crucifix dipped in a jar of urine, then it also protects the celebration of that same religion in the public square.”
Excellent point. Of course, our problem is that we’re operating on a presumption of fairness, equity and the rule of law.
It's not his anti-Southernness that's the issue but his mistaken conflation of being a media-beloved RINO with principle.
McCain may have the wrong principles but after watching both Huckabee and Romney pander and talk out of both sides of their mouths shamelessly during the campaign, it appears to me that they have none.
{Referring to it as a state’s rights’ issue is tantamount to having it both ways an issue that requires it to be addressed less ambiguously.}
If this is true, and I believe it is, how many times have Fred Thompson supporters called him on it as I have? Frederalism - the last refuge of a scaled back agenda.
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