Posted on 10/26/2007 8:37:20 AM PDT by pookie18
You’re a poster child for what’s gone wrong in the formerly GOP.
Another Man From Hope
Who is Mike Huckabee?
The business community in Arkansas is split. Some praise Mr. Huckabee’s efforts to raise taxes to repair roads and work with an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature. Free-market advocates are skeptical. “He 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.”
Mr. Huckabee told me yesterday he also cut some taxes, and has taken the Americans for Tax Reform no-tax pledge. Former GOP state Rep. Randy Minton is not impressed. In 1999, he was urged by the governor to back a gas-tax increase. “I’d taken a pledge against higher taxes, but he sniffed that my constituents didn’t understand what we have to do in state government to make it work,” Mr. Minton says. “His support for taxes split the Republican Party, and damaged our name brand.” The Club for Growth notes that only a handful of the 33 current GOP state legislators back their former governor.
Mr. Huckabee’s reluctance to surround himself with conservatives was evident as governor, when he kept many agency heads appointed by Bill Clinton. Zac Wright, a spokesman for incoming Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, was asked this year why 15 Huckabee agency heads had been retained. Most of them were “Clinton people,” he replied, not “Huckabee people.” Mr. Huckabee told me many of his agency heads had “apolitical” responsibilities.
Many Huckabee supporters have told me their man should be judged by what he’s saying on the campaign trail today. Fair enough. Mr. Huckabee was the only GOP candidate to refuse to endorse President Bush’s veto of the Democrats’ bill to vastly expand the Schip health-care program. Only he and John McCain have endorsed the discredited cap-and-trade system to limit global-warming emissions that has proved a fiasco in Europe.
read the whole thing:
http://opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010782
Possibly Huckabee, McCain, and Undecided - a little to Romney too, ignoring the past 2 days or so.
No, he doesn't.
Huckabee supports the Illegal Invasion.
True, but I don't care about Huckabee, he's not my choice anyway.
bttt
Thompson/Romney '08, or
Romney/Thompson '08.
Which is better? Which is more likely? Looks like all other options are no longer operable.
The only way you can believe that is if you've completely bought the bill of goods that has been sold by the Democrat Media and the elites.
It's still several months before a single actual Republican will have cast a single ballot.
That's forever in politics.
LOL ! Nice try. Romney’s numbers are going down , thanks to the Huckster .
I’m with you:o)
I knew I wasn’t alone.
Balloting begins in ten weeks. Not exactly forever from now.
Exactly, and that is the last thing we need.
Remember folks, the federal government is gonna spend 3 TRILLION dollars of your money next year. Want to give more, vote for Huck or let Hillary win by staying home? Not me.
No, he's worse. GWB didnt hike taxes as Governor like the Huckster did. This is a stunning indictment of a man without a fiscal conservative bone in his body:
"He 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." Mr. Huckabee told me yesterday he also cut some taxes, and has taken the Americans for Tax Reform no-tax pledge. Former GOP state Rep. Randy Minton is not impressed. In 1999, he was urged by the governor to back a gas-tax increase. "I'd taken a pledge against higher taxes, but he sniffed that my constituents didn't understand what we have to do in state government to make it work," Mr. Minton says. "His support for taxes split the Republican Party, and damaged our name brand." The Club for Growth notes that only a handful of the 33 current GOP state legislators back their former governor. Governors who served with him praise Mr. Huckabee for his ability to work with others, but say he was clearly a moderate. "He fought my efforts to reform the National Governors Association and always took fiscal positions to my left," former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, a supporter of Mitt Romney, told me.
“Huckabee is what the democrats might have become if the hippies didn’t take over the party in the ‘60’s, and the Republicans didn’t make a play for the southern conservative vote.”
Good observation. 30 years ago, this man would have been a Democrat and would have fit right into the party of Humphrey, Scoop Jackson, LBJ and Lloyd Bentsen.
Paul supports the Jihadists. Yes. He does.
The plan is for the social liberal Rudy to get ‘balance’ on the ticket by bringing on a fiscal liberal Huckabee.
That way conservatives will KNOW where they stand. Aw jeeeez.
The beatings will continue until morale improves
Dittos on this thought.... Together they would make one great candidate.
Oddsmakers say Romney is more likely. Romney is still leading Iowa. Polls says Thompson is #2 nationally. Thompson should be soaking up all the support Huckabee is getting, this Huckabee boomlet is a real missed oppty for FDT to get out in front.
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