Free Republic

Nice guys finish last—at least that seems to be the lesson Mike Huckabee has learned from losing the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. The former Arkansas governor made headlines last week when he suggested on his radio show that the Democrats’ health-care bill under debate in Congress wouldn’t have covered Sen. Ted Kennedy in his final days of battling cancer. “Proponents deny that the bill would devalue older people’s lives, or encourage them to accept less care to save money. But it was President Obama himself who suggested that seniors who don’t have as long to live might want to just...

To most political observers, the near-certainty that John McCain will be the Republican nominee ends any prospects for a Michael Bloomberg candidacy as an independent. Alas, Bloomberg begs to differ. He reportedly sees the current state of play as another opening for his presidential dreams. After telling friends he believes Hillary Clinton will be her party's nominee, Bloomberg said at a recent event, "Hillary should pray I get in the race because that would help her," according to a source quoted in the Daily News gossip column Rush & Molloy. Bloomberg, whose office would neither confirm nor deny he made...

As regular VC readers know, I am one of several conspirators who is supporting Fred Thompson's campaign for President. I cannot speak for the others, but my reasons for supporting Thompson include his commitment to federalism, his candor on important issues other candidates would prefer to avoid (e.g. entitlements), and his record on regulatory reform and government oversight over the past thirty years. For National Review's pentultimate issue (the one before they endorsed Mitt Romney), I authored an article making the conservative case for Thompson. For those without subscriptions to the print magazine, here is an excerpt: Sen. Fred Thompson...

A quick note about my various Huckabee postings. As many (most) readers know, I am supporting Fred Thompson in the Republican primary (and wrote an article explaining why in NRODT). This is not the reason why I have been posting so much that is critical of Huckabee, however. Rather, I find Huckabee's record and various positions to be particularly problematic, far more so than any of the other candidates. (Note I have not been posting items critical of the other candidates, even though I prefer Fred.) In my view, Huckabee is a big government populist liberal, not a conservative. In...

Compare this to [1] Huckabee’s view on waterboarding. From the [2] Charlie Rose interview: Thompson: I’m telling you, as President, if the lives of a bunch of American citizens were at stake and I thought that there was a good chance that an individual had information and could impart information that would help save those lives, I’m just saying, that I would do whatever is necessary to get that information from that person. I would authorize that. Whatever is necessary to save a number of American lives. Thanks to Cuffy who says this locks up the [3] Jack Bauer Caucus....

It is very rare, if not unheard of, to catch a presidential candidate, especially a Republican, in the act of saying he or she would be willing to sign any tax increase that lawmakers wished for. But that's what happened to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has rocketed to a statistical tie in Iowa with Mitt Romney, largely as a result of the former Baptist minister's support from evangelical voters in the nation's first caucus state. The Club for Growth, an effective tax-cut advocacy group, has been on Huckabee's back almost from the beginning of his candidacy, sending out...

New Iowa Leader Criticized by for Indecision on Federal Student Aid. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who backed in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants, hedged Sunday on whether illegal immigrants who have gone to school in the United States should become eligible for federal student aid such as Pell grants and subsidized federal student loans. "I'm not sure that I would support that," Huckabee told ABC News, "it was a different program in Arkansas." Huckabee's failure to take a clear position on federal student aid while appearing on ABC News' "This Week with George...

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has been holding private conversations with Dick Morris, according to aides, a longstanding relationship that is raising new questions as Huckabee’s campaign begins to take off. Morris’ most prominent calling card has been with Bill Clinton — for two decades, starting in 1977, as his most influential (if sometimes erratic) political adviser and for the past decade as one of his most persistent (if sometimes erratic) public critics. But the Arkansas connection the controversial consultant and commentator established through Clinton also brought Huckabee onto his client roster, beginning in 1993 when he advised the Republican’s...

Mike Huckabee was surrounded in New Hampshire yesterday by a pack of press that's grown with his increasing poll numbers. Reporters asked him to respond to attacks launched by his Republican opponents on his tax and immigration records, as CNN's Anderson Cooper waited for his exclusive. "I'm going to let Mitt Romney explain all of his positions - and there's plenty of them to explain," Huckabee said, responding to a question about his chief rival in Iowa, who recently stepped up his criticism of the former Arkansas governor. "I'm not running so much against Mitt Romney. I want to be...

Former Arkansas Governor and Republican Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee received the endorsement of the Republican Sportshooters Association at a sportsmen’s “meet and greet and skeet shoot” just outside Spartanburg, South Carolina yesterday. “The Second Amendment is not about loving guns, it is about ensuring freedom,” said Huckabee. During his remarks, Huckabee told the crowd the story about the rusty old 20 gauge shotgun in his rifle cabinet at home that was his father’s gun, and how one day that gun will be his sons. “You don’t hear stories about fathers passing down video games to their sons,” he quipped. Wayne...

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...

The Governor opposes and will never allow amnesty. He passionately rejected the amnesty bill that President Bush and Sen. McCain tried to ram through Congress this summer after secret meetings of an under-the-radar cabal of amnesty-loving senators. The Governor opposed the misnamed DREAM Act, which was a nightmare because it would have put us on the slippery slope to amnesty for all. Because once we open that door even a crack, we’ll never get it closed again.

Mike Huckabee, a wise-cracking, guitar-strumming, Baptist pastor has leapt into a conservative void and shot into contention in the unpredictable 2008 Republican White House race. Huckabee, 52, was hitherto best known for being born in the same town, Hope, as Bill Clinton, and shedding more than 100 pounds from his once portly frame. But, partly by exploiting discontent among Christian conservatives with the Republican field, Huckabee, a witty former Arkansas governor, has powered into second place in polls in Iowa, 65 days before the state's crucial caucuses. "The religious right vote in the Iowa caucuses is a substantial bloc, and...

The last month has been the best one of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. He appears to be emerging as a viable conservative alternative -- rising in polls in Iowa and finally putting together a serious fundraising effort. There's just one problem with this rosy scenario. And, its name is the Club For Growth. The Club, a D.C. based organization that proudly touts both its fiscal conservatism and its willingness to dabble in contested Republican primaries, seems intent on not allowing Huckabee to coalesce the Republican conservative base behind his candidacy. From the start...

There they go again. The “Stop Huckabee” campaign sponsored by the Club for Growth, has launched yet another “fact-check” on Mike Huckabee’s record, similar in both style and rhetoric to most any Pat Toomey-led campaign. Like any good sleight of hand artist, Toomey’s attacks are designed to distract the audience just long enough for the illusion to be successful. So it is with this one as well. The current Club for Growth strategy even has some Arkansas flavoring in the mix. Salon reports on “a spin-off group called Club for Growth.net, which files regular disclosures through the Internal Revenue Service....

Firing back at the gun lobby Gosh I hate it when I have to spend an entire morning digging up statistics when I'd much rather be watching soap operas and eating bon-bons. But when people disrespect your haircut, what can you do? A few weeks ago I wrote that I thought it odd people hunted with handguns, which led me to meander to thoughts about gun control. I didn't call for a ban on weapons, but pointed out that the National Rifle Association in Arizona has successfully defeated efforts limiting the sale of rapid fire ammunition magazines and bills requiring...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young children who live in homes with gas cooking stoves may be at increased risk for respiratory illnesses, research from Hong Kong suggests. "Gas cooking can be a significant source of indoor air pollution," Dr. T. W. Wong of the Chinese University of Hong Kong told Reuters Health. Wong explained that the burning of cooking gas may generate nitrogen dioxide. Smokey cooking fumes, particularly from deep frying, may also contribute to indoor air pollution, the investigator said. Both types of indoor air pollution may increase the likelihood of respiratory diseases, especially among the very young...