Huckster is no savior for conservatives. He is perhaps less annoying than McCain, but in other ways he is even less conservative (eg fiscally, he’s a big govt nanny-state type, while McCain is a small govt nanny-state type). On balance, conservatives might prefer the RINO who can win, since Huckabee is danged near unelectable.
....
Plenty of reasons to run screaming away from the Huckster.
There are 9 reasons (with sources and citations to prove it) why Huckabee is a terrible choice, perhaps the worst choice, in the nomination race:
1. Soft-on-crime Governor who went on a pardon/commutation spree
2. Pro-instate-tuition for illegal aliens and for other giveaways - his record on immigration stinks
3. Fiscal liberal Tax-and-spender as Governor
4. Dissembled about his record when challenged
5. Not a conservative, hurt conservatives in Ark.
6. Ethics issues, taking public money for private use
7. Flipflopper, on immigration, Cuba and other issues
8. An incompetent Jimmy Carteresque boob on foreign policy
9. Will get beaten easily by the Democrats
Of the front runner candidates, Huckabee is the worst for many different reasons:
1. Soft-on-crime, paroled violent criminals like he was God ...
http://holycoast.blogspot.com/2007/12/huckabee-was-commutation-and-pardon.html
http://www.arkansasleader.com/frontstories/st_07_21_04/huckabee5.html
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Questions+remain+about+rapist-turned-murderer&articleId=8ca3c723-a927-4f5f-83ab-a5d2780e7911
Here’s more stuff the liberals have on him and will use at their convenience (and our inconvenience) - the pleas from the Dumond victims to please not release Dumond the rapist:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/10/new-documents-revealed-in_n_76186.html
Huckabee’s Willie Hortons:
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2007/12/huckabees-willie-hortons.html
2. Soft-on-illegals, giving in-state tuition for illegals was his “Jesus juice” ... HIS RECORD ON IMMIGRATION STINKS ...
Mike Huckabee disses Americans, Mexicans, promotes illegal immigration: http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/005609.html
While Gov. of Arkansas, Huckabee was AGAINST proving citizenship in order to register to vote. He called those who were in favor of this “racists”... http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050218/news_lz1e18perkins.html
Huckabee has personally attacks advocates for a bill he disagreed with as “unAmerican” and “unChristian”.
Huckabee fought hard to kill an Arkansas bill which would have cut off social services for illegal aliens. Huckabee called the bill, “anti-Christian” and “un-American”... http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/01/28/News/316347.html
“Even if benefits to people who are in the U.S illegally could be stopped, “I don’t understand how a practicing Christian can turn his back on a child from this or any other state,” Huckabee said.”
Huckabee supported in-state tuition for illegal aliens... http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/03/11/News/318458.html
Huckabee’s ‘drank different Jesus juice’ in opposition to the illegal aliens bill: http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/000718.html
“Huckabee, also a Republican and a Baptist minister, said Arkansans should be welcoming hard-working immigrants of all races. He singled out Holt, who often talks of his strong Christian beliefs, saying, “I drink a different kind of Jesus juice.”
Wallace interview on Fox, Huckster flipflops back to pro-amnesty:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316253,00.html
3. Huckster was and is a tax-and-spend-aholic:
According to the Democrat-Gazette, “the average Arkansan’s tax burden grew from $1,969 in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 1997, to $2,902 in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2005, including local taxes,” a whopping tax increase of 47% under Huckabee’s tenure. Tax legislation passed while Huckabee was governor totaled “a net tax increase of $505 million, a figure adjusted for inflation and economic growth,” according to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.
In February of 2004, Huckabee joined with two other Democratic governors in urging Congress to reject a bill that would make the Internet access tax moratorium permanent and embrace a temporary two-year extension of the ban instead.
Every two years, the Cato Institute grades the 50 governors on fiscal stewardship. Here’s last year’s assessment of Tax Hike Mike [emphasis added]:
Thanks to a final term grade of F, Huckabee earns an overall grade of D for his entire governorship. Like many Republicans, his grades dropped the longer he stayed in office. In his first few years, he fought hard for a sweeping $70 million tax cut package that was the first broad-based tax cut in the state in more than 20 years. He even signed a bill to cut the state’s 6 percent capital gains tax—a significant pro-growth accomplishment. But nine days after being reelected in 2002, he proposed a sales tax increase to cover a budget deficit caused partly by large spending increases that he proposed and approved, including an expansion in Medicare eligibility that Huckabee made a centerpiece of his 1997 agenda. He agreed to a 3 percent income tax “surcharge” and a 25-cent cigarette tax increase. In response to a court order to increase spending on education, Huckabee proposed another sales tax increase.
http://taxhikemike.org
Just because Huck talks a good talk doesn’t make this tax-and-spender a real conservative. Huckabee’s record is one of a tax-and-spend liberal.
“One of the governor’s biggest weaknesses is his record in Arkansas. While Huckabee did cut taxes during the early years of his tenure, the fact remains that he had a net tax increase under his watch, and the increase in Government size is terrifying. 21 tax increases went into effect, increasing tax revenue by almost $890 million under Governor Huckabee. These increases include the income tax, the sales tax, a cigarette tax, and a gas tax. Not only did he raise taxes, spending “more than doubled under Huckabee. “During Huckabee’s 10 years as governor, state spending more than doubled, from $6.6 billion to $16.1 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006.” There was an increase in state spending of over 65% during his tenure, and the size of the government increased by 20%. According to the Americans for Tax Reform, the states general obligation debt went up by “almost one billion dollars.” Arkansas state tax burden was at 9.8% when Bill Clinton left office in 1992. Under Huckabee, it was at 11.1%, reaching the rank of one of the top fifteen state tax burdens.”
Huck is simply NOT a fiscal conservative at all. His record on taxes is abysmal.
http://taxhikemike.org/
4. When challenged on points #1, #2 and #3, Mike Huckabee and campaign have lied and dissembled on his real record.
Example: He claimed falsely that the Ark supreme court forced a tax increase when they did not; his explanations about the Dumond case are contradicted by the evidence; he has played the ‘amnesty isn’t amnesty’ game on immigration.
5. IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE
“[Huckabee] has zero intellectual underpinnings in the conservative movement,” says Blant Hurt, a former part owner of, and columnist for, Arkansas Business magazine. “He’s hostile to free trade, hiked sales and grocery taxes, backed sales taxes on Internet purchases, and presided over state spending going up more than twice the inflation rate.”
Randy Minton, chairman of the Arkansas chapter of Phyllis Schlafly’s national Eagle Forum, said, “We called him a pro-life, pro-gun liberal, when I was in the state legislature and he was governor.” Phyllis Schlafly herself was even more direct.
President and Founder of Eagle Forum, Phyllis Schlafly, said this about Governor Huckabee: “He destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles.”
6. Lousy ethics.
http://therealmikehuckabee.blogspot.com/
Soliciting gifts from public: “Gov. Mike Huckabee and his wife, Janet, are registered for home furnishing gifts at Target and Dillard’s department stores as they prepare to leave the Governor’s Mansion in January and move into a house they recently purchased in North Little Rock. “
Even more on Huck’s hand-in-cookie-jar and using-public-money-for-private-purpose ethics issues here:
http://realmikehuckabee.blogspot.com/
http://realmikehuckabee.blogspot.com/2007/12/meet-huckster-san-diego-union-tribune.html
Over the years, Huckabee has:
-Used campaign funds to pay himself $14,000 for being his own media consultant.
-Used campaign funds to pay himself $43,000 for use of his private plane while attempting to hide what the payment was actually in return for.
-Used an account set up to cover operational costs of the governor’s mansion to pay such obviously personal expenses as fast-food and dry-cleaning bills.
-Set up a nonprofit organization that paid him $23,500 without disclosing the source of the money.
-Attempted to take $70,000 of furniture with him when moving out of the governor’s mansion.
-Took more than 130 gifts worth more than $300,000 – while suing to overturn a law that made him disclose the gifts. “
File this under: “Will be used by Hillary two weeks before the election”.
7. FLIPFLOPPER - flip-flopper on immigration and other issues ...
POWERS: “And another issue that’s come up is that you had previously been lobbying President Bush to lift the embargo on Cuba. And then in a recent debate said the opposite. What changed?”
HUCKABEE: “What changed was I’m running for president.”
Huckabee does a flipflop
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-huckabee11dec11,0,7354822.story?coll=la-tot-topstories&track=ntothtml
8. On foreign policy, he’s an ignorant boob.
Huck is completely ignorant on foreign policy, and when he gabs about it, he sounds like Jimmy Carter. He will be a disaster, and closing Gitmo and stopping waterboarding (which today’s report indicates actually worked and saved lives) is not the toughness we need:
“This is the kernel of Huckabee’s foreign policy. He wants to anthropomorphize international relations and bring a Christian commitment to the Golden Rule to our affairs with other nations. As he told the Des Moines Register the other day, “You treat others the way you’d like to be treated. That’s to me the fundamental issue that has to be re-established in our dealings with other countries.”
This is deeply naïve. Countries aren’t people, and the world is more dangerous than a Sunday church social. Threats, deception, and — as a last resort — violence must play a role in international relations. Differences cannot always be worked out through sweet persuasion. A U.S. president who doesn’t realize this will repeat the experience of President Jimmy Carter at his most ineffectual.”
9. HE WILL LOSE TO HILLARY. BADLY.
http://drudgereport.com/flashhu.htm
DEMS HOLD FIRE ON HUCKABEE; SEE ‘EASY KILL’ IN GENERAL ELECTION
Tue Dec 11 2007 10:27:53 ET
**Exclusive**
Democrat party officials are avoiding any and all criticism of Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee, insiders reveal.
The Democratic National Committee has told staffers to hold all fire, until he secures the party’s nomination.
The directive has come down from the highest levels within the party, according to a top source.
Within the DNC, Huckabee is known as the “glass jaw — and they’re just waiting to break it.”
In the last three weeks since Huckabee’s surge kicked in, the DNC hasn’t released a single press release criticizing his rising candidacy.
The last DNC press release critical of Huckabee appeared back on March 2nd.
[DNC Press Release Attack Summary:
Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) – 37% (99 press releases)
Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY) – 28% (74)
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) – 24% (64)
Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) – 8% (20)
Governor Mike Huckabee – 2% (4)]
In fact, as the story broke over the weekend that Huckabee said he wanted to isolate AIDS patients back in 1992, the DNC ignored the opportunity to slam the candidate from the left.
“He’ll easily be their McGovern, an easy kill,” mocked one senior Democrat operative Tuesday morning from Washington.
“His letting out murderers because they shout ‘Jesus’, his wanting to put 300,000 AIDS patients and Magic Johnson into isolation, ain’t even scratching the surface of what we’ve got on him.”
The discipline the Democrats have shown in not engaging Huckabee has earned the praise of one former Republican Party official:
“The Democrats are doing a much better job restraining themselves than the GOP did in 2003 when Howard Dean looked like he was on the brink of winning the nomination.”
Huckabee’s got all the warning signs of an electoral disaster waiting to happen.
Liberal Columnists Heap Praise on the Huckster (Conservatives Beware!)
http://realmikehuckabee.blogspot.com/
Bill Clinton + Jimmuh Carter + Pat Robertson + Barack Obama + Gomer Pyle = Mike Huckabee
12/14/2007 10:14:00 AM
Anonymous said...
What does it matter that the Huckster says he is a good Christian and pro-life when Huckabee will turn the U.S,. into a socialist state where we will all be starving?
Huckabee Begs For New Taxes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pLOC4krZI4
Huckabee Caught Lying About His Tax Hikes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYrGlfkvRV0&feature=related
Huckabee is a pro-illegal, pro-Amnesty, tax raising, big government loving, socialist/liberal, violent criminal pardoning, terrorist appeasing, false prophet. In other words Huckabee is really a Democrat.
Under no circumstances will I ever vote for this liberal/communist con man.
The Huckster Huckabee or Hillary will let in hundreds of millions of 3rd world socialist illegals.
The Huckster or Hillary will surrender to Iran and let Iran build a nuclear arsenal.
The Huckster or Hillary will raise taxes and increase the size of government putting the U.S. on the road to socialism which will destroy our way of life, destroy our economy, destroy our civilization.
If you think I’m exaggerating look at Huckabee’s record and into the dangers of socialism.
But hey , the idiot Huckster lies and says he is pro-life so that makes all of this ok huh?
Mike Huckabee disses Americans, Mexicans, promotes illegal immigration
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/005609.html
Christians Need To Beware Of Mike Huckabee
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20071102.html
While Gov. of Arkansas, Huckabee was AGAINST proving citizenship in order to register to vote. He called those who were in favor of this “racists”..
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050218/news_lz1e18perkins.html
Huckabee fought hard to kill an Arkansas bill which would have cut off social services for illegal aliens. Huckabee called the bill, “anti-Christian” and “un-American”...
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/01/28/News/316347.html
Huckabee supported in-state tuition for illegal aliens...
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/03/11/News/318458.html
Huckabee’s opposition to the illegal aliens bill:
http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/000718.html