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Gone is the sunny, compassionate candidate of 2008. In the run-up to 2016, the former Arkansas governor is downright angry. He’s learned his lesson from his last campaign, ex-aides say. In 2007, Mike Huckabee stood impassively on a Republican presidential debate stage while Mitt Romney tried to embarrass him. A program that Huckabee had instituted in Arkansas gave undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children the right to in-state tuition at Arkansas’s public universities. Huckabee sounded, Romney said, like a Massachusetts liberal. “Are we going to give taxpayer-funded benefits to kids that are here illegally and put them...

Apparently someone applied this term to Huck himself and it brought him up short. You’d think he’d be used to it after the millionth time. I’m fine with swapping it out for another term, but how do I describe myself then? “Candy-ass … centrist”? That’s too vague. “Candy-ass … establishmentarian”? Better, but still a mouthful. Few substitutes have the pithy poetic zing of “candy-ass RINO.” “Many of you used a term that I’d like to see outlawed from the vernacular of the party: RINO,” he said, calling it a “pejorative term” that questioned one’s purity… “With all due respect, I’ve...

Huckabee and Akin’s Phony War Against the “Establishment” – Update Posted on August 26 2012 - 11:10 AM - Posted by: Stacy Drake | Follow Stacy on Twitter! On Saturday, Doug posted the following Politico article concerning a conference call between Todd Akin backer, Mike Huckabee, hundreds of Southern Baptist pastors, and Christian talk show hosts: Mike Huckabee rallied hundreds of Southern Baptists on a conference call Friday night in support of Todd Akin, offering advice about how they can help the embattled Missouri Senate candidate stay in the race — while acknowledging Akin still may have to bow out.“This...

Todd Akin hasn't had many high-profile supporters with him in the trenches this week, but Mike Huckabee became an important and emphatic exception Thursday afternoon, sending a message to his own supporters accusing Republican elites of trying to drum a good man out of a winnable Senate race. Here's what Huckabee said in an email to his list this afternoon: Party’s leaders have for reasons that aren't rational, left [Akin] behind on the political battlefield, wounded and bleeding, a casualty of his self-inflicted, but not intentional wound.

Mike Huckabee is expanding his media reach to a radio program scheduled to start airing in April. However, the show is scheduled to be in direct competition with none other than Rush Limbaugh. In a column for The Daily Beast today, David Frum thinks Huckabee’s new show might end up hurting Limbaugh’s numbers, and gave some insight into the reasons surrounding decisions by advertisers to leave Limbaugh’s program. Last month, Huckabee announced he would be doing the radio show for Cumulus Media Networks, while continuing to work the weekend shift on his Fox News show, Huckabee. His show has been...

What happens if Romney loses Michigan next week? Some are saying it could mean the Republican Party needs a new candidate to take on President Barack Obama. Here’s POLITICO’s list of 10 people who could jump into the race (or be tapped as the GOP standardbearer at a brokered convention): 1. Jeb Bush: The former governor from a key state is the top choice for many wishful-thinking Republicans, although he’s said repeatedly he won’t do it. 2. Mitch Daniels: The Indiana chief executive, who gave the high-profile 2012 Republican response to the State of the Union, decided last year he...

Mike Huckabee had a fairly serious interview with Mitt Romney on Fox News tonight (no "Cat Scratch Fever" this time?) in which the current candidate shrugged off the Chris Christie wooing that is in part born of a rejection of Romney by donors and some establishment figures. Per POLITICO's Emily Schultheis, who helpfully tuned in, Huckabee asked a question about how Romney contends with the repeated new candidates whose names get mentioned. Romney was all praise for Huckabee and his strengths: Romney: "I think we want to win. I think the people in our party want to make sure we...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Monday that Mitt Romney may be the Republican Party's "most electable" presidential candidate and dinged Texas Gov. Rick Perry for comparing Social Security to a "criminal enterprise." Huckabee's endorsement remains one of the most coveted among Republicans this election season, as the former pastor brought droves of evangelical Christians to the polls for his 2008 presidential run. On Monday, Huckabee noted what some see as another potential hurdle for Perry: his seeming likeness to President George W. Bush, the last Texas governor to occupy the White House. "It gives the Democrats the opportunity to...

Even though it is in its early days, the GOP sweepstakes for the presidential nomination appears to be a battle that George Orwell would love. In "Animal Farm," his famous satire of political hopes and dashed expectations, Orwell posits a revolution by animals seizing control of a farm. Idealistic equality quickly degenerates into the politically more practical "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Something similar could be said of the GOP contenders being mentioned as possible presidential candidates: All candidates may be theoretically equal this early, but polls show that four - Mitt Romney,...

Anyone who thinks presidential ambition is an incurable condition hasn’t spent much time lately with Mike Huckabee. The man who came in second in the 2008 GOP primary isn’t exactly ruling out another run in 2012. But he doesn’t sound all that eager to jump right back into the fray, either. “I’m not one who thinks the future of the world is depending on whether I run for president,” the former Arkansas governor said in an interview. The truth is, there were many things about the presidential campaign grind that Huckabee didn’t much like the last time around. Don’t look...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Were Mike Huckabee's recent gaffes enough to doom any presidential ambitions he still harbors? A calculated play for the Republican Party's base? Somewhere in between? The former Arkansas governor, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 and is considering another White House run, had to walk back two widely reported comments he made in radio interviews last week during a national tour to promote his latest book. First he referred to President Barack Obama's boyhood in Kenya...

Mike Huckabee is the Hamlet of the 2012 presidential cycle. The former governor of Arkansas says he really, truly has not decided whether to run for the Republican nomination, and we believe him. He says he’ll decide this summer. His just-released book, “A Simple Government,” and accompanying book tour – which happens to include six stops in Iowa and five in South Carolina, two early nominating states – would appear to point to “yes.” But at a tea with reporters Wednesday sponsored by the Monitor, he seemed to plant the seeds for “no.” First, let’s go through the reasons Mr....

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee defended First Lady Michelle Obama Wednesday from conservative critics who he said have painted her anti-obesity campaign as nothing more than "a government takeover of our dinner plates." "She's been criticized unfairly by a lot of my fellow conservatives," Huckabee said at an event sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, adding that the criticism is more "a reflex" than "thoughtful expression." Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and conservative talk host Rush Limbaugh are among those who have slammed Michelle Obama's efforts as heavy handed. "It's exactly what Republicans say they believe," Huckabee said of the...

Mike Huckabee may be especially tempted to run in 2012 by a lingering feud between him and Mitt Romney, a severe hangover from the 2008 campaign that has created a lasting and bitter rift between the two, Republicans who know both men say. “[Huckabee] hates Mitt, and his goal in Iowa last time was to stop him,” said one prominent Republican, who’s known both men for years. “If he sees an opportunity to cut Mitt off [during the nominating process], he will take it.” Continue Reading Huckabee and Romney were never exactly pals before the Iowa caucuses two years ago...

According to a new poll, 51 percent of Republicans who intend to vote in their party's primaries do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States. Among these birthers, Mike Huckabee is the preferred candidate with 24 percent of the vote, followed by Sarah Palin at 19 percent, "someone else" at 15 percent, Newt Gingrich at 14 percent, and Mitt Romney at 11 percent. Unfortunately for the birthers, though, Huckabee, the winner of the birther primary, has made it clear that he doesn't subscribe to such conspiracy theories. As he said on Geraldo at Large on July...

When former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee ran for President in 2008, he did so in the guise of a conservative. But those of us who listened closely to his speeches heard a message that was far from compatible with the ideals of limited government and expanded liberty: two benchmarks of conservatism by any measure. Instead we heard Huckabee openly support a nationwide, federally mandated smoking ban, and expanding the powers of the federal government to mandate limits on carbon emissions via cap and trade. Because of the exponential growth things like a national smoking ban and cap and trade legislation...

It’s now been one month since I last did my prediction of the top five Republican Presidential Candidates, and this time around we saw a little change in rank. The biggest leap forward, was Mike Huckabee, which I previously had him placed third, he is now first. Followed by Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Tim Pawlenty. (Chart at link) Now I’m sure many of you disagree with Romney being third behind Sarah Palin, but I don’t view him as a good candidate. I don’t hate him, and I certainly would vote for him over President Obama, but he...

In what could be a potential giveaway to Gov. Mick Huckabee’s 2012 aspirations, Race42012 has reported that Huckabee’s presidential committee Huckabee for President, Inc has filed termination paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. Though Mike Huckabee’s political action committee HuckPAC is still an entity and has filed it’s normal year end report, this could show clear signs that Mike Huckabee has decided not to seek the office of President in 2012. However, this could also mean that Mike Huckabee is in fact gearing up for a 2012 run, with a possible re-structure of committee. I also said earlier, that if...

The clearest sign yet that Mike Huckabee is leaning toward another presidential run emerged Thursday. The former Arkansas Governor plans to visit Iowa in June and participate in the Family Leader’s “Presidential Lecture Series”, according to the group’s CEO Bob Vander Plaats. He disclosed that information to a crowd of 50 in Oskaloosa.

Polling is showing Mike Huckabee ahead of the pack of his rivals for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination in evangelical-heavy Iowa. In 2008, Huckabee, after a surprise second place showing in the straw poll held by the Iowa GOP the summer before the caucuses, pulled out a win in Iowa, only to be unable to replicate it elsewhere. Then, despite strong evangelical support, he suffered from a splintered GOP field and charges by Arkansas Republicans that he was too soft -- a RINO (Republican In Name Only). I wrote in late 2007: "Huckabee's willingness to use government to help those...