Free Republic

If the choice for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 comes down to a choice between Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, Huckabee has a slight edge. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Republican voters finds that 44% prefer Huckabee, 39% favor Romney, and 17% are not sure. Data released yesterday showed that Huckabee and Romney lead all hopefuls in an early look at the 2012 race. Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich also attract double-digit support. Both Huckabee and Romney are viewed favorably by 78% of Republican voters. However, intensity leans a bit in Huckabee’s favor. Forty-six percent (46%)...

(snip) Mike Huckabee and Tim Pawlenty — both potential 2012 presidential contenders — urged restraint. "There will be an outcry from those on the right who will say that Obama's nomination, made two weeks into his Presidency, is impossible to justify, but I think such an outcry will sound like right-wing whining," Huckabee said in a statement. "The better response is simply to allow those on the left to explain what he did in his first two weeks as President that merited such recognition." Pawlenty, speaking on NPR, said there "will be some people who are saying 'Was it based...

Author Dan Brown is a friendly, normal guy--not the type you'd expect to have created the dark world of The Da Vinci Code. The book, published in 2003, has sold more than 80 million copies worldwide, and the 2006 movie starring Tom Hanks grossed over $758 million. It also generated enormous controversy: Catholic Church leaders denounced its heretical slant and negative portrayal of Opus Dei, a conservative Roman Catholic group. Now, after six-and-a-half years, Brown's newest novel, The Lost Symbol, comes out on Tuesday. Brown, 45, still seems surprised that his book started such a frenzy. He grew up on...

There he goes again. Newsmax has published an interview with Mitt Romney in which he once again touts his big government Massachusetts health care plan as a monumental success: "What we were able to accomplish was to get almost all of our citizens insured without breaking the bank and without having a so-called public option," Romney says. "I think the program is a real success and that it can teach lessons to other states, and to the nation." To start with, Romney is wrong on the merits. Michael Cannon has done an excellent job documenting what a colossal failure Romneycare...

A day after former Baptist minister and likely presidential rival Mike Huckabee offered a withering critique of Mitt Romney's record, the former Massachusetts governor made his pitch to the same group of religious conservatives. Romney appealed to attendees at the Values Voter Summit in Washington on Saturday, using a speech that drew heavily from his address to social conservatives at the same hotel earlier this year. "Putting such a spirit-crushing, back-breaking debt burden on our children is unworthy of our national character," he said. "That is why I believe that this spending and borrowing is not just economically irresponsible, it...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – An old rivalry flared up again at the annual Values Voter Summit on Friday, when Mike Huckabee took aim at the health care system in Massachusetts that was implemented in 2006 by then-Gov. Mitt Romney. Huckabee — who did serious damage to Romney's presidential hopes last January by winning the Iowa caucuses and has made clear his disdain for the former Massachusetts governor — told the crowd at the conservative conference that the Bay State health care system is a model for the kind of government-run health care President Obama wants to implement. "It's going to bankrupt...

Dan Brown has done it again. In 2003, "The Da Vinci" code author released the must-read novel of the year. Six years later, his sequel "The Lost Symbol" sold more than one million copies in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. on its first day, shattering sales records in adult fiction books and forcing the publisher to rush-print an additional 600,000 copies to meet the demand.

So much for conservatives’ insistence on not injecting Teddy’s death into the health-care debate, I guess. Although Stephanopoulos is right: This is less about The One and ObamaCare than it is about Huck’s growing rivalry with a certain darling of the base who was way ahead of him on this subject. Which Democrat will toss it back first? Will any Republicans jump on it by challenging Huckabee head-on? One thing’s for sure: by joining the debate in this time in this way, Huckabee is showing how determined he is not to be outmaneuvered by Sarah Palin in the early 2012...

Muck-it-up-a-bee was spouting nonsense about Rifqa Bary. Mike Huckabee weighed in on Rifqa Bary yesterday and displayed an almost breathless stupidity and deliberate delusion that speaks to the deeper inadequacy of this man. Atlas reader Palin opined, I just watched Huckabee on Fox. He, like everyone else, is completely clueless about this. He started by emphasizing that most Moslems are peaceful, trivialized her conversion to Christianity, raised concerns about sexual predators on the Internet luring kids with religion, stated the family has no history of violence, and stressed that this is "a very complex case." Huck - this is not...

The man backing part of the Global Climate scare can't even calculate how to place his windmills correctly, never mind his hot air about the much more complex subject, the climate. Plans for the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle have been scrapped, Pickens said today. He's now looking for a home for 687 giant wind turbines that he has already ordered. The windmills stand 400 feet tall—taller than most 30-story buildings. "When I start receiving those turbines, I've got to ... like I said, my garage won't hold them," the oligarch said. "They've got to go someplace."...

As a result of his failing economic policies, the majority of Americans currently disapprove of Obamanomics and the GOP now leads Democrats by six points on the economy. Conservatives have continuously pointed out that Keynesian economic theory never works, but liberals believed from the bottom of their capricious little hearts that "this time" would be different. As Albert Einstein noted, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Unfortunately for America, we bought "Mr. O's Special Blend of Snake Oil Hope & Changery," and now we're broke and worse off than we were before....

Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens on Monday reiterated his prediction that crude oil prices would hit $75 a barrel this year as producers scale back production. Pickens said about OPEC producers: "They told you they want $75 by the end of the year, I would count on that, I believe them."

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned supporters Tuesday that the $828 billion stimulus package is “anti-religious.” In an e-mail that was also posted on his blog ahead of the Senate’s passage, Huckabee wrote: “The dust is settling on the ‘bipartisan’ stimulus bill and one thing is clear: It is anti-religious.” The former Republican presidential candidate pointed to a provision in both the House and Senate versions banning higher education funds in the bill from being used on a “school or department of divinity.” “You would think the ACLU drafted this bill,” Huckabee said. “For all of the talk about bipartisanship,...

T. Boone Pickens said Tuesday that he's seeking as much as $28 billion from the economic stimulus plan to convert heavy-duty trucks from diesel to natural gas engines. [...] Pickens' latest lobbying effort comes as congressional Democrats negotiate details of the $800 billion package of tax cuts and government spending. Pickens said he discussed his request Tuesday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller. A Pelosi spokesman refused to provide details of the "private conversation." "They, of course, didn't jump up and give me a standing ovation,"...

Yet another profile of wind crusader T. Boone Pickens aired Sunday night — this time on 60 Minutes — and it had the usual details about the 80-year-old former oil baron’s plan to get the U.S. off its addiction to foreign oil. But 60 Minutes did score an interesting tidbit about how much Pickens and his investment firm BP Capital have lost since oil and natural gas prices started dropping in July: $2 billion! The steep drop in oil and gas prices since July has cut the value of Pickens’ hedge fund in half. . . Overall, Pickens and BP...

TOKYO (AFP) - Former US presidential contender Mike Huckabee urged his fellow Republicans on Wednesday not to denigrate Democrat Barack Obama, saying they should celebrate the historic moment of a black candidate. "Republicans will make a fundamental if not fatal mistake if they seek to win the election by demonising Barack Obama," Huckabee told a news conference on a visit to Tokyo. The former Arkansas governor said that, having grown up in the segregated South, he never thought he would see an African-American win the nomination of a major party for the US presidency. "I do not want to have...

A T-R-I reader says a “former Republican candidate for the presidency in 2008 is shopping a radio commentary/talk show to all the networks, and it’s not his first job in radio.” Sounds like the Tennessee talker himself, Fred Thompson, doesn’t it? But no – it’s former Arkansas Governor, minister and onetime teenage radio host Mike Huckabee. His witty and self-deprecating persona was a hit with a lot of media types during the campaign and you’d think he could be exploring all kinds of options (including the VP slot with McCain, without seeming to want it). But he’s shaking hands and...

When we founded Huck PAC we did so with the idea that we would support Republican candidates who are passionate advocates for tax reform, a strong national defense, real border security, life, the family, less government and individual liberty. This week I am headed to Montana to campaign for Roy Brown and Steve Daines, candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor respectively. House Majority Leader Brown is an able legislator who is known for his strong advocacy of tax reform, education, energy development and the strong importance of government supporting and empowering the Family. I met Steve Daines when he agreed...

Huckabee & The Club friends at last? TRIBUNE-REVIEW By: Salena Zito When former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was running for the Republcian nomination for president, no one attacked him more often and with more conservative muscle than the uber-economic conservatives from The Club for Growth. Pat Tommey, chairman of The Club, wrote last October in The National Review that a flirtation with Huckabee even as a vice presidential candidate did a "great disservice to the conservative movement if it overlooks Huckabee’s stunning record of big-government liberalism.” So, it came as a bit of surprise to receive a blast e-mail from...

Mike Huckabee, still one of many names being floated as John McCain’s vice presidential nominee, has started up his own political action committee, Huck PAC. In his kick-off blog on his Web site, the former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate writes that he’s launching the PAC to promote candidates who “hold firm” to the principles of “tax reform, a strong national defense, real border security, life, the family, less government and individual liberty.” Aside from that, Huckabee has high goals for upending the power balance in Washington. “Huck PAC is committed to helping Republicans regain control of the House...