Quiet tone speaks to many Iowans
GOP's Huckabee uses humor, faith in echo of Bush style
By Rick Pearson and Tim Jones Tribune staff reporters
December 3, 2007
VINTON, Iowa
Mike Huckabee's pitch to be the next president is a curious mix of stand-up comic and down-home preacher.
"Chances are, if you picked 100 issues and found out where I was on 100 of them, you may not agree with me on all of them," Huckabee congenially told his audience at a small community college. "There'd be a few on which you would be wrong."
The lines and laughter flowed freely on this cold and windy night in the northeastern community of 5,100, as more than 150 people came out to see the former Arkansas governor deliver his version of compassionate conservatism.
As the room quickly warmed to Huckabee, so, too, have Iowa Republicans. With one month to go before the state's leadoff presidential caucuses, a new Des Moines Register poll of likely GOP caucus attendees shows he has surged ahead of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has been the longtime, big-spending front-runner in Iowa.
Quiet tone, quick wit
What people are finding is a strong echo of the speeches and style of George W. Bush's 2000 GOP caucus campaign as Huckabee uses a smile instead of a hammer to portray himself as a non-confrontational conservative.
Most notably, Huckabee adopts a softer line on immigration, saying the children of undocumented immigrants shouldn't be punished for the crimes of their parents.
A Baptist minister, Huckabee says his faith defines him. A TV ad shows him walking down a farm road as the words "CHRISTIAN LEADER" flash on the screen in a large-type appeal to religious conservatives who are a major factor in Iowa's GOP caucuses.
Yet Huckabee also uses a quick wit to defuse issues that may be at odds with his religion-inspired conservatism.
At the recent CNN-YouTube debate, Huckabee said he would accept support from the gay Log Cabin Republicans because "I need the support of anybody and everybody I can get." But, he said, he would not alter his position on gay marriage.
Huckabee is unwavering in his faith-based opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage and contrasts the conservative consistency of his message with Romney's, saying he "didn't just come to those views in time to run for president."
But Huckabee goes beyond such litmus-test conservative points to delve into traditionally liberal concerns such as the environment, education and poverty, which he notes are "not something Republicans often talk about" -- even though he knows there is a growing interest in the environment and poverty among conservatives who drive the Republican nominating process.
Once no more than a "who's he?" long shot, Huckabee is now being taken seriously by his opponents after vaulting ahead of far better-known candidates like Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain and Fred Thompson in some early-voting states.
With success comes scrutiny, though. Critics contend Huckabee's jovial campaign style contrasts sharply with a thin skin for criticism during his days as governor. His opponents say his conservative social ideology belies a decade-plus of liberal-style tax-and-spending as Arkansas' chief executive.
Huckabee's responses have only clouded his fiscal record. While he frequently touts cutting taxes 94 times as governor, the non-partisan political watchdog FactCheck.org notes that 21 tax increases occurred during his tenure, with revenues outstripping taxes he cut.
Fiscal conservatives who chafed as President Bush escalated spending have put a bull's-eye on Huckabee.
The conservative Club for Growth dubbed him the "John Edwards of the Republican Party." Huckabee labeled the group "The Club for Greed" and says people with a vendetta against him are funding its attacks.
Huckabee also has called Republicans, long the political party of business, a "wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street and the corporations." In a populist-themed attack, he said it was "not acceptable" to have an economy in which CEOs earn 500 times that of their workers, and he has backed a higher minimum wage.
More than just selling a new form of compassionate conservatism, Huckabee represents a complicated conservatism in which poverty and global warming are "spiritual" matters, not political ones.
As governor, Huckabee supported college tuition breaks for children of undocumented immigrants who attended Arkansas schools. He has said there is an element of prejudice in the immigration debate, fueled by anger against immigrants.
But Romney has used immigration to go on the attack, including a mail piece that accused Huckabee and others of supporting "amnesty." Romney also has attacked Huckabee's fiscal record and recently called his rival a "lifelong politician."
In an appearance Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Huckabee laughed off Romney's criticism and offered a slamming comparison of his rival's business background against his own pastoral background of counseling families.
Huckabee said he has been "involved in the human work of touching people's lives from the cradle to the grave, understanding social pathology to a level that nobody running in a sterile business environment has ever faced."
Former White House adviser Dan Bartlett, a longtime Bush confidant, has called Huckabee the "best candidate" in the GOP field and the one who seems closest to selling the Bush brand of conservatism. But Bartlett still questioned whether anyone would take seriously a candidate with the name Huckabee who hails from Hope, Ark.
Personable style
Stylistically, Huckabee benefits from a relaxed give-and-take more common among governors who are more used to face-to-face dealings with constituents.
Noting Iowa's early caucus date, he told the audience in Vinton that on the Jan. 3 caucus night the "Orange Bowl is going to be dull and boring." He also jokingly told those not supporting him that "your caucus has been moved to Feb. 3."
His personable style has allowed him to use camp to promote his campaign. To gain endorsements from the political establishment, Huckabee is milking the backing of action star Chuck Norris, who has a following of evangelical conservatives, with fundraising solicitations and a TV ad.
"Chuck Norris doesn't endorse," Huckabee says in the ad, sitting next to Norris. "He tells America how it's gonna be."
But beyond the everyman shtick, Huckabee also knows how to play an experienced audience.
At a fundraiser for Iowa Republicans, Huckabee spoke just before the event's keynoter -- and presidential rival -- Fred Thompson took the stage.
When Huckabee concluded a strong speech on the need to fight terrorism, he received a standing ovation from the 600 people in attendance. When Thompson, the former Tennessee senator, finished his speech, the only people standing were looking for the exits.
Though Huckabee has moved to expand his support beyond Christian conservatives, he also knows he must try to solidify his base in a fluid contest that finds many Republicans dissatisfied with the field and holding lingering questions about Romney's Mormon background.
In the early-voting state of South Carolina, where he won the Palmetto Family Council's straw poll in September, Huckabee has been "very aggressive" in pursuit of Christian conservatives, said Oran Smith, the council's president.
"Every other person he sees here is a Southern Baptist pastor," Smith said, noting that the state is heavily influenced by results in other early states.
On the stump, Huckabee readily references the Bible to discuss his humble upbringing and borrows from the Bush campaign refrain of promoting the Golden Rule. And at the Values Voter debate in Florida in September, where he won the event's straw poll, Huckabee warned the religious-minded crowd of his rivals' pedigrees.
"Many of them will come to you," Huckabee said. "I come from you."
----------
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tmjones@tribune.com
more articles in /services/newspaper/printedition/monday
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Monday, 3 December 2007
A Different Kind of Jesus Juice LA Times
Paula: Even though this LA Times article slashes Huckabee a bit, it still has appeal. It's interesting to watch people in this election - especially the journalists. Many want to know 'why' he's so nice, funny, calm and compassionate. They struggle to label the Mighty Force behind his campaign.
Huckabee: 'a different kind of Jesus juice'
The Republican's idiosyncratic agenda in Arkansas -- a health plan, taxes for parks -- was always driven by faith, he says.
By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 2, 2007
LITTLE ROCK, ARK. -- In 2005, a Republican state senator named Jim Holt introduced a bill to deny public benefits to Arkansas' soaring population of illegal immigrants. Holt, a Southern Baptist minister, figured it was a rock-solid conservative idea -- a matter, he said, "of right and wrong."
Arkansas' governor at the time was also a professed conservative, and also a Southern Baptist minister. But Mike Huckabee had only scorn for his fellow Republican's proposal.
Huckabee called the bill "race-baiting" and "demagoguery," and argued that the denial of health services could harm innocent children. The bill, Huckabee said, did not conform with his take on Christian values.
"I drink a different kind of Jesus juice," Huckabee said.
Today, Huckabee is seeking the Republican nomination for president, and voters nationwide are getting to know a different kind of candidate: He is the Southern preacher who favors droll wit over brimstone sermonizing, a rock 'n' roll bass player who believes in creationism, with an Oprah-ready story about a 110-pound weight loss that probably saved his life.
Here in Arkansas, where Huckabee ruled as governor for 10 1/2 years, voters grew accustomed to a different brand of Republican -- a governor with an idiosyncratic agenda that was sometimes difficult to categorize, but always driven, Huckabee insists, by his Southern Baptist faith. That faith influenced major policy decisions that could be deemed moderate, if not liberal, including a significant environmental initiative and a vastly expanded healthcare plan for low-income children.
Though Huckabee took strong stands against abortion and same-sex marriage, his record on taxes -- a key pillar of Republican orthodoxy -- was distinctly heterodox. He supported tax hikes on cigarettes, gasoline, groceries, sales and income. A video circulating on YouTube -- and played, in part, on the CNN-YouTube Republican debate Wednesday -- shows Huckabee addressing the Arkansas Legislature in 2003 and suggesting that he would be open to raising a broad range of taxes.
Initiatives like the children's health plan tapped a deep vein of populism, helping Huckabee win two gubernatorial elections. But his record on taxes and immigration alienated some Arkansas Republicans, who are watching with trepidation as Huckabee's prospects soar in the GOP primary race for president.
The most recent Des Moines Register poll, published today, showed Huckabee overtaking former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (Huckabee's 29%-to-24% lead in the Register's poll is within the margin of error, but it's a huge advance from his tie for sixth place in the same poll in the spring.) Other surveys showed him gaining ground against former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in Florida.
Holt, the former state senator, has a warning for conservatives around the country who think they have found their candidate.
"I think if they knew [his record] it would totally de-energize them," he said. " . . . His policies are just wrong."
In a phone interview, Huckabee, 52, asserted that he left Arkansas a stronger state when term limits forced him out of office in January -- with improved highways, more accountable schools, low unemployment, and an $800-million budget surplus. He also stood by his conservative credentials.
"I'd put mine against anybody's on that Republican stage," he said.
His achievements were won in the face of an often-vigorous Democratic opposition that controlled the Legislature throughout his governorship. At times it seemed he was "getting it from both sides," said Ann Clemmer, a Republican and Huckabee supporter who teaches political science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. "I think he did a lot just on his own -- really on his own counsel. And in that regard I think you have to say he was a leader."
Huckabee hails from President Clinton's hometown of Hope, and his political career has played out in Clinton's shadow. In 1993, voters narrowly elected Huckabee to replace Democratic Lt. Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, who succeeded to the governorship when Clinton was elected president. Huckabee became governor three years later, when Tucker resigned after being found guilty of two felonies as part of the Whitewater investigation involving the business dealings of Bill and Hillary Clinton and others.
To observers like Rex Nelson, a former political editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Huckabee represented a welcome change.
"I think everybody wanted some calm, some stability," said Nelson, who signed on as Huckabee's press secretary in 1996 and served for nine years.
Arkansans eventually turned their attention away from Whitewater and the Clintons, and toward the teetotaling preacher who had once led Baptist congregations in Pine Bluff and Texarkana. Then, as now, Huckabee put his religious convictions front and center. Early on, he developed a mode of governing that seemed to be both expedient and from the heart.
Political consultant Dick Morris, who also worked for Bill Clinton, advised Huckabee in his first race for lieutenant governor. He told Huckabee that to succeed in Arkansas, he should avoid acting like a "country club" Republican who only represented the rich.
Morris also recalled saying to Huckabee: "I assume you're against parole for violent criminals, because you're a conservative." Huckabee told Morris that he would hold open the possibility of parole because he believed, in some cases, in the power of forgiveness, Morris said.
The Republican's idiosyncratic agenda in Arkansas -- a health plan, taxes for parks -- was always driven by faith, he says.
By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 2, 2007
LITTLE ROCK, ARK. -- In 2005, a Republican state senator named Jim Holt introduced a bill to deny public benefits to Arkansas' soaring population of illegal immigrants. Holt, a Southern Baptist minister, figured it was a rock-solid conservative idea -- a matter, he said, "of right and wrong."
Arkansas' governor at the time was also a professed conservative, and also a Southern Baptist minister. But Mike Huckabee had only scorn for his fellow Republican's proposal.
Huckabee called the bill "race-baiting" and "demagoguery," and argued that the denial of health services could harm innocent children. The bill, Huckabee said, did not conform with his take on Christian values.
"I drink a different kind of Jesus juice," Huckabee said.
Today, Huckabee is seeking the Republican nomination for president, and voters nationwide are getting to know a different kind of candidate: He is the Southern preacher who favors droll wit over brimstone sermonizing, a rock 'n' roll bass player who believes in creationism, with an Oprah-ready story about a 110-pound weight loss that probably saved his life.
Here in Arkansas, where Huckabee ruled as governor for 10 1/2 years, voters grew accustomed to a different brand of Republican -- a governor with an idiosyncratic agenda that was sometimes difficult to categorize, but always driven, Huckabee insists, by his Southern Baptist faith. That faith influenced major policy decisions that could be deemed moderate, if not liberal, including a significant environmental initiative and a vastly expanded healthcare plan for low-income children.
Though Huckabee took strong stands against abortion and same-sex marriage, his record on taxes -- a key pillar of Republican orthodoxy -- was distinctly heterodox. He supported tax hikes on cigarettes, gasoline, groceries, sales and income. A video circulating on YouTube -- and played, in part, on the CNN-YouTube Republican debate Wednesday -- shows Huckabee addressing the Arkansas Legislature in 2003 and suggesting that he would be open to raising a broad range of taxes.
Initiatives like the children's health plan tapped a deep vein of populism, helping Huckabee win two gubernatorial elections. But his record on taxes and immigration alienated some Arkansas Republicans, who are watching with trepidation as Huckabee's prospects soar in the GOP primary race for president.
The most recent Des Moines Register poll, published today, showed Huckabee overtaking former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. (Huckabee's 29%-to-24% lead in the Register's poll is within the margin of error, but it's a huge advance from his tie for sixth place in the same poll in the spring.) Other surveys showed him gaining ground against former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in Florida.
Holt, the former state senator, has a warning for conservatives around the country who think they have found their candidate.
"I think if they knew [his record] it would totally de-energize them," he said. " . . . His policies are just wrong."
In a phone interview, Huckabee, 52, asserted that he left Arkansas a stronger state when term limits forced him out of office in January -- with improved highways, more accountable schools, low unemployment, and an $800-million budget surplus. He also stood by his conservative credentials.
"I'd put mine against anybody's on that Republican stage," he said.
His achievements were won in the face of an often-vigorous Democratic opposition that controlled the Legislature throughout his governorship. At times it seemed he was "getting it from both sides," said Ann Clemmer, a Republican and Huckabee supporter who teaches political science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. "I think he did a lot just on his own -- really on his own counsel. And in that regard I think you have to say he was a leader."
Huckabee hails from President Clinton's hometown of Hope, and his political career has played out in Clinton's shadow. In 1993, voters narrowly elected Huckabee to replace Democratic Lt. Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, who succeeded to the governorship when Clinton was elected president. Huckabee became governor three years later, when Tucker resigned after being found guilty of two felonies as part of the Whitewater investigation involving the business dealings of Bill and Hillary Clinton and others.
To observers like Rex Nelson, a former political editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Huckabee represented a welcome change.
"I think everybody wanted some calm, some stability," said Nelson, who signed on as Huckabee's press secretary in 1996 and served for nine years.
Arkansans eventually turned their attention away from Whitewater and the Clintons, and toward the teetotaling preacher who had once led Baptist congregations in Pine Bluff and Texarkana. Then, as now, Huckabee put his religious convictions front and center. Early on, he developed a mode of governing that seemed to be both expedient and from the heart.
Political consultant Dick Morris, who also worked for Bill Clinton, advised Huckabee in his first race for lieutenant governor. He told Huckabee that to succeed in Arkansas, he should avoid acting like a "country club" Republican who only represented the rich.
Morris also recalled saying to Huckabee: "I assume you're against parole for violent criminals, because you're a conservative." Huckabee told Morris that he would hold open the possibility of parole because he believed, in some cases, in the power of forgiveness, Morris said.
Huckabee's Money Managing Strategy.
NewYorkTimes.com
December 2, 2007
Huckabee’s Stature Rises, Mobilizing Tax Critics
By LESLIE WAYNE
As Mike Huckabee rises in the Republican presidential polls, fiscal conservatives have been raising alarms about a series of tax increases he oversaw while governor of Arkansas — new taxes on gasoline, nursing home beds and even pet groomers.
The Club for Growth, a politically influential antitax group, has dubbed Mr. Huckabee Tax Hike Mike and poured money into anti-Huckabee advertisements that were broadcast in early nominating states, with more on the way. Mr. Huckabee “spends money like a drunken sailor,” according to the group’s news releases, and it has sprinkled YouTube and the airways with videos that mock him and his policies.
But the record offers a more complex and nuanced picture. While taxes did rise in the 10 years that Mr. Huckabee was governor, the portrayal of him as a wild-eyed spendthrift is hardly apt. For the most part, Mr. Huckabee’s tax initiatives had wide bipartisan support, with the small number of Republicans in the overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature voting for the tax increases and many maintaining that the state was better for them.
In addition, when Mr. Huckabee left office last January, he had turned a $200 million budget shortfall into an $844 million surplus. Still, as the attacks on his fiscal policies have stepped up, the Huckabee campaign has also cited examples of some 90 taxes that went down under his tenure.
But over all, on balance, tax increases outweighed the tax cuts by some $500 million, and many of the cuts that Mr. Huckabee heralds owe little to his efforts.
“He got bipartisan support on all the tax increases,” said State Senator Kim Hendren, a veteran Republican and member of the legislative budget committee. “Huckabee didn’t say ‘I just want to raise taxes to start programs.’ He has a liberal heart for young people, for the disabled and for improving Arkansas’ lot in education, and he is pretty good at working across party lines.”
Mr. Huckabee’s record on the tax front is emerging as a pivotal issue as he seeks to win the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and other early nominating states. In Iowa, he has built his following around Christian conservatives, but the tax issue could resonate in states like New Hampshire, which holds its primary five days later and where Mr. Huckabee has been devoting more time.
The attacks on him over taxes come as he faces criticism on other aspects of his record as governor, including fighting for tuition breaks for the children of illegal immigrants.
The biggest increase under Mr. Huckabee was mandated by the Arkansas Supreme Court, which in 2002 ruled that the state’s school financing procedure was unconstitutional and ordered a more equitable plan — which led to $400 million in new taxes.
Some other taxes came about directly because of Mr. Huckabee’s efforts. After becoming governor in 1996, he traveled the length of the Arkansas River within the state to win support for an additional one-eighth-cent sales tax to improve the state parks system.
Early in his tenure, he pushed through a three-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase and a four-cent increase on diesel fuel, along with a bond issue, to improve a road system that was considered one of the worst in the country.
And when the state lacked enough of the necessary matching money for federal Medicaid payments to its nursing homes, Mr. Huckabee and the legislature enacted a $5.25-a-day “bed tax” on nursing homes, which won the grudging approval of the state’s nursing home industry.
All of this has become fodder for the Club for Growth and other antitax groups. At the Republican YouTube debate on Wednesday, an advertisement shown by a rival candidate, Fred D. Thompson, directly attacked Mr. Huckabee’s tax policies.
“We’ve been making noise about Huckabee since Day 1 of his candidacy,” said Nachama Soloveichik, a spokeswoman for the Club for Growth, which analyzes the tax policies of Republican candidates. “There is a groundswell among conservatives that this cannot be our guy.”
Both Democratic and Republican politicians and political observers say the legislature had little choice but to raise taxes from 2002 to 2004 given the fiscal challenges facing Arkansas.
The biggest tax increases came in 2003 and 2004. A sagging economy had cut into revenues and the state faced a 2002 court order to equalize financing among school districts.
“We had our backs against the wall; we had no choice,” said State Senator Bobby Glover, a Democrat who has been in the legislature off and on since 1973. “Our only other choice was to take more from prisons and heath care and other agencies.”
In the end, the $400 million tax increase package was passed by an overwhelming majority, with Republican legislators taking the lead in pushing for it along with Democrats. The items included a sales tax increase of seven-eighths of a cent, the imposition of sales tax levies on several previously exempt services and some lesser taxes.
“Republicans were fighting for the tax increase,” said State Senator Denny Altes, the Republican minority leader of the State Senate who did not support the package. “There were few votes against it. Some of the most conservative people, both Democrats and Republicans, supported it. It passed by 90 percent.”
In general, Mr. Huckabee supported tax increases when he had a defined goal in mind, whether it was schools, roads or parks.
“He tended to raise taxes for specific government programs,” said Jay Barth, an associate political science professor at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark. “He does believe in a robust government as an active force in the lives of its citizens, especially in helping the little guy.”
The Club for Growth is circulating a video of Mr. Huckabee speaking to the legislature and going through a litany of all the taxes he could support, leaving the impression that there is no tax he would not embrace.
But the purpose of Mr. Huckabee’s address was specific: Arkansas was facing a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall and Mr. Huckabee was pleading for a tax increase to cover it — any tax, and listing all the possibilities.
The other big tax increase, which also received bipartisan support, was the one on gasoline to pay for road improvements.
“Our roads were in terrible condition,” said Dennis Milligan, chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party. “We knew that in order to attract jobs and companies we needed better roads. Huckabee made a wise choice and now we have companies locating here and wonderful roads. He did a lot to improve roads, and you can’t do it for free.”
In the face of criticism from fiscally conservative Republicans, Mr. Huckabee has been spending more time talking about the taxes he cut than the ones he raised. For instance, at the Republican debate last week, he said that he had cut 90 taxes and that the sales tax was only a penny higher under his stewardship.
Of the 90 tax cuts cited by Mr. Huckabee, one was large: an increase in the standard deduction for income taxes. But most were very small, with some reducing state tax revenues by as little as $15,000 to $20,000, according to an Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration study that was reported in The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Still, the Huckabee campaign has set up a “Truth Squad” specifically intended to rebut the Club for Growth.
“Antitax radicals will never be convinced that tax monies can be legitimately spent on highways, bridges, schools and Medicare,” the campaign said in a response to the Club for Growth.
December 2, 2007
Huckabee’s Stature Rises, Mobilizing Tax Critics
By LESLIE WAYNE
As Mike Huckabee rises in the Republican presidential polls, fiscal conservatives have been raising alarms about a series of tax increases he oversaw while governor of Arkansas — new taxes on gasoline, nursing home beds and even pet groomers.
The Club for Growth, a politically influential antitax group, has dubbed Mr. Huckabee Tax Hike Mike and poured money into anti-Huckabee advertisements that were broadcast in early nominating states, with more on the way. Mr. Huckabee “spends money like a drunken sailor,” according to the group’s news releases, and it has sprinkled YouTube and the airways with videos that mock him and his policies.
But the record offers a more complex and nuanced picture. While taxes did rise in the 10 years that Mr. Huckabee was governor, the portrayal of him as a wild-eyed spendthrift is hardly apt. For the most part, Mr. Huckabee’s tax initiatives had wide bipartisan support, with the small number of Republicans in the overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature voting for the tax increases and many maintaining that the state was better for them.
In addition, when Mr. Huckabee left office last January, he had turned a $200 million budget shortfall into an $844 million surplus. Still, as the attacks on his fiscal policies have stepped up, the Huckabee campaign has also cited examples of some 90 taxes that went down under his tenure.
But over all, on balance, tax increases outweighed the tax cuts by some $500 million, and many of the cuts that Mr. Huckabee heralds owe little to his efforts.
“He got bipartisan support on all the tax increases,” said State Senator Kim Hendren, a veteran Republican and member of the legislative budget committee. “Huckabee didn’t say ‘I just want to raise taxes to start programs.’ He has a liberal heart for young people, for the disabled and for improving Arkansas’ lot in education, and he is pretty good at working across party lines.”
Mr. Huckabee’s record on the tax front is emerging as a pivotal issue as he seeks to win the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and other early nominating states. In Iowa, he has built his following around Christian conservatives, but the tax issue could resonate in states like New Hampshire, which holds its primary five days later and where Mr. Huckabee has been devoting more time.
The attacks on him over taxes come as he faces criticism on other aspects of his record as governor, including fighting for tuition breaks for the children of illegal immigrants.
The biggest increase under Mr. Huckabee was mandated by the Arkansas Supreme Court, which in 2002 ruled that the state’s school financing procedure was unconstitutional and ordered a more equitable plan — which led to $400 million in new taxes.
Some other taxes came about directly because of Mr. Huckabee’s efforts. After becoming governor in 1996, he traveled the length of the Arkansas River within the state to win support for an additional one-eighth-cent sales tax to improve the state parks system.
Early in his tenure, he pushed through a three-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax increase and a four-cent increase on diesel fuel, along with a bond issue, to improve a road system that was considered one of the worst in the country.
And when the state lacked enough of the necessary matching money for federal Medicaid payments to its nursing homes, Mr. Huckabee and the legislature enacted a $5.25-a-day “bed tax” on nursing homes, which won the grudging approval of the state’s nursing home industry.
All of this has become fodder for the Club for Growth and other antitax groups. At the Republican YouTube debate on Wednesday, an advertisement shown by a rival candidate, Fred D. Thompson, directly attacked Mr. Huckabee’s tax policies.
“We’ve been making noise about Huckabee since Day 1 of his candidacy,” said Nachama Soloveichik, a spokeswoman for the Club for Growth, which analyzes the tax policies of Republican candidates. “There is a groundswell among conservatives that this cannot be our guy.”
Both Democratic and Republican politicians and political observers say the legislature had little choice but to raise taxes from 2002 to 2004 given the fiscal challenges facing Arkansas.
The biggest tax increases came in 2003 and 2004. A sagging economy had cut into revenues and the state faced a 2002 court order to equalize financing among school districts.
“We had our backs against the wall; we had no choice,” said State Senator Bobby Glover, a Democrat who has been in the legislature off and on since 1973. “Our only other choice was to take more from prisons and heath care and other agencies.”
In the end, the $400 million tax increase package was passed by an overwhelming majority, with Republican legislators taking the lead in pushing for it along with Democrats. The items included a sales tax increase of seven-eighths of a cent, the imposition of sales tax levies on several previously exempt services and some lesser taxes.
“Republicans were fighting for the tax increase,” said State Senator Denny Altes, the Republican minority leader of the State Senate who did not support the package. “There were few votes against it. Some of the most conservative people, both Democrats and Republicans, supported it. It passed by 90 percent.”
In general, Mr. Huckabee supported tax increases when he had a defined goal in mind, whether it was schools, roads or parks.
“He tended to raise taxes for specific government programs,” said Jay Barth, an associate political science professor at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark. “He does believe in a robust government as an active force in the lives of its citizens, especially in helping the little guy.”
The Club for Growth is circulating a video of Mr. Huckabee speaking to the legislature and going through a litany of all the taxes he could support, leaving the impression that there is no tax he would not embrace.
But the purpose of Mr. Huckabee’s address was specific: Arkansas was facing a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall and Mr. Huckabee was pleading for a tax increase to cover it — any tax, and listing all the possibilities.
The other big tax increase, which also received bipartisan support, was the one on gasoline to pay for road improvements.
“Our roads were in terrible condition,” said Dennis Milligan, chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party. “We knew that in order to attract jobs and companies we needed better roads. Huckabee made a wise choice and now we have companies locating here and wonderful roads. He did a lot to improve roads, and you can’t do it for free.”
In the face of criticism from fiscally conservative Republicans, Mr. Huckabee has been spending more time talking about the taxes he cut than the ones he raised. For instance, at the Republican debate last week, he said that he had cut 90 taxes and that the sales tax was only a penny higher under his stewardship.
Of the 90 tax cuts cited by Mr. Huckabee, one was large: an increase in the standard deduction for income taxes. But most were very small, with some reducing state tax revenues by as little as $15,000 to $20,000, according to an Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration study that was reported in The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Still, the Huckabee campaign has set up a “Truth Squad” specifically intended to rebut the Club for Growth.
“Antitax radicals will never be convinced that tax monies can be legitimately spent on highways, bridges, schools and Medicare,” the campaign said in a response to the Club for Growth.
Back to the Basics - Hard Work!!
Lonely No More, Huckabee Faces Hurdles
Cheryl Senter/Associated Press
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: December 3, 2007
DES MOINES, Dec. 2 — Mike Huckabee spent the weekend in New Hampshire, where he saw something he had rarely seen in his two years as a Republican candidate for president: People. Lots of them. Living rooms and halls packed with voters, campaign aides, reporters and jostling television crews.
“We’ve been waiting a long time for this to happen,” Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, said by telephone Sunday as he prepared to board an airplane here. “It’s everything we’ve been working for.”
Mr. Huckabee’s ascendance here — a Des Moines Register poll published Sunday showed his support had surged since early October — has sent rumbles across a field already in flux and raised concerns in the camp of rival Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts.
Mr. Romney stepped up his attacks on Mr. Huckabee over the weekend. And on Sunday, advisers to Mr. Romney, who would be the nation’s first Mormon president, announced that he would give a speech on Thursday intended to address any concerns about his faith.
Mr. Huckabee’s gains are powered by support he has among Christian conservatives, who have had friction with Mormons. They appear to be responding to his message that he is the true social conservative in the race despite criticism that as governor he raised taxes and was not tough enough on illegal immigrants.
Still, if Mr. Huckabee has emerged as a powerful force in the Republican political calculation, he still faces substantial hurdles as he heads toward the Iowa caucuses and, should he do well there, the nearly 25 contests that follow in the month ahead.
He confronts, in Mr. Romney, a wealthy opponent who has vastly outspent him and can continue doing so. He has a significantly smaller presence than Mr. Romney, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Senator John McCain of Arizona in the crush of states that follow Iowa.
The Des Moines Register’s poll found that support for Mr. Huckabee had gone from 12 percent in October to 29 percent now. That and other recent polls suggest that Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Romney are in an extremely tight contest. That showing came despite the fact that Mr. Huckabee has been hugely outspent by Mr. Romney on television and has not campaigned in Iowa since Nov. 8.
Given the nature of the Iowa contest — a caucus, in which a campaign’s effectiveness at motivating voters is hard to measure in a poll — it is difficult to assess how the Jan. 3 results will be affected by poll results suggesting that a new contender is emerging from the pack.
While Mr. Romney has built up an extensive field operation, run methodically from his campaign headquarters outside Des Moines, Mr. Huckabee’s approach is more ad-hoc as he has sought to take advantage of religious and church networks to press his message.“Romney has a turn-out machine: no one is going to dispute that,” said Chuck Laudner, the executive director of the Iowa Republican Party. “What Huckabee has to rely on is that faith community, which is a ready-made machine: churches, home schoolers. Huckabee is getting in volunteers what Romney has to pay for. But there’s just no telling what it means until the results come in.”
Chip Saltzman, Mr. Huckabee’s national campaign manager, argued that loyal volunteers rather than paid workers would prove far more valuable. “The caucus activity is driven by volunteers and people who are passionate about their candidate who are willing to go out on a freezing night,” Mr. Saltzman said.
Mr. Huckabee and his aides said they had spent the past month, when not in Iowa, trying to position themselves should he have a strong Iowa showing: He has been raising money — $2 million last month, Mr. Saltzman said — and visiting South Carolina, New Hampshire and Florida, seeding the clouds there. He has hired about 25 new people and is about to open an office in Florida. He will soon begin advertising, though very modestly, in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Mr. Huckabee has yet to send a mailing, broadcast a television advertisement or buy significant radio time in New Hampshire, South Carolina or any of the major states that will vote soon after Iowa does. In New Hampshire, the state chairman, Fergus Cullen, said Sunday that Mr. Huckabee’s organization trails those of Mr. Romney, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. McCain.
Past campaigns have shown that winning the Iowa caucus is not always a harbinger of winning the nomination. And Iowa, given its heavy Christian conservative base, is a particularly amenable state for Mr. Huckabee, a Baptist minister with ties to the religious community.
Mr. Huckabee’s strategy is hardly a new one: he is relying on the assumption that a win in Iowa would be rewarded with a burst of contributions and publicity, and would rally conservatives who have declined to support him because they thought he could not win.
Yet there are big differences between this election and past ones that clearly cut against the kind of underdog campaign Mr. Huckabee is embracing. There are only five days between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, leaving little time for Mr. Huckabee to capitalize on an Iowa victory in terms of collecting money or publicity, And after that, Mr. Huckabee would face an onslaught of contests in expensive states.
Asked if a strong Iowa showing could do in 2008 what it has done in other years, Mr. Huckabee responded: “We’ll sure find out.”
Should he not succeed, Mr. Huckabee could well be remembered as the victim of an accelerated nominating calendar that rewards candidates with money or fame, neither of which Mr. Huckabee can claim, and does not allow the time for a little-known candidacy to catch fire.
Mr. Cullen, the New Hampshire chairman, said he was impressed by Mr. Huckabee’s spirit and by the intensity of the crowds he saw with the candidate this weekend.
But asked if he thought that Mr. Huckabee could win in New Hampshire simply by virtue of winning Iowa, he said: “I don’t. Romney has a very strong organization here.”
In South Carolina, the Republican state chairman, Katon Dawson, said Mr. Huckabee had a powerful natural appeal in his state as a Southerner and a Baptist minister. But he said it would be hard for him to win there or elsewhere without money.
“George Bush spent a lot of money in South Carolina to get the nomination,” he said, referring to the 2000 campaign. “I don’t think it’s possible to win without a major television buy.”
That is a view that was not disputed even by Mr. Huckabee’s supporters. “Can he win without money?” said David M. Beasley, the former governor of South Carolina and one of Mr. Huckabee’s most prominent supporters there. “Yeah, he can. Is it hard? Yeah.”
Beyond that, many of Mr. Huckabee’s supporters said they believed they were entering treacherous waters, concerned that they would not have the money to finance television advertisements to respond to attacks that have already begun — particularly on his record on tax cuts and immigration.
Mr. Huckabee professed not to be concerned, saying he had endured much worse in Arkansas. “It’s not something I’m sitting around panicking about,” he said.
“I’ve been through worse,” he said, recalling elections in Arkansas when he took on Democrats from the Clinton camp. “This is patty-cake compared to what that’s like.”
Cheryl Senter/Associated Press
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: December 3, 2007
DES MOINES, Dec. 2 — Mike Huckabee spent the weekend in New Hampshire, where he saw something he had rarely seen in his two years as a Republican candidate for president: People. Lots of them. Living rooms and halls packed with voters, campaign aides, reporters and jostling television crews.
“We’ve been waiting a long time for this to happen,” Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, said by telephone Sunday as he prepared to board an airplane here. “It’s everything we’ve been working for.”
Mr. Huckabee’s ascendance here — a Des Moines Register poll published Sunday showed his support had surged since early October — has sent rumbles across a field already in flux and raised concerns in the camp of rival Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts.
Mr. Romney stepped up his attacks on Mr. Huckabee over the weekend. And on Sunday, advisers to Mr. Romney, who would be the nation’s first Mormon president, announced that he would give a speech on Thursday intended to address any concerns about his faith.
Mr. Huckabee’s gains are powered by support he has among Christian conservatives, who have had friction with Mormons. They appear to be responding to his message that he is the true social conservative in the race despite criticism that as governor he raised taxes and was not tough enough on illegal immigrants.
Still, if Mr. Huckabee has emerged as a powerful force in the Republican political calculation, he still faces substantial hurdles as he heads toward the Iowa caucuses and, should he do well there, the nearly 25 contests that follow in the month ahead.
He confronts, in Mr. Romney, a wealthy opponent who has vastly outspent him and can continue doing so. He has a significantly smaller presence than Mr. Romney, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Senator John McCain of Arizona in the crush of states that follow Iowa.
The Des Moines Register’s poll found that support for Mr. Huckabee had gone from 12 percent in October to 29 percent now. That and other recent polls suggest that Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Romney are in an extremely tight contest. That showing came despite the fact that Mr. Huckabee has been hugely outspent by Mr. Romney on television and has not campaigned in Iowa since Nov. 8.
Given the nature of the Iowa contest — a caucus, in which a campaign’s effectiveness at motivating voters is hard to measure in a poll — it is difficult to assess how the Jan. 3 results will be affected by poll results suggesting that a new contender is emerging from the pack.
While Mr. Romney has built up an extensive field operation, run methodically from his campaign headquarters outside Des Moines, Mr. Huckabee’s approach is more ad-hoc as he has sought to take advantage of religious and church networks to press his message.“Romney has a turn-out machine: no one is going to dispute that,” said Chuck Laudner, the executive director of the Iowa Republican Party. “What Huckabee has to rely on is that faith community, which is a ready-made machine: churches, home schoolers. Huckabee is getting in volunteers what Romney has to pay for. But there’s just no telling what it means until the results come in.”
Chip Saltzman, Mr. Huckabee’s national campaign manager, argued that loyal volunteers rather than paid workers would prove far more valuable. “The caucus activity is driven by volunteers and people who are passionate about their candidate who are willing to go out on a freezing night,” Mr. Saltzman said.
Mr. Huckabee and his aides said they had spent the past month, when not in Iowa, trying to position themselves should he have a strong Iowa showing: He has been raising money — $2 million last month, Mr. Saltzman said — and visiting South Carolina, New Hampshire and Florida, seeding the clouds there. He has hired about 25 new people and is about to open an office in Florida. He will soon begin advertising, though very modestly, in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Mr. Huckabee has yet to send a mailing, broadcast a television advertisement or buy significant radio time in New Hampshire, South Carolina or any of the major states that will vote soon after Iowa does. In New Hampshire, the state chairman, Fergus Cullen, said Sunday that Mr. Huckabee’s organization trails those of Mr. Romney, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. McCain.
Past campaigns have shown that winning the Iowa caucus is not always a harbinger of winning the nomination. And Iowa, given its heavy Christian conservative base, is a particularly amenable state for Mr. Huckabee, a Baptist minister with ties to the religious community.
Mr. Huckabee’s strategy is hardly a new one: he is relying on the assumption that a win in Iowa would be rewarded with a burst of contributions and publicity, and would rally conservatives who have declined to support him because they thought he could not win.
Yet there are big differences between this election and past ones that clearly cut against the kind of underdog campaign Mr. Huckabee is embracing. There are only five days between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, leaving little time for Mr. Huckabee to capitalize on an Iowa victory in terms of collecting money or publicity, And after that, Mr. Huckabee would face an onslaught of contests in expensive states.
Asked if a strong Iowa showing could do in 2008 what it has done in other years, Mr. Huckabee responded: “We’ll sure find out.”
Should he not succeed, Mr. Huckabee could well be remembered as the victim of an accelerated nominating calendar that rewards candidates with money or fame, neither of which Mr. Huckabee can claim, and does not allow the time for a little-known candidacy to catch fire.
Mr. Cullen, the New Hampshire chairman, said he was impressed by Mr. Huckabee’s spirit and by the intensity of the crowds he saw with the candidate this weekend.
But asked if he thought that Mr. Huckabee could win in New Hampshire simply by virtue of winning Iowa, he said: “I don’t. Romney has a very strong organization here.”
In South Carolina, the Republican state chairman, Katon Dawson, said Mr. Huckabee had a powerful natural appeal in his state as a Southerner and a Baptist minister. But he said it would be hard for him to win there or elsewhere without money.
“George Bush spent a lot of money in South Carolina to get the nomination,” he said, referring to the 2000 campaign. “I don’t think it’s possible to win without a major television buy.”
That is a view that was not disputed even by Mr. Huckabee’s supporters. “Can he win without money?” said David M. Beasley, the former governor of South Carolina and one of Mr. Huckabee’s most prominent supporters there. “Yeah, he can. Is it hard? Yeah.”
Beyond that, many of Mr. Huckabee’s supporters said they believed they were entering treacherous waters, concerned that they would not have the money to finance television advertisements to respond to attacks that have already begun — particularly on his record on tax cuts and immigration.
Mr. Huckabee professed not to be concerned, saying he had endured much worse in Arkansas. “It’s not something I’m sitting around panicking about,” he said.
“I’ve been through worse,” he said, recalling elections in Arkansas when he took on Democrats from the Clinton camp. “This is patty-cake compared to what that’s like.”
Sunday, 2 December 2007
Paula Opinion - The Evidence for Outstanding Leadership is Obvious!
It just doesn't make sense. Why would a traditionally democratic, hand-out State like Arkansas re-elect - and more than once may I add - a conservative Republican like Huckabee? Shazammm, It just ain't natural!!!
While listening to a few state employees reminisce about their work-years with Huckabee, it became all too obvious; When Huckabee entered into the political arena - many residents saw (possibly for the first time) a positive shift that voters stood by come next election time.
So ask yourself...
- How many Governors do YOU know can say they balanced the budget every year while in office?
- How many Republican Candidates do YOU know can say that 48% of the African American community voted them back into office not just once, but twice?
Since this just ain't a natural way for people to be-haven....Maybe it's supernatural.
The Big Fat Bumblebee
30 Nov 2007
 | THE BIG FAT BUMBLEBEE Huckabee Riding the Bounce Here's a poem by one Huckabee Supporter The Hucka-humble-bumble-bee |
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Who's the ONLY Fiscally Responsible Candidate?
28 Nov 2007
| What Does Dick Morris Say...? November 28, 2007 Huckabee is a Fiscal ConservativeBy Dick MorrisAs Mike Huckabee rises in the polls, an inevitable process of vetting him for conservative credentials is under way in which people who know nothing of Arkansas or of the circumstances of his governorship weigh in knowingly about his record. As his political consultant in the early '90s and one who has been following Arkansas politics for 30 years, let me clue you in: Mike Huckabee is a fiscal conservative. A recent column by Bob Novak excoriated Huckabee for a "47 percent increase in state tax burden." But during Huckabee's years in office, total state tax burden -- all 50 states combined -- rose by twice as much: 98 percent, increasing from $743 billion in 1993 to $1.47 trillion in 2005. In Arkansas, the income tax when he took office was 1 percent for the poorest taxpayers and 7 percent for the richest, exactly where it stood when he left the statehouse 11 years later. But, in the interim, he doubled the standard deduction and the child care credit, repealed capital gains taxes for home sales, lowered the capital gains rate, expanded the homestead exemption and set up tax-free savings accounts for medical care and college tuition. ..Most impressively, when he had to pass an income tax surcharge amid the drop in revenues after Sept. 11, 2001, he repealed it three years later when he didn't need it any longer. He raised the sales tax one cent in 11 years and did that only after the courts ordered him to do so. (He also got voter approval for a one-eighth-of-one-cent hike for parks and recreation.) He wants to repeal the income tax, abolish the IRS and institute a "fair tax" based on consumption, and opposes any tax increase for Social Security. And he can win in Iowa. When voters who have decided not to back Rudy Giuliani because of his social positions consider the contest between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, they will have no difficulty choosing between a real social conservative and an ersatz one. Romney, who began as a pro-lifer and switched in order to win in Massachusetts, and then flipped back again, cannot compete with a lifelong pro-lifer, Huckabee. But Huckabee's strength is not just his orthodoxy on gay marriage, abortion, gun control and the usual litany. It is his opening of the religious right to a host of new issues. He speaks firmly for the right to life, but then notes that our responsibility for children does not end with childbirth. His answer to the rise of medical costs is novel and exciting. "Eighty percent of all medical spending," he says, "is for chronic diseases." So he urges an all-out attack on teen smoking and overeating and a push for exercise not as the policies of a big-government liberal but as the requisites of a fiscal conservative anxious to save tax money. So what happens if Huckabee wins in Iowa? With New Hampshire only five days later, his momentum will be formidable. The key may boil down to how Hillary does in Iowa. Hillary? Yes. If she loses in Iowa, most of the independents in New Hampshire will flock to the Democratic primary to vote for her or against her. That will move the Republican electorate to the right in New Hampshire -- bad news for Rudy, good news for Huckabee. But if she wins in Iowa, there will be no point in voting in the Democratic primary and a goodly number will enter the GOP contest, giving Rudy a big boost. And afterward? If Romney wins Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina, sweeping the early primaries, Giuliani will have a very tough task to bring him down in Florida or on Super Tuesday. It can be done, but it's tough. But if Romney loses in Iowa (likely to Huckabee) then Rudy can survive the loss of Iowa and even New Hampshire without surrendering irresistible momentum to Romney. In any event, neither Hillary nor Giuliani will be knocked out by defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire. Their 50-state organizations, their national base and their massive war chests will permit them to fight it out all over the United States. Even if they lose the first two contests, they will remain in the race and could well come back to win. |
cheerful
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