RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Michael Dale "Mike" Huckabee in 08?

Ex-Ark. Gov. Huckabee Files 2008 Paperwork

Personally, I think that this guy isn't really running for President, but auditioning to be someone's Vice-President.

There will NEVER be a president with a name that silly.

I Huckabee

I watched him on the Stephanopolis show & was impressed. He stikes me as a really nice guy without appearing wimpy. Like Obama he lacks the experience I'm looking for but from what I've seen so far he would be an asset on a Presidential ticket as VP.

You forgot to pin this one too.

man, you even quote yourself now

The bottom line here is that, if people do care, the thread rises to the top and there is no need to pin it. If they don't care, pinning it is a waste of time.

Personally, I think its pretty silly to be pinning up topics for an election thats about 18 months away.

But if you really, really, feel the need to pin something up there, why not start a topic called, I dunno "Meet the candidates," put in links to all the threads about ALL the candidates, pin it and lock it. That way, anyone who comes here can do there, find the thread on, say, Barack Hussein Obama or Rudy Guiliani without searching.

My official prediction for the presidential race is that Mike Huckabee will not be our next president.

He just did really well in Iowa this weekend from the sound of it. In one poll he was at 18 percent I think. While I still want Hillary to win, this guy comes off as intelligent, moderate & doesn't rely on the partisan crutch so much that the others besides McCain does.

I find it very odd that you would be touting him as moderate, given he is running as the "conservative" alternative to moderates such as Rudy and McCain:

• Huckabee, although relatively unknown to the majority of Americans, is popular among some evangelicals for his conservative values such as being pro-life and against same-sex “marriage.”

I also, once again, find it very interesting that you would tout someone so strongly against gay rights, given that you, a gay man, typically consider that an important issue.

Perhaps, therefore, your kind words about Huckabee have to do with the fact that the Clintons are out there, trying to drum up support for him as a "dark horse" and even a third party candidate. No doubt on the theory that either would help elect Hillary?

To his credit, however, Huckabee has flatly refused to run on a third party ticket, saying that do so would help elect Hillary.

Gay rights are an important issue for me but it's not a deal breaker if the candidate isn't planning something like a constitutional ammendment. I don't know why but I thought he didn't fall into that category. After your post I checked & I was very much mistaken. I wouldn't want him to be President. I still like McCain anyways & he's been doing a little better.

BTW I could understand your reasoning via my support for Hillary if this wasn't the RKMB forum. It's a very small audience of people who quite frankly probably tend to skip my posts and/or beyond being influenced by anything they did read by me. And you may not believe it but I'm not interested in supporting someone from the GOP just because I think it would help a Democrat become President. Besides it being dishonest, your party might end up getting that person elected

With all due respect, MEM, I think that you've become so wrapped up in places like Media Matters and RAW Story, that you've lost a certain ability to analyze things objectively or independently.

Stories or spin trickle down from the Clintons (and other powerful democrats) through the media and the liberal blogs and, given your natural inclination towards the left, you just jump on them, not realizing that it makes you look like a flip flopper or someone who changes positions on a daily basis to parrot whatever talking point trickled down that week. Without that spin, you don't seem to have a position, or even knowledge of the issue at hand.

This is a good example: How could somone such as yourself, who seems to be so interested in politics have not known that Huckabee's primary political raison d'erte is the "family values/anti-day" issue? The guy is a Babtist minister, for God's sake (pun intended).

I'll take you at your word that this didn't start with spin from the Clintons, but given the blatancy at which Huckabee has courted the religious right, you have to admit that it was an easy assumption for me to make.

Oh G-man it's just your spin when it comes to blaming everything on Clinton. Right now your working that talking point so much that it's just blatently obvious. Your Hillary's hit men thread's first post is an editorial by a writer funded by Scaife for petes sake.

As for Huckabee, I don't follow the GOP candidates that much. I did catch a couple of his appearences & he was a very good speaker & he didn't get into the marriage ammendment stuff. So I can be honest an admit I made a mistake in my previous "not planting another Bush" post.

Huckabee Wanted to Isolate AIDS Patients

Republican presidential hopeful former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee speaks wi...
By ANDREW DeMILLO, AP
22 minutes ago
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. —
Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could "pose a dangerous public health risk."

As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. Besides a quarantine, Huckabee suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.

"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague," Huckabee wrote.

"It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents."

The AP submitted the questionnaire to both candidates; only Huckabee responded. Incumbent Sen. Dale Bumpers won his four term; Huckabee was elected lieutenant governor the next year and became governor in 1996.

When asked about AIDS research in 1992, Huckabee complained that AIDS research received an unfair share of federal dollars when compared to cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

"In light of the extraordinary funds already being given for AIDS research, it does not seem that additional federal spending can be justified," Huckabee wrote. "An alternative would be to request that multimillionaire celebrities, such as Elizabeth Taylor (,) Madonna and others who are pushing for more AIDS funding be encouraged to give out of their own personal treasuries increased amounts for AIDS research."

Huckabee did not return messages left with his campaign.

When Huckabee wrote his answers in 1992, it was common knowledge that AIDS could not be spread by casual contact. In late 1991, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were 195,718 AIDS patients in the country and that 126,159 people had died from the syndrome.

The nation had an increased awareness of AIDS at the time because pro basketball star Magic Johnson had recently disclosed he carried the virus responsible for it. Johnson retired but returned to the NBA briefly during the 1994-95 season.

Since becoming a presidential candidate this year, Huckabee has supported increased federal funding for AIDS research through the National Institutes of Health.

"My administration will be the first to have an overarching strategy for dealing with HIV and AIDS here in the United States, with a partnership between the public and private sectors that will provide necessary financing and a realistic path toward our goals," Huckabee said in a statement posted on his campaign Web site last month.

Also in the wide-ranging AP questionnaire in 1992, Huckabee said, "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk."

A Southern Baptist preacher, Huckabee has been a favorite among social conservatives for his vocal opposition to gay marriage. In 2003, Huckabee said that the U.S. Supreme Court was probably right to strike down anti-sodomy laws, but that states still should be able to restrict things such as gay marriage or domestic partner benefits.

"What people do in the privacy of their own lives as adults is their business," Huckabee said. "If they bring it into the public square and ask me as a taxpayer to support it or to endorse it, then it becomes a matter of public discussion and discourse."

Something I've never understood about conservatives. Aren't you guys supposed to lead the call for LESS governance?

if you are, then what is the deal with trying to ban such things as same-sex marriages?

I'm just asking, because it sounds a bit contradictive to the doctrine of less governance

Personally, I find Huckabee unappealing to the point where, if he's the GOP nominee I'll either not vote or consider voting for the Democrat (probably the former).

There's nothing endearing to me about a cross between a diet guru and a televangelist selling condominiums in Heaven, which is how Huckabee strikes me. The guy's so full of crap I can smell it wafting out his ears.

Furthermore, besides his bible thumping, the man's no conservative. His liberalism is quite apparent on everything but a couple of social issues.

Huckabee's an asshole.

The end.

So you wanna stuff him?

Huckabee Stands by AIDS Statement

Republican presidential hopeful, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, speaks ...
1 hour ago
WASHINGTON —
GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Sunday he won't run from his statement 15 years ago that AIDS patients should have been isolated.

Huckabee acknowledged the prevailing scientific view then, and since, that the virus that causes AIDS is not spread through casual contact, but said that was not certain. He cited revelations in 1991 that a dentist had infected a patient in an extraordinary case that highlighted the risk of infection through contact with blood or bodily fluids.

"I still believe this today," he said in a broadcast interview, that "we were acting more out of political correctness" in responding to the AIDS crisis. "I don't run from it, I don't recant it," he said of his position in 1992. Yet he said he would state his view differently in retrospect.

Huckabee, as a Senate candidate that year, told The Associated Press that "we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague" if the federal government was going to deal with the spread of the disease effectively. "It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents," he said then.

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," the former Arkansas governor denied those words were a call to quarantine the AIDS population, although he did not explain how else isolation would be achieved. "I didn't say we should quarantine," he said. The idea was not to "lock people up."

Huckabee stated his 1992 positions in an AP questionnaire in which he also called homosexuality "an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle."

GOP presidential rival Rudy Giuliani on Sunday declined to discuss the matter during a separate television interview except to say he had heard Huckabee say it was not "his current position."

"I have enough of my own statements and issues that I have to deal with," the former New York mayor said, laughing.

Giuliani, who appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he did not believe homosexuality was aberrant. What is sinful are "the acts, not the orientation."


------------------------------------------------

I was at my monthly club social last night, and a few of us agreed that, if Huckabee were elected, he would probably try to put Aids and Hiv patients into concentration camps! And us gays who are hiv negative in, as well, just cause we are gay!

Thsi is how hate mongers start off.. they target one group as their scapegoats..
Eventually, EVERYONE is next on the list.

It's how Hitler started.

Awesome!

he would have a point about plagues if it wasn't for the abberant comments.
although realistically you could never isolate them. people would only hide and noone would get tested and then it would be killing more people.

The idea of quarantining U.S. citizens for the rest of their lives for simply being sick is such a massive violation of civil liberties, that the only way you should even consider it would be if there were conclusive evidence about the spread of a deadly, untreatable, easily communicable disease, without a cure, that would wipe out millions of people imminently if it were not quickly contained.

Huckabee's defense, that we were still learning about the virus that causes AIDS, is highly misleading. By 1992, it had been well established that AIDS could not be transmitted by casual contact.

The idea that Huckabee's instinct would be to advocate the most draconian policy imaginable, is, frankly, scary.

To me, this is just further evidence of a frightening authoritarian tendency in Huckabee that belies the idea of him being a true conservative.

Until recently, I liked Huckabee the best of the Republican contenders. I've seen him interviewed at considerable length on the PBS News Hour, Meet the Press, and Charlie Rose.
Huckabee comes across as the most direct and likeable of all the primary candidates, and when interviewed he seems to have a very take-charge common-sense approach to things, while also having Washington-outsider appeal. Kind of an electable "Mr Smith Goes to Washington".

But it's amazing how, even after hearing someone detail their views for that length of time, there can be so many little secrets that come to the surface afterward.

The first thing that made him lose appeal for me was his answer to a debate question on immigration, where he didn't want to take away government b enefits for the children of illegals. He's way to sympathetic to illegals, to the point that I think he'd do virtually nothing about this vital issue.

The second major flaw was aired on Friday's 20/20 program on ABC, where he had lobbied to let a convicted murderer out on parole, and even leveraged the parole board to comply with his wishes. Then the parolee went out and raped/killed two more women. Along the same lines as Michael Dukakis letting Willie Horton out on furlough to kill again, this is very misdirected compassion, and speaks volumes about his capacity for bad judgement.
No doubt, the parents of the girls will be featured prominently in commercials between now and caucus day in Iowa.

At this point it looks like Huckabee is leading in Iowa, and in New Hampshire as well. But a lot can happen in the next few weeks. I think Huckabee's star is fading.

Yes. You'd get no argument from me on that.

The real issue is that Huckabee hates homosexuals.

He is probably a closet case himself, and hates his own attraction to men..
and he expresses that hate at all gay men.

Cunt!

Of course, the REAL issue is that Huckabee is appealing to ultra conservative religious voters with his anti - Gay rhetoric...

I agree wholeheartedly.



Usually those little secrets only come about when a candidate starts surging in the polls. Not that those assertions sometimes aern't without merit mind you. It's just that they only seem to come up and matter once they start doing well.



The EVIL bastartd!!!!

You do realize that "the children of illegals" is another word for AMERICAN CITIZENS, right? Now the question is, do you hate the Constitution and the fact that it states that this is so or do hate the fact that Huckabee answered the question without the usual vitriol and pandering to xenophobes? To me, it's sort of like that use of military force question that Ron Paul answered honestly and legally acurate while the rest of the field were talking about how tough and unilateral they were.

Yeah, you can "talk tough" and all, but ultimately, it don't mean shit since the law says your rhetoric don't mean shit. It was honest and compassionate. Plus & +. Richard Riordan the former Republican mayor of Los Angeles answered a similar question in almost the exact way. He said, "My god, these are human beings!" Of course Republicans in California HATED that. After all the name of the game is dehuminazation. Once they're dehumanized, you can be as heartless and cruel as you'd like. kick them in the gutter, after all they're nothing. Even if they do happen to by default be US citizens. "he's way to sympathetic to illegals". man... you are so full of bile....



Again, this story existed well before this week. And funny how ABC News, pretty much FOX lite for a few years now, decided to 'expose" this right as Giuliani is going down in flames and Huckabee is ascending. It matters not too much to me seeing as if you cripple these 2 choices, the only choice you have left is the Mormon that the evangelicals won't touch. Still, it's manipulation disguised as expose.



He isn't a "rock star" anyways so his electability was always in doubt. Still, I like the guy for all the reasons you stated in your 1st paragraph. He isn't an asshole and he's honest and compassionate for the most part, pandering to homophobes notwhistanding.

The evangelicals like him though and if he can pick up the quickly eroding Giuliani voters, it'll probably elevate Romney and further splinter the GOP base and thus it's better for the Democratic front runner in the general election.

which, given the trend in the republican party, means his own secret gay life will soon come to light.

While I am tempted to agree with any theory that presents the media as manipulating the GOP primary to make an unpalatable candidate win (and toss the general election to the Democrat nominee) I don't think its as calculated, or as recent a practice, as you might think.

I remember Sam Donaldson, waaaaay back in 1992, talking about how he and his fellows in the media had a natural tendency to want to destroy the frontrunners.

Sam, of course, is one of the deans of ABC news. I would have no problem believing that this mentality isn't, to some extent, institutionalized at the network by now.

Huckabee is the current frontrunner as we head into Iowa. Accordingly, he's the biggest target for the alphabet network.

An editorial in yesterday's Wall St. Journal had a description of Huckabee that I found pretty interesting:

• Some say Mr. Huckabee is the tribune of the "religious left," and that strikes us as about right. He exhibits protectionist instincts, distancing himself from Nafta and saying he would insist on penalties and barriers to countries that don't support his conception of "fair trade." He delivers populist sermons against income inequality, but in favor of farm subsidies and an expanded government role in health care. He regularly knocks Wall Street, and he borrows from the Democratic playbook with digs at "the rich." Mr. Huckabee has [a] mixed tax and spending record during his decade in Little Rock. The Club for Growth has documented that record, with prejudice.

so basically no one likes the guy and no one is actually arguing.
for once.
weird.

GROUP HUG!!!

It's always a pleasant surprise when you actually agree with a few of my points.




Well, here you just went straight off the deep end, reading a lot into my comments that clearly wasn't there.



What utter horseshit.

children of illegals, born outside the U.S., are illegals.

Huckabee stated something in his debate answer about "not punishing the children for the sins of the father" (a paraphrase of scripture, twisting scripture to apply to an immigration situation that it does not).

But it is the nations from which these illegals are immigrating that have the responsibility to care for these children.
And many of them, particularly Mexico, are very capable of providing for them, instead of shunting that responsibility and cost onto the United States.

The few who are U.S. citizens (or more precisely "anchor babies", children of women who illegally crossed while pregnant, to purposefully have their children become automatic U.S. citizens at birth, creating a parasitic path toward citizenship for its parents and extended family) have grandfathered into legal status through a loophole in the law that now accounts for 10% of U.S. births, that costs U.S. taxpayers billions in tax benefits to these families.
There should be an amendment to the Costitution to abolish that loophole and end these benefits.
Only children of mothers who are legally in this country should be eligible for automatic citizenship at birth. That would eliminate one lure that is bringing illegals into this country.

I clearly don't "hate the Constitution". But there have been many amendments to parts of the Constitution, that clarified freedoms or righted injustices. This is a necessary amendment, that will cease punishing taxpayers for the unlawful actions of illegals who have no right to be here.
If they want to be here, they can apply for legal status, and we allow 1.2 million immigrants legally every year, more than any other nation on Earth.
We should not reward illegals for breaking our laws.

That is not xenophobia, that is patriotic respect for our laws, and for defending our borders.



59% of California voters made their opinion clear with Proposition 187, to eliminate benefits for illegal aliens.

Liberals took the 187-ruling to a sympathetic liberal district judge, who overturned the will of the people, and forced an unfair situation (where taxpayers pay for services to non-taxpayer aliens) on California voters.
Many California voters (100,000 a year by current statistics) have voted with their feet by leaving California and not allowing their tax dollars to continue being spent in this way.

As illegals so sympathetically treated are siphoning California citizens' tax dollars, illegals who swell the ranks of gangs, drug traffickers and other criminals, illegals who decline the quality of education by crowding schools with students who shouldn't be there, illegals who carry diseases, illegals who bankrupt hospitals by taking unpaid services, illegals who lower wages for U.S. citizens by working for less, and otherwise burden the system that taxpaying legal citizens pay for.
And in tens of thousands of cases annually of murder, rape, drunk driving, drug-related, gang activity and other violent activity by illegals, threaten the very lives of many Americans.

If you really have that much contempt for the United States and its laws, whomod, I wish you'd move across the border to Mexico, where your true loyalty apparently is.



The word is dehumanization. Even though the accusation is false, you should at least spell it correctly, if you're going to make the accusation.



Do you dehumanize a rapist by calling him a rapist, and jailing him to protect the rest of society?
Or a murderer?
Or a theif?

These people are here illegally.

It is not "heartless" or "dehumanizing" to state the clear fact that they are here illegally, and therefore not subject to the rights and benefits of being a U.S. citizen.
And that they should be deported to the country of origin, the country that does have that responsibility, and does have the means to provide for these illegals, if they only would.

To sympathize with these lawbreakers, who now are estimated to number 20 million inside the U.S., one in 12 of whom are caught by INS and Border Patrol has a criminal record before entering the United States, is a treasonous notion on your part, comparable to releasing a convicted murderer/rapist loose to rape and kill again.
These people steal U.S. tax dollars, steal U.S. jobs.
Between them and us, I choose us. What about you?



It amuses me how anyone who doesn't unleash the partisan vitriol of the usual conservative-bashing Liberal Party Line is suspect to you, and demonized in the most bitter terms.

G-man already covered this in his answer, that the press has a tendency to go after the front-runners, of both parties.



That is, of course, the full extent of your objectivity. Blindly supporting a Democrat Party that continues to weaken and divide America, and ignoring how unworthy of support they are, as they expand policies that weaken our borders, invite illegals, and support retreat from fronts abroad that would just enable attacks from islamic terrorists.

...no hugs, huh...

wondy ruined the moment.
he probably ordered seltzer from a waitress but got salsa instead and he went insane because the invasion had won. now he hides in a cabin in his cabin up in the mountains of montana. writing his blog, posting here, and guarding 3000 gallons of seltzer water which he now calls "Freedom Juice."

you're a sad, petty little man, Y'know.