Huckabee’s views on taxes, defense, Israel and the role of government are nearly identical to Reagan’s. What happened to him in the primary is that the Club for Growth, after getting a lot of money from Romney, brought out a big hit piece on his record that was wildly distorted and endlessly posted and reposted here. A lot of freepers continue to believe that crap, and call Huckabee a “socialist” or a “tax-and-spender,” even though it was debunked by everyone from Huckabee himself to Michael Medved to the NY Times.
They continue to irrationally hate Huckabee, and seize on anything he says to slam him. For example, look at this story, which they obviously didn’t bother to read. Some of the nasty posts above miss the point of what he was saying entirely or use only half the quote. It would be embarrassing if it weren’t so infuriating.
BTW, before you start warming up your flames: I’ve been on FR since 1998, am a former Freeper of the Week for catching the Craig Kilborn “Snipers Wanted” outrage, and I’ve known Gov. Huckabee personally for over 10 years and chat with and email him regularly. I’m a lifelong conservative whose dad founded our local Republican Party and helped Phil Gramm get elected and whose brother worked at the RNC, writing speeches for GOP candidates nationwide, and on some issues, Huckabee is to the right of me. He’s also the most decent, honest and down-to-Earth person I’ve ever met in politics. If he’d been the nominee, what we would’ve had was a younger, articulate, witty, pro-life conservative candidate with 10 years of successful executive experience and proven appeal to minorities, blue collar workers, young people, Southerners and Christian conservatives. God forbid!
Huckabee didn’t give us McCain; Huckabee could have saved us from McCain, but we have that phony Romney’s moneybags and deluded believers in Fred Thompson (who I warned people would NOT be a serious candidate before he ever even announced) to thank for slandering Huckabee and giving us McCain. But by all means, go ahead and quote the Club for Growth to me again. I’m sure you know Mike Huckabee far, far better than I possibly could. /rant
IMO he's more pro-Israel than Reagan. Reagan was in his heart, things are more problematical when it comes to setting policy.