Free Republic

When it comes to Donald Trump's threat to go after Bill Clinton as the former president ramps up campaigning for his wife's bid, Mike Huckabee is all in on his Republican rival. "Look, nothing's backfired on Donald Trump yet. I'd put my money on him," the former governor of Arkansas told "Fox and Friends" in an interview Monday. "Frankly, he's played the whole media game like a kid on Christmas morning with a toy drum. He's beaten the heck out of them, and I honestly don't think that this is going to hurt Donald Trump - and I think the...

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush called out fellow GOP contender Mike Huckabee for saying President Barack Obama was marching Israelis to “the door of the oven” with the Iran deal, calling his comments “unfortunate” and “just wrong.” “The Iran deal is horrific, and it creates far more dangers and problems than it solves,” Bush said at an event in an Orlando church. “But I think we need to tone down the rhetoric for sure.” “Look, I’ve been to Israel not as many times as Mike Huckabee, who I respect,” he said. “But the use of that kind of language, it’s...

Mike Huckabee’s “exploration” announcement is good news for the former Florida governor. Jeb Bush is starting the new year with a smile. Former Arkansas governor and, until last weekend, Fox News host Mike Huckabee announced he would “explore” running for president. By the way, these “exploration” announcements are yet another example of the government encouraging politicians to lie. Exploratory committees disguise the fact that a candidate is running about as well as glasses conceal Superman’s real identity. They require a willful suspension of disbelief on the part of everyone watching. Politicians like this loophole because it drags out the time...

Rush Limbaugh’s opponents are starting a radio campaign against him Thursday, seizing upon the radio star’s attack of a Georgetown law student as a “slut” to make a long-term effort aimed at weakening his business. The liberal Media Matters for America is using a past campaign against Glenn Beck as a template. In Limbaugh, however, they’re going after bigger game. He’s already fighting back and the group’s stance has provoked concerns that an effort to silence someone for objectionable talk is in itself objectionable. Media Matters is spending at least $100,000 for two advertisements that will run in eight cities....

Arkansas State Rep. David Sanders, a former Huckabee political adviser, tells NRO that “in and around Little Rock, the sense is that Governor Huckabee will not run for president.” “He knows that he is popular but that he would not be the favorite to win,” Sanders observes. Huckabee, he notes, not only enjoys working for Fox News, but also relishes being a commentator for ABC Radio Networks, in the slot once held by the late Paul Harvey. “If Huckabee got into the race, he would be treated like the frontrunner,” Sanders says. “Yet he was never the frontrunner in 2008;...

Geraldo: When you run for president don't you have to, in all the numerous documents you file, don't you have to prove you were born in the United States? Huckabee flippantly replies: No, you actually don't click link above to go directly to the video

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, understands why he and likely fellow presidential contender Newt Gingrich were suspended as commentators for Fox News. But he doesn’t understand why potential presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee weren’t suspended, too, The Hill reports. Fox was correct to suspend him and former House Speaker Gingrich, Santorum says. As for former Arkansas Gov. Huckabee and former Alaska Gov. Palin, “I don't know what, why Fox differentiated whether there's been conversations," he said on CNN. "They didn't talk to me and ask me whether I'm running or...

Mike Huckabee seemed to suggest that Barack Obama grew up in Kenya, even though he indicated that the president’s birth certificate is real. Continue Reading In an interview with The Steve Malzberg Show on Monday, Huckabee talked about Obama’s “having grown up in Kenya.” Huckabee’s comment came in response the host asserting that Obama spent “millions of dollars in courts all over this country to defend against having to present a birth certificate.” “One thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American,” Huckabee...

Feb 10, 2011 - 6:35 - Mike Huckabee on Egypt and CPAC 6 min video.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee went out of his way Wednesday to denounce a brief reference to his stand on energy issues deep in a story posted on the political website RealClearPolitics.com. The issue at hand dates back to 2007, when Huckabee made energy security a key plank in his bid for the 2008 nomination, saying then that he favored a cap-and-trade approach to curbing carbon emissions — a policy later embraced by President Barack Obama. ...In an October 2007 appearance at the Global Warming and Energy Solutions Conference in Manchester, N.H., Huckabee said during part of a larger speech...

If Gallup’s newly-released poll looking at the GOP presidential field tells us anything about the current mood of Republican voters, it’s that despite the GOP base's much-publicized outrage over the nation's lack of fiscal restraint, they’re not terribly focused on candidates with strong records of limiting government spending. None of the top three candidates—Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee—have particularly distinguished themselves as serious government cutters. As governor of Arkansas, for example, Huckabee allowed state spending to rise by 65 percent, raised the average tax burden by 47 percent, and expanded the state’s government workforce by 20 percent. Romney,...

POSTED ON JUNE 4, 2010, AT 3:50 PM Nikki Haley greets a supporter. Photo: Nikkihaley.com SEE ALL 4 PHOTOS Best Opinion: Palmetto State Politics, Washington Monthly, Riehl World View Though she still holds a double-digit lead in the polls, Nikki Haley's bid for South Carolina's Republican governorship has grown increasingly fraught. Fresh accusations about her infidelity have emerged from political lobbyist Larry Marchant — which, like the earlier claims, the Tea Party-endorsed Haley has denied — and senior Republican senator Jake Dodds stirred up a racial storm yesterday by labeling the candidate, who is of Indian descent, a "raghead" on...

The Mike Huckabee body count continues to rise. During his 10 years as Arkansas governor, Huckabee commuted the sentences of 1,033 convicted criminals. He knowingly released more than a few rapists and murderers and sometimes mocked or attacked prosecutors who pleaded with him to keep violent offenders behind bars. While Huckabee was governor, the parole board released convicted rapist Wayne Dumont. Huckabee had publicly argued for Dumont's release, and parole board members said he pressured them to let the rapist out. Eleven months after his release, Dumont raped and killed a woman. In 2000, Huckabee granted clemency to Maurice Clemmons,...

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.), who is considered a 2012 presidential hopeful, appeared at an upstate New York Conservative Party dinner last night. Huckabee has not yet endorsed a candidate in a highly-contested upstate special election that has attracted widespread national attention. Several Republican presidential hopefuls have thrown their hat in for Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, who is running to the right of Republican nominee state Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava. The dinner was held in a suburb of Syracuse, N.Y., which is just over an hour south of the 23rd district. "The greatest threat to America’s freedom is not a...

During an appearance on the Neil Cavuto show, Mike Huckabee said he would not make an endorsement in the NY-23 special election -- and then proceeded to profusely praise Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, and say he could never support a pro-choice candidate (which so happens to be the case for the GOP's nominee, Dede Scozzafava). "Certainly his views represent more closely to mine," said Huckabee. "I'm not taking a role in that with my PAC, simply because I feel like it would be inappropriate with me at this point -- mainly because I'm already speaking to the Conservative Party...

With Mike Huckabee's sudden prominence in the 2008 GOP Presidential race has come greater scrutiny, of both the man and his record. Prominent in both is his famous weight loss saga, and as such it too merits scrutiny. In June 2003, Mike Huckabee was an obscure and obese (290 lb.) Arkansas Governor. By June 2004, Huckabee lost 110 lbs., which he attributed to diet and exercise. This feat naturally attracted media attention as a human-interest story, to which Huckabee added a public policy angle by also touting his anti-obesity public health initiative called Healthy Arkansas. This program included public service...

Stevens Pass highway, closed for more than six hours Thursday after a truck jackknifed, reopened later in the day, easing a five-mile traffic backup. But as winter conditions and restrictions persisted, it was unclear when Snoqualmie Pass would reopen. Officials said they won't be able to assess avalanche and snowfall conditions on Interstate 90 at Snoqualmie until 9 a.m. Friday. However, by 5:30 p.m. Thursday, the miles-long backup of U.S. Route 2 at Stevens Pass was easing, even as snow continued to fall. Eastbound lanes reopened at about 5:20 p.m. and westbound lanes, closed at Leavenworth, opened around 4:45 p.m.,...

Mike Huckabee’s radical plan for sales tax revenue system only looks seductive, argues Tim Worstall, who demonstrates how the Fair Tax can be easily gamed and how the end of the I.R.S. is really the beginning of an even greater bureaucracy of retail auditors. by Tim Worstall As a Brit, I’ve been watching the back and forth about Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s Fair Tax with amazement. The idea is that the entire current Federal tax system is abolished replaced it with a 23% sales tax upon everything, this meaning we don’t the IRS and individual tax returns. The money...

The most interesting statistic to come out of the Nevada primary tonight is the dismal 8 percent showing for Gov. Mike Huckabee. This shows what we all should have suspected that the Evangelical-Mormon estrangement cuts both ways. And it sends a very clear message to both the Romney and Huckabee camps. There is no way either one will win in a general election without having the other one on the ticket. Here is how it works. Evangelicals in Iowa melted away from Mormon Romney, in spite of his huge expenditure in time and money. They just wouldn’t vote for a...

I have a new story up on Fred Thompson's campaign finale here in South Carolina. The short version is: Thompson, the man who in the conventional wisdom has come to define low-energy campaigning, was absolutely riveting. He was engaged and impassioned and devoted his entire talk to conservative first principles. In turn, the audience was enormously enthusiastic. Which of course led to the inevitable observation, made by a woman standing next to me near the podium, "Where was this six months ago?" After Thompson's speech, I hurried from Greenville back to Columbia to catch Mike Huckabee's last campaign event, at...