The unfair rap against Mike Huckabee

With little resources, and with a GOP presidential candidacy hovering in obscurity through the summer, the former Arkansas governor is now running in a dead heat with Mitt Romney in the lead in Iowa.

The former Massachusetts governor's spending in Iowa has been 10 times greater than Huckabee's and, until this week, Huckabee had not run a single ad (versus Romney, whose ads have already run over 5,000 times).

In various national polls, Huckabee is coming in a solid third behind former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson.

The Washington Post's David Broder provides one hint about the fuel that might be propelling Huckabee. He says that, according to veteran Democratic pollster Peter Hart, the attributes that are pushing voters' buttons this year are "transparency, authenticity and unity."

A just-released The Economist/YouGov poll shows Huckabee doing well in these areas. Republican voters rate him first in both honesty and morality.

The long campaign and the plethora of pre-primary televised debates have been helpful to Huckabee, whose appeal has come through to voters, but who has not had a lot of resources for his own marketing. He has come off as genuine and not like a candidate, in Huckabee's words, "who's sort of the culmination of a room full of consultants."

There is little question that on social issues that Huckabee, a Baptist minister, is the real deal. This is playing well among Iowa Republicans, a third of whom are evangelicals and 70 percent of whom are conservatives.

But what about the rap against him that he is a populist with little regard for traditional Republican proclivities for unfettered markets and limited government?

He's been accused by the Club for Growth of "big-government liberalism" and called by conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg a "statist."

There's some justification, of course, to these labels. Huckabee invites them when he expresses reservations about free trade, which he does, when he talks about energy independence, which he does, and when he endorses ideas such as a nationally mandated ban on smoking in public places.

But there are important strains in what Huckabee is about that defy simple labels, and in this sense these accusations and generalizations are not legitimate.

When Huckabee says that "strong families are the foundation of a strong country," he means this. This is not a Hillary Rodham Clinton-like political throw-away line.

The traditional-values agenda is as much an economic initiative as anything else.

It's family breakdown and values breakdown that drive poverty in our country today. Poor families are overwhelmingly single-parent families.

Crime and unemployment among black males is a values crisis, and transforming these young men to productive beings is an economic as well as a values initiative. This is anything but statism.

It's tough to see how someone who wants to get rid of the IRS, which Huckabee's "fair tax" initiative would do, can be thought of as someone who loves big government.

His plan, which would replace the income tax with a national sales tax, has plenty of detractors, including those who see it as politically impossible to achieve.

But how do you argue with the idea of taxing consumption rather than income and production, and freeing every American family of having to share every intimate detail of their economic life with the government?

On health care, Huckabee has repudiated mandated universal coverage and supports reforms that would allow individuals the same tax preferences for purchasing health coverage as employers and that would allow a national market, rather than our current state-regulated fiefdoms, for buying health care Sounds pretty darned free-market to me.

On Social Security, Huckabee's plan would eliminate the payroll tax and he has expressed support for the idea of personal retirement accounts.

And, of course, Huckabee is a hard-core supporter of understanding the Second Amendment as protection of the rights of individuals to bear arms.

So the simple big-government-loving box into which many want to stick Huckabee is just not an accurate picture of the man. Do I agree with many of the criticisms in areas where he does want to turn to government? Yes.

Mike Huckabee is not a simple guy. But life is not simple. However, he is honest, he is clear and many, including me, appreciate his unequivocal stand for the traditional values that are critical for the future of this country.

Agreed:

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

As opposed to paleoPaulie, the “small gummint” fantasist, who shills for Al Qaeda and Islamic Jihad when he is not working overtime for shrimpin’, trolley, and bus subsidies while posing for holy p[ictures as though he were against them when he knows his colleagues will see to it that the graft rolls to his district regardless????? What makes me think that movement conservatives who work for Club for Growth won’t be caught dead endorsing paleoPaulie for POTUS any time soon regardless of his fiscal record? What good is growth if you are governed by the Sharia Law of Dr. Demento's pals?

Good job Dano1!

It’s got to be a job and a half to keep up against the monkey-C~monkey-V debaters here on FR who are sitting at the ready with the finger on the ctrl-V key to paste in their favorite(negative)pieces on Huckabee. I have read just about every thread on Huchakbee here the last month or two (yes I am a lurker!) and every single thread have the same negative articles pasted into them very shortly after posting of the thread start. Seeing consistency such as these “debaters” are displaying, it certainly makes me wonder if such a diciplined effort isn’t orchestrated somehow by another campaign.

I see, we should all just ignore the facts because you and Dano1 and the Huckster say so!

Great debating technique

Campaign Rhetoric is Campaign Rhetoric (what you and Dano1 are posting)

Facts are Facts.( what everyone else is posting)

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

A rather misleading article. it isn’t just a “1/8 cent sales tax”... They completely ignore hte 3% income tax surcharge he fought to keep (even after the books were back in line), they ignore the other increases in fees and taxes under his reign to support the largest increase in entitlements in the history of Arkansas.

Unless you lived here in Arkansas during his decade of money-grubbing, you really cannot rely on such biased articles that do not tell the whole story. Club for Growth is dead on regarding Huckabee.

“I believe that globalization, done right, done fairly, can be a blessing for our society.”

Anyone that would say that is simply trash. He doesn't have a clue to what this country's about.

Add clueless moron to the trash.(Good to see you TE) ~Pandy~

Huckabee thought those children, some of whom are U.S. citizens by birth, deserved more consideration. He went beyond just saying so and directed the state Health Department and the Department of Human Services to provide whatever assistance they can to these children. Huckabee also released $1,000 from his emergency fund to buy food, clothing and even school supplies for the children.

Gee, what a generous guy Huckabee is... with other people's money. Did it ever occur to the idiot to just put the kids (anchor babies included) on a plane back to their parents?

No, I don’t think it is orchestrated; we all have passionate feelings about who we like, and there are many who see one candidate or another as a possible threat to ‘their’ guy. It the personal stuff that bugs me more than some long-winded collection of muck that has come from these other sources. Still, in the end, we can hope that the candidate who ends up on top can win, because THE NAME OF THE GAME IS WIN.

If Huckabee gains enough momentum to take IA outright, finish large in NH, pull back into the top tier in SC, then Florida becomes the flash point for the GOP future. To all the eggheads out there, just remember that there are a LOT of social conservatives who are not within those 5 miles of the coastlines where polling occurs.

This is far from over if Huckabee runs into the Florida primaries in first or second place (I will admit, if he is third or lower, his battle may be lost, because by Florida, people will be placing their bets on a WINNER). Rudy appeals to NONE of the social conservative issues except populist defense, and Romney is buying votes to get support; neither poll well in the evangelical crowd nor on national landscape. It will be an interesting two months to say the least.

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