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Huckabee On The Next Republican Revolution
Former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee was in Seattle last Thursday promoting music education for Music Aid Northwest after speaking to a meeting of the Family Research Council.
Between making the rounds on local rock and conservative radio stations, he sat down with Will Mari and Laura Mansfield, SeattlePoliticore.org writers and OffTheBus members, for a wide-ranging interview. He talked in part about how the Web has transformed politics, moving power out of the hands of the wealthy, how Fred Thompson killed his candidacy, how South Carolina was the turning point, how Republican ideology has been hijacked by a new-style fiscally irresponsible and un-American version of libertarianism and how the evangelical vote is up for grabs this fall. Here's a partial, summarized transcript of the Q&A.
How are you doing after the election and the primary season?
Almost as busy as I was during the campaign [doing a lot of speaking on behalf of candidates for the House and Senate and for Sen. John McCain]. Then also, [I have] been working on my future, on what I'm going to do, and some of that involves writing a book that will come out in November."
What's the book about?
I have to kind of keep it very general. The publisher wants me to keep things very mysterious for now, but essentially it'll be a book on the overall direction of American and where it's headed.... I'm also looking at some media opportunities that I'm trying to nail down ... I'm certainly not lacking for something to do."
Why do you believe you lost to John McCain, other than money?
He got more votes than me! If you do an analysis of the election, if we had played by the rules of the Democrats, I would have won, and if the Democrats have played by the rules of the Republicans, Hillary would have won this long ago.
If you look at the process, and I'm not bitter about and it's nothing that I'm complaining about. It is what it is. But the Republicans had a front-loaded system with winner-take-all states, and the front-load was largely states that were states that are not Republican states, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California. They were winner-take-all states, but they were big states and delegate-rich. Those were the states John McCain plays very well in. I've won the states in the South. I won Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia and Arkansas...
But those were all proportionate states. So I won them, but I didn't get all the delegates. But if you had taken that whole system and reversed it, it would have been a very different outcome.
[The January 19 South Carolina primary was a turning point in the campaign.] Fred Thompson's presence took votes from me. We would have won by 10 points had Fred not been in the race. We would have won handily in South Carolina, but because the conservative vote split, in essence, three ways, and even though I had more than Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney combined, the fact is, their presence kept me from the two points I needed to beat John McCain in South Carolina. [He lost 29.9 percent to McCain's 33.2 percent.]
[Even after winning New Hampshire, McCain] had said that if he lost South Carolina, he was quitting. Instead, he won South Carolina, and so he goes on to get the nomination. We barely missed it in South Carolina and then we had some conservative talk show hosts that kept saying we were pulling out of Florida, which was not true. I was in Florida every day, and that hurt us... We never could recover because by that point the media had already decided how the outcome was, and you couldn't overcome it.
We knew there was still a chance, but the problem was, it was a perception issue we had to overcome. It's not unlike what Hillary's facing today. Whether she likes it or not, the perception is that it's over for her. She can argue that she could take it to the convention. I could argue the same thing. The convention is where the process really does happen. But once every day, the media pounds it in that the elections over, then at some point it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy... if every day for weeks on end, the people of Ohio or Wisconsin or Texas or Rhode Island are told that it really doesn't matter how they vote, it's already done, then first of all, some of the people just don't even bother to go vote, and others don't want to vote if they don't think they're going to win, so they go vote for whoever everybody says is going to be the winner. There's just a certain psychology about that.
Up until the very end, though, the people who were really with us, were fanatically loyal to us. It was incredible. [There were record crowds at Huckabee rallies right on through the March 4 Texas primary/caucus, after which he dropped out of the race.]
We had incredible support from people, most of whom had never been involved in politics before. We did not get the establishment Republican support, but what we did get was a whole new breed of people who had never been involved, and for the first time, decided to plug in. [Half of Huckabee donors had never given to a political campaign before.]
What do you think is going to happen to those new voters? Are they going to go for McCain in the fall?
"I hope they'll go for McCain. Obviously, I'm going to do everything I can to get them there, but because they're new, I think sometimes there is some discouragement with them. I do most believe most of them got involved with me because of the things that I believed in and [my] principles. And when they look at the field, they'll know that John McCain is far, far closer to where they are than either Hillary or Obama.
What can people like yourself do to overcome these sorts of media narratives?
Direct to the consumer. The great thing about the Internet is, the best way we found to counter the nonsense we dealt with was to put on our own website the truth... [We had nearly 600 dedicated volunteer bloggers writing for the campaign.] We'd turn those bloggers loose, and they'd fill up cyberspace and go to town.
People wondered how did we get where we did. We had a tenth of the money these other guys had. We were spending a dime to their dollar. What they never understood, though, was that we had more web hits to our site than Barack Obama, than Hillary Clinton, than John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, than Mitt Romney. We were far and away the most-hit website out there on the political campaign, and we created, in essence, an online community that became the backbone of our entire campaign and candidacy.
The great thing is, [the internet] is changing the face of politics, the traditional and conventional wisdom, and the one I went up against like a buzz saw was this 'money equals viability' [argument]. If money were the criteria by which a person was the nominee, Mitt Romney would definitely be the nominee. But no matter how much money Romney spent, and we'll never know, it's an incalculable amount of money probably. When it got down to it, he could spend 10 times what we spent, in Iowa, nearly 20 times what we spent, but people weren't buying it, and frankly that's a good thing to see, that you cannot purchase the White House.
What do you think is going to happen with the evangelical vote in the fall?
The key is what John McCain does. I don't think the evangelicals can be taken for granted, and in fact, I would caution anybody to not assume that the evangelicals will go and vote Republican this fall, for two reasons. First of all, Obama has done a very, very masterful job of positioning himself as a person of faith...
Secondly, John McCain has got to be very clear and talking to the evangelicals, and beyond the evangelicals, it's really a broader base than that, the Catholics, and the social conservatives, not all of whom are ... evangelicals but who really do firmly believe in some issues.
If a candidate can't and won't articulate clearly to them, [they] won't necessarily be counted on.
Do you think Obama is an evangelical?
I don't know that I would call him an evangelical, but I think he's certainly a Christian, he openly declares his Christian faith, and I think some Republicans who try to dismiss that are making a big mistake, and they'll be very naïve if they think they can just assume that all of the faith vote is going to automatically go Republican this year. It is not.
A lot if polls are showing that there are a number of evangelical white voters who are willing to go shopping this fall. They're not necessarily just sold.
[Look at the special election in Mississippi, where Republican Greg Davis lost to Democrat Travis Childers.] That was a very, very telling election. The Democrat ran as a pro-life, pro-family, conservative Democrat. The Republican painted his opponent as a liberal and ran on economic issues alone. He ran a good campaign -- he is pro-life -- but he didn't focus on that. He focused more on "my opponent is a liberal" ... and people we're looking at this Democrat and they're saying, "Well, he's pro-life, he's pro-gun, he's pro-God, that's not 'liberal." And so it hurt the credibility of the Republican and the Democrats are winning all over the country.
[The Democrats have recruited] "middle-of-the-road, right-of-center Democrats. They're going after people that don't scare the daylights out of traditional conservative people, and they're running on the very platforms that the Republicans have had to themselves for the past 20 years It's a wake-up call to Republicans. Where we're making a mistake is a lot of Republicans are saying "we don't want to talk about these family issues anymore." Well, guess what? You're going to keep getting beat, because that's what got these people voting for you. Twenty years ago, these were Democrats who went Republican when the Democrats made a sharp left turn, and the Republicans were the only place pro-life people could be. Now the Democrats are beginning to come back to [the] center, and the Republicans are becoming libertarians. We're losing elections in a grand way.
What can the party do to reverse course?
Republicans need to be Republicans. The greatest threat to classic Republicanism is not liberalism; it's this new brand of libertarianism, which is social liberalism and economic conservatism, but it's a heartless, callous, soulless type of economic conservatism because it says "look, we want to cut taxes and eliminate government. If it means that elderly people don't get their Medicare drugs, so be it. If it means little kids go without education and healthcare, so be it." Well, that might be a quote pure economic conservative message, but it's not an American message. It doesn't fly. People aren't going to buy that, because that's not the way we are as a people. That's not historic Republicanism. Historic Republicanism does not hate government; it's just there to be as little of it as there can be. But they also recognize that government has to be paid for.
If you have a breakdown in the social structure of a community, it's going to result in a more costly government ... police on the streets, prison beds, court costs, alcohol abuse centers, domestic violence shelters, all are very expensive. What's the answer to that? Cut them out? Well, the libertarians say "yes, we shouldn't be funding that stuff." But what you've done then is exacerbate a serious problem in your community. You can take the cops off the streets and just quit funding prison beds. Are your neighborhoods safer? Is it a better place to live? The net result is you have now a bigger problem than you had before.
My experience in Arkansas was, a lot of the so-called conservatives said "Let's cut the budget." But they wanted to add prison sentences, they wanted to eliminate parole, they wanted to have harsher sentences for various crimes. And I said "OK, that's fine, but that's going to be expensive. So which do you want?" You can't have both, or you do what the federal government has done, and this is where I think Republicans have been especially irresponsible. Their approach has been [to] just kick the can down the road and let your grandkids pay for it.
So they run up huge deficits ... but they've pushed those costs down to the states, and the states have to eat it, because they have to balance their budgets, they don't get to print money or borrow. Or the federal government just runs up more deficits and let's the next couple of generations worry about paying for all this stuff.
Either way, it's irresponsible, and I think people in America are smarter than that and they know that's not the responsible way to approach governing.
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Huckabee, just like Romney and um, the bald guy who used to be mayor of America or something like that, looks nice from a distance, but once you get close you start to notice the sexism, the homophobia, which included refusing to provide HIV drugs to Medicaid recipients in Arkansas, the fact that he personally intervened to parole a serial rapist who went on to rape and murder at least two more women after his release, his firing law enforcement officials who failed to make the case against his son for torturing a dog to death "go away". You start to see the fact that his pledge to abolish the IRS would make his other pledge to replace the income tax with a national sales tax impossible to enact, let alone enforce. Then there's the fact that the man is just plain nuts. He's good from far, but far from good.
It creeps me out how rational he comes off in interviews. Like a decent guy you used to work for.
The Evangelical vote, the religious vote is the most dangerous aspect of Republican Neoconism.
Ask Iran and the Taliban, about a faith-based government.
Religion must be shunned from politics, tax exemption must be removed at the first sign of poltical involvement by any church.
They have become Political Action Committees and 527's and are no longer churches.
This has to end.
I'm tired of the republicans saying the democrats aren't fiscally conservative.
I'm tired of them making such a big deal about taxes.
First off, George Bush aside, the republican party would still spend money like it grows on trees. The phrase "Paygo rules" aren't in the republican vocabulary bank.
Second off, I don't like paying taxes just as much as the next person. But we have to clean up bush's messes somehow and we need to make progress on the many problems working families have. I'm all for Obama's Payroll tax hike and a dougnut hole exception for people who need it and I'm all for raising the capital gains tax to levels no higher then during the Clinton Administration. Wealthy american's will just have to deal with it.
Both Clinton and Obama say they will be fiscally conservative. Bill Clinton was in the 90's. Thats why he left us with a 200 million dollar surplus!
Obama is for:
-Reinstating Pay as go rules (No new programs unless you have a way to pay for it). He's voted FOR it everytime it comes up
-Reviewing all the government agencies, merging one's that would be smart to do so and eliminating one's that don't.
- Closing the tax loop holes like tax havens that the wealthy use to not pay taxes. He knows old money will never get taxed but he wants new money to be taxed. Its time for a fair tax system.
"look, we want to cut taxes and eliminate government. If it means that elderly people don't get their Medicare drugs, so be it. If it means little kids go without education and healthcare, so be it."
Ok Huckabee. So what we absolutely have to do is leave this in the purview of the Federal Government. No local or state organizations or Government will do. Sp apparently our goal is waste.
Well, lets go whole hog. Put me in charge of it. Instead of the 10% administration costs from private organizations, or the 20-30% from the State run organizations, or even the 40-50% of the Federal Government, I promise to take between 80 and 99% of the funding as "administration costs" and even further delay the dispensation of these charitable funds.
If efficiency is bad, and inefficiency is good, then lets maximize our efforts. Right? Any other solution, beyond putting me in charge to maximize inefficiency, waste, and mismanagement would be cold and heartless. Downright evil really, and not acceptable to the caring people like Huckabee who prize and treasure inefficiency and mismanagement and all the glory that comes from these wonders.
The problem is everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE, that libertarianism has been put into place and capitalism and corporatism have taken the lead in maintenance of the commons and social constructs there has been abject poverty, corruption, and intolerably high crime... right before the failure of the system.
The safest, healthiest, most educated citizens in this planet belong to Social Democracies. There is a balance between capitalism and socialism that we can walk and benefit from.
Huck:
After boy George, I hate to be the one to tell you this....but,
There will be no Republican revoluton.
If the party is not dying, it is dead.
PIGS GET FAT, HOGS GET SLAUGHTERED
Really? What will the democrat party be after they ROB OBAMA?
Like most of the candidates including the top three currently running, Huckabee just doesn't get it. The concerns that you have and are allowed to have at the state level do not necessarily transfer to the federal level. At the state level you can be concerned about and pass legal legislation that provides medical care to everyone and feeds the poor. At the state level, you can legally pass legislation regulating industry for the public good and providing disaster aid. You can do anything that doesn't infringe on the individual rights of the citizens in your state.
At the federal level, you cannot legally regulate industry or implement taxes that take money out of one person's pocket and puts it into another. You cannot legally get involved in education, energy, banking, transportation, health care, foreign aid, or anything else other than what the Constitution allows you to do. Your job, primarily, is to protect the country's borders and the individual rights of all American citizens. You are not supposed to have the money to do anything else. Any money you have is not yours to give to someone else. The only way you can do anything else is by passing an Amendment to the Constitution and having it properly ratified by all of the states.
This does not mean that no one cares about the sick, the indigent, or the elderly. It means that this is supposed to be taken care of at the state level.
It seems to me that your interpretation is that there is no such thing as the United States of America - rather, there are the individual states who provide the funding for Federal programs restricted to providing border protection and the occasional "tsk-tsk" at those states who violate individual rights.
Interesting. The government of the United States of America as nothing more than a hyped-up version of Wackenhut.
As someone in local government, I can tell you the concept of 'devolution' has been with us since Reagan. Those above are merely parroting its basic tenet, which is the the Federal Government should not be in some businesses, so we need to 'devolve' both funding and operational responsibility to state and local governments. Now, unfortunately, even under an Obama presidency, this notion will be a reality. Right now, according to the US Congressional Budget Report published in August 2007, $0.65 of every $1 the government takes in is used for mandatory outlays, such as servicing the national debt, social security, medicare, medicaid and some educational programs. This is expected to 'spike' in 2009 at $0.68 per $1, then recede back to the 65-cent level. Actually, I believe it will only go up as social security has to pay for more and more boomers, the national debt grows and the IRS takes in less money during this recession. Remember that even Clinton added to the national debt, even though he was definitely fiscally conservative. Obama's going to have to be real smart to dig us out of this. He is, but it will take time.
HuffPost's Pick
Yeah, well, businesses don't like to deal with 50 different sets of rules, and taxpayers can save ridiculous amounts of money by sharing federal resources, such as disaster management, instead of having dedicated resources standing by in each state. Insurance pools such as health coverage are more effective on larger scales.
Power is consolidated at the federal level for much the same reason as corporations merge in the private sector. It's a compromise of progress and choice in exchange for economy and uniformity. It's a reflection of the American way of life, which, as Dick Cheney asserts, is non-negotiable. This implies that anything else, including the Constitution, is negotiable at least to the extent that it jeopardizes consumerism.
That huge pool of tax money is the biggest magnet for greed and corruption that the world has ever known. Need I specify? Earmarks, full retail for drugs, no single payer insurance, no-bid contracts, all the fancy new buildings for the former congresspeople working as lobbyists.
State governents are less corrupt. They have to educate people and assist the poor and fight crime and maintain infrastructure with limited debt. States can be flexible to unnusual cases. The Fed rules are too broad and blunt and the paperwork is oppressive. Inefficiency and gaming the system are rewarded. Ths states of congressmen on the appropriations get the most money back.
Almost all states are larger than the entire population of the original U.S. (about 3 million).
Most of the federal money that goes to the states, particularly in earmarks, would be handled far more fairly at the states,
I think the senate, since it is propotional only to the states and not the population, should have a special task of coordinating laws and health insurance pools among regions.
And who does the HuffPost picks? I think this post is about an ideal that will only work if human beings aren't involved.
The constitution dictates what the federal government is responsible for. Police, health care, and education; nope. If the government wouldn't take our money and give it to federal campaign contributors, the states would be able to do more of this themselves. The difference is that at the state level we have more recourse and direct measures(RECALLS) that we don't have on the federal level. Also, these kick-backs would be at a more reduced scale. We need to be a republic again, instead of an empire. I understand your point of view. I used to have it myself. I will paraphrase someone, I am more afraid of a government that does too much, than not enough. You must realize you have the opposite view. Once you realize that, you may realize that the Bush administration is a birth pain for an administration you really don't want, considering the advancements in technology. I like the fact that "pioneers" risk, sometimes even death, to discover the limits of our capabilities. A federal program like spraying beaches with DDT always sound good at the time. But I'd rather only a few of us suffer( by choice) from our choices, instead of whole nations.
Having seen that a post specifically stating the Constitution is negotiable got the "HuffPost's pick," I feel obligated to respond.
Let's examine the meaning of the statement "The Constitution is negotiable." Obviously the implication is that the Constitution does not need to be followed all the time. So, how do our leaders determine which parts of the Constitution they can ignore and when? They sit down and negotiate with the Constitution itself (or perhaps the founding fathers who wrote it) and come to an agreement, right?
Of course not. They simply decide which parts they want to violate and do so whenever it suits them. The first amendment states that Congress shall make no law restricting freedom of speech or of the press, so Congress shall make no such law, right? Meet McCain-Feingold, which bans certain political ads within 30-60 days of an election. The thirteenth amendment states that no involuntary servitude shall exist in the US, right? Tell that to the (at least) thousands of American civilians drafted and forced against their will to go to Vietnam to fight for...uh, something. Of course, by now we are all familiar with the blatant disregarding of the Bill of Rights that has taken place under the current administration as well, with the Patriot Act and such.
[continued]
[continued from my other post: for some reason it won't let me reply to my own post]
If the Constitution is "negotiable", politicians can (and will) choose to ignore the Constitution as they please. Thus, a more accurate word than "negotiable" would be "ignorable." The Constitution was designed to limit the power of government (so the citizens could be free). If the government is able to ignore it at will, though, what is the point of even having a Constitution to begin with? We are left with a system where the government itself decides how large and powerful the government should be, and as we have seen ever since the Income Tax (which gave the government an unlimited source of money to tap into) was instituted, the government consistently decides that it should be bigger and bigger and should have more and more power over people's lives.
Either the Constitution has absolute power over the government, or the government has absolute power over the individuals whose rights it is supposed to protect. There is no middle ground. If government officials themselves are the ones who decide how large to make the government without being subjected to absolute bounds, there is no limit to how far they can extend their power.
HuffPost's Pick --- including the Constitution, is negotiable..
I *love* when my fellow Americas including the president devalue the Constitution.
Since the arrival of this administration to power,we are *learning* the Constitution
is a piece paper,we believe your assertion that the Constitution have a second place on our life or is negotiable, diminish our image on the world and create imbalance on our daily life,think. what the world will be and America when the Constitution is eroded?
Huckabee and Clinton are two sides of the same coin here. They're both running on a Arkansas politician platform which seems to be a race to the bottom strategy. Clinton goes at it more heavily from the economic side (gas tax holiday and the like) while Huckabee goes at it more from the religious values forced on the rest of us side (pro life, anti gay ect) but they both end up at the same place, Appalachia. The idea should be to raise the discourse as Obama has been doing and McCain used to do back in 2000. If only we could timewarp 2000 McCain and replace 2008 McCain with him we could have a strong election between two progressive and dynamic candidates.
Even todays McCain gives me hope that Republicans can break free of the nonsense fundamentalism that has hijacked American politics for years now. He's more Goldwater conservative then George Bush conservative at heart (if you assume he was more honest in 2000 then 2008) but Huckabee is the opposite. He's a move towards an American theocracy at a level even George Bush did not reach. I for one don't want to go back to 1840 but there seems to be a good portion of the country that can be hijacked through religious language to take us there and we wonder why we fall behind the rest of the developed world in math and science.
huckabee is a snake
Whoa
Sorry jungpatawan (or Mr. Collis) I agree with Mr. Bellows. It is good to know who Mike Huckabee actually is rather than the comforting stereotype ("Oh, he's just a wingnut that doesn't believe in evolution"). We dems need to know that there are Repubs with brains. Lack of that knowledge will be perilous.
Even before reading this interview, I knew that Mr. Huckabee and I were in agreement regarding many different topics. But evolution and religion and how much religion should influence political policies are where he and I completely disconnect.
He scares me.
Be very wary. Huckabee is a dangerous man. Huckabee is a viscious social conservative costumed in Christian lambswool. He is telegenic with a great sense of humor. Huckabee has an attractive personality and charisma like Kevin Spacey. However on social issues Huckabee is against a woman's right to choose, affirmative action, government funded education for all (he likes vouchers for Christian schools), gay rights and the list goes on. It is hard to see Huckabee clearly for the mean spirited social conservative Republican he is because the guy is so likeable and funny on tv. Huckabee is the type of politician with whom the American public would like to go out and have a beer. But if you analyze his policies - he is the polar opposite of a Democrat progressive. BE VERY WARY OF HUCKABEE!
Right he represents all the things that we shouldn't even bring up after this election. He is for progressive government.
He's for progressive government with regressive social practices. Noone who is against the right to choose, gay rights and teaching of real science in the classroom can be called a progressive. I would take an economic conservative over a social conservative any day of the weak (though obviously I would prefer a progressive on both counts, such as Obama).
I've been thinking about voucher programs, school choice, etc., and I've come to the conclusion that the biggest reason I oppose it is not because of the adverse effect it will have upon the public schools, but because it will ultimately damage the quality of education of private schools. I've thought for many years that the deterioration of the public education system in our country actually serves a purpose for those in power. The next step in the crumbling of public education was NCLB. The watering down of the curriculum, teaching to the test, and catering to the lowest common denominator has begun to turn out class after class of drones who just follow orders and can't think for themselves. Ultimately the populace is dumbed down. They are ignorant, uninformed, and incapable of critical thinking. They can only process information that is simplified, sugar-coated, and spoon-fed to them.
That is how those in power will not only stay in power, but obtain even more wealth and power.
Bob Barr will not get many votes from Conservatives, Its hypocrites like him and Foley that hurt the GOP in the 1st place. This is one conservative that despises him and his kind.
"Bob Barr will not get many votes from Conservatives"
Wouldn't count him out just yet. This is one Texas liberal that intends to campaign furiously for Barr this year. I hope others stuck in solid red states will join me as well. Republicans are so dispirited and conflicted right now, I can hardly think of a better opportunity to split the McCain vote and increase Obama's electoral count. And after repeatedly being called a traitor by those same Republicans for opposing the Iraq war, it will be a sweet, sweet bonus to have the privilege to actively work to sabotage them.
Genius :)
"I don't think the evangelicals can be taken for granted, and in fact, I would caution anybody to not assume that the evangelicals will go and vote Republican this fall..."
American evangelicals are and were never a monolith, but it's especially important to recognize the many cross-cutting interests and values that this constituency has this year. This President Bush has betrayed many of them with his false claims to advancing "compassionate conservatism" -- something that Huckabee is articulating quite well here. (Whether Huckabee himself also believes in the "compassionate" part, or whether he, like Bush, is just pandering, is another question).
There is a fundamental schism in the Republican party between the me-first fiscal conservatives and the care-for-all-us (including the unborn) conservatives. The latter group has never found a happy home -- whether they can hold their nose on the abortion issue and vote for Obama, whose faith journey and Christian rhetoric is quite alluring -- is the critical question for November. I do believe that younger Christians -- Huckabee's base -- will do so.
I like Huckabee, even though I don't agree with everything he says. But I feel that he is truly honest with everything that he does. He could be dangerous in November as a VP candidate, and more dangerous in 2012. He understands the problems with the republican party. He understands why Childers won, I agree. He understands that being pro-life or pro-gun or for traditional marraige is more important than what France thinks about us, or tax cuts, ect. If republicans can figure what they are doing wrong, they won't lose as many seats in Novemeber, and can work over the next 4 or 6 years to get back a majority. A person like Huckabee understands that.
Huckabee is also dangrous becuase like several people below me have said, that he is likable, someone even said they want to hate him, but can't. He doesn't come off a arrogant. He could get some of that "white blue collar" voter that has been voting for Hillary. Unlike many republicans, he cares about childrens health care, cost of living for the average American. The problem many republicans have is they feel they have to be pro-life, pro-gun and for corporate America. You can't be one without the other, Huckabee is for the average American while being pro-life and pro-gun
Huckabee is far more honest than John Mccain. If Huckabee was still in this thing, I may have gone republican again this year! But I knew repub's weren't going to push for Huckabee and you need the core base to make the nomanee. So I knew he was out! I saw our next best bet in Obama. My mom went with clinton at first, but than later changed over to obama to. Normally she goes republican to. I guess about 99% of my family and friends are republicans. but all but one has changed to Obama. I think they would have gone Huckabee because of his childrens health care plans,and he was more like the average or normal person and wasn't out of touch like mccain is. They are mostly hunters and like his stand on pro-gunstance to. Huckabee stook for a lot of what they like in goverment. they see more of this in Obama than they do Mccain. It was hard for them to vote demacrate, I think, as they were mostly always republicans. Only one of my family is voteing for mccain and he may change to, if mccain don't change his tune soon!
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