ACCOMPLISHMENTS 1. With ten-and-a-half years of experience running state government, Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas has more relevant executive experience than any candidate in the race – either Republican or Democrat.
2. Recognized and tapped by his peers for leadership, the National Governor’s Association selected Governor Huckabee as it’s Chairman.
3. TIME Magazine honored him as one of the five best Governors in America.
4. Governor Huckabee is a fiscal conservative who cut taxes almost 100 times in the state of Arkansas, including the state’s first broad-based tax cuts, and turned a $200 million deficit into an $850 million surplus.
ISSUES 1. TAXES/ECONOMY –Governor Huckabee supports The FairTax because it will restore the “Made in America” label, making American goods 12-25% more competitive, boosting economic growth, increasing our exports, and securing American jobs. It also prevents criminals or illegal aliens from avoiding taxes, and makes the taxes we all pay 100% transparent.
2. GOVERNMENT SPENDING – Governor Huckabee is committed to reducing government spending. One way he’ll do this is by reducing the cost of welfare. Governor Huckabee will work with states to reduce welfare roles through programs like the one he implemented in Arkansas, which reduced welfare roles by 50%.
3. HEALTH CARE –Governor Huckabee will implement a consumer-based healthcare system that emphasizes preventative medicine and wellness. Because 70% of our $2 trillion dollar healthcare costs is spent treating chronic, preventable diseases, this approach will make healthcare more affordable for everybody while keeping us healthier.
4. FAMILY VALUES –Governor Huckabee supports a federal constitutional amendment to protect the right to life. He Successfully fought for Arknasas’ marriage amendment and strongly supports a similar, federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
5. IMMIGRATION –Governor Huckabee will secure the border (with physical barriers, electronic surveillance, and more border-patrol personnel and detention facilities). He will also end sanctuary cities and increase penalties on, and enforcement against, employers who hire illegal immigrants. Governor Huckabee will make sure the border patrol has adequate funding to end our “catch and release” system so that everyone caught trying to enter illegally, overstaying their visa, or committing a crime will be held until they’re tried, convicted, and deported. Gov. Huckabee has also signed the Numbers USA "No Amnesty" Pledge.
6. WAR ON TERROR AND IRAQ – Governor Huckabee knows it takes a large, well-equipped military to ensure our national defense and to deter conventional military confrontations. He also knows we need large, well-equipped intelligence and Special Forces operations for our national offense – so we can effectively find and eliminate terrorist threats at home or abroad. Governor Huckabee will be a Commander in Chief who knows that IF WE HAVE TO FIGHT A WAR, our President has to fight it the way our GENERALS tell him it can be won, not the way we want it to be won.
7. ENERGY INDEPENDENCE –Governor Huckabee will implement a program to end the import of foreign oil in the next ten years by increasing domestic oil production in the short term, and then replacing oil-based energy infrastructure with alternative and renewable energies.
8. CLEMENCIES – Arkansas Governors grant clemency, but the parole board grants parole. Wayne DuMond’s parole was granted by the board and NOT Governor Huckabee.
9. TAXES –When Governor Huckabee left office, the tax rates remained exactly the same as when he first came into office. Governor Huckabee returned almost $400 million to Arkansas taxpayers, and he also DOUBLED the standard deduction for individuals and married couples, DOUBLED the childcare tax credit, and eliminated the marriage penalty. He also repealed capital gains taxes for home sales, lowered the capital gains rate by 25%, expanded the homestead exemption, and set up tax-free savings accounts for medical care and college tuition. Gov. Huckabee has also signed the Americans for Tax Reform's pledge not to raise taxes.
10. SECOND AMENDMENT- • Lifetime member of the NRA, member for over 15 years • First Governor to have concealed-carry permit • Removed restrictions on carry permit holders • Protected gun manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits • Opposes reauthorization of the Assault Weapon Ban • Opposes expansion of the unconstitutional “Brady Bill” • Opposes waiting period for purchase of firearms • Opposes background checks on private firearms transactions at gun shows • Will nominate judges who interpret the constitution as the Founders intended, rather than as a “living document reflecting current political trends or opinions” • An avid hunter and conservationist, and a member of the Ducks Unlimited, National Wild Turkey Federation and BASS.
JAY LENO: Folks, up until a few weeks ago, my next guest was an also ran with a funny name in the Republican campaign. He still has a funny name, but now he's near the top in the national polls. He's neck in neck with the Mitt Romney in Iowa, and the caucus there will be held tomorrow. Please welcome Mike Huckabee, ladies and gentlemen.
(Applause.)
JAY LENO: Thanks for coming.
MIKE HUCKABEE: Wonderful to be here. Thank you.
JAY LENO: This is what I find fascinating about American politics. I kind of follow this kind of stuff. So I've known who you are for a while, but you literally, in the last couple of months, have come from nowhere with hardly any money. Explain how this happens.
MIKE HUCKABEE: I'm just trying to keep from going back to nowhere as fast as I can.
(Laughter.)
I've seen a lot of this. People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off. I think that's part of what's going on right now.
(Applause.)
JAY LENO: Right. Now, tell us about your background. I know you're from Hope, Arkansas.
MIKE HUCKABEE: Yes, born and raised there.
JAY LENO: Also, of course, President Clinton did you know each other growing up?
MIKE HUCKABEE: We didn't know each other growing up. He's 9 years older, and he had moved away when he was like 7 years old and went to Hot Springs. When he ran for President, somehow it just didn't sound right to say, "I believe in a place called Hot Springs." So he talked about his birth place.
(Laughter.)
You can understand that. We all understand that.
JAY LENO: Now, your first career was as a Baptist minister. How long did you do that?
MIKE HUCKABEE: About 12 years.
JAY LENO: How did you become how did get into that line of work?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I mean, the honest and serious answer is that I just saw life and a perspective in the church that I think very few people get to see. You see every single social pathology that's out there. Nothing is abstract to you. You put a name and a face on everything, and I really began to believe that so many people making decisions that affect the way we live, the way our future would be governed, didn't have a clue about how people were really struggling. It became evident to me that there were a lot of folks making decisions that didn't understand poverty, hunger, or disease. They didn't understand the challenges that people had in their families, and for my own three children, who were small at the time, I decided I don't want to spend the rest of my life complaining about what "they" are doing. And I finally thought it's time to get out of the stands and on the field and get my jersey dirty.
JAY LENO: You also played in rock band.
MIKE HUCKABEE: Yes.
JAY LENO: So it's this is like TV Baptist minister during the day, playing White Snake at the KitKat Club at night. Doesn't that seem
(Laughter.)
JAY LENO: Some of your congregation (making rock music sounds.)
MIKE HUCKABEE: I never played with my teeth or anything like that. So it wasn't totally bad. I started playing guitar when I was 11 years old. I was like so many kids that came out of the '60s that wanted to play guitar more than anything. When I finally got a guitar my parents got a guitar from JCPenney, ordered it from the catalogue. I got it Christmas 1966. They paid $99 for whole rig guitar, amplifier. It took them a year to pay it off. My parents barely made enough money to pay the rent. We lived in a little rented house. It was a big sacrifice for them, but I played that guitar until my fingers nearly bled and until their ears nearly bled. It was
(Laughter.)
JAY LENO: And they said, "Son why don't you become a minister?"
(Laughter.)
MIKE HUCKABEE: I think they were hoping for me to do anything, and obviously, I wasn't good enough to make it as a professional. So I had to find something else to do, and that looked like it was mostly indoor work and no heavy lifting. I thought it would be a pretty good way to go.
JAY LENO: Do you think you could sit in are you good enough to sit in with our band later?
MIKE HUCKABEE: No, but I'd like to do it anyway.
(Applause.)
JAY LENO: I think you first got elected about the time I took over this show, about '92?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, '93 was the first year. I ran in '92 and lost an election. Then I ran in '93 for lieutenant governor, and I won and reelected in '94, became governor from the position of lieutenant governor when my predecessor resigned and then reelected twice and served ten and a half years as governor.
JAY LENO: Because when I first met you, you were living in a trailer in Arkansas.
MIKE HUCKABEE: My wife wanted me to tell you it was a manufactured home.
JAY LENO: Yes.
(Applause.)
Why were you living in a trailer? Were you trying to put on the airs and impress public constituents?
(Laughter.)
MIKE HUCKABEE: You know, it was a triple wide. A lot of people only have a single wide trailer, but we had a triple wide. It was pretty significant. Actually what was going on was the governor's mansion was undergoing renovation. There were a lot of things the wiring and all this stuff had to be redone. So we had an option to go out and rent this very expensive place or find alternative housing arrangements. We decided to move in a triple wide manufactured home on the grounds of the governor's mansion. We knew we were going to take a beating.
JAY LENO: We had a million jokes about it.
(Laughter.)
Thank you. You supported the monologue for weeks with that.
(Laughter.)
MIKE HUCKABEE: The big line was they said, "I'm sorry. I'm running late today. I was on the interstate and got behind the governor's mansion.
(Laughter.)
JAY LENO: Well, we actually interviewed that was the first time I met you. You looked a lot the different then. Here he is. We're talking seven years ago.
(Clip shown.)
(Applause.)
JAY LENO: When we come back, I want to ask you about that triple wide jacket you had on there.
(Laughter.)
We'll take a break and come back with Mike Huckabee when we come back.
(Applause.)
(Break taken.)
(Mike Huckabee is playing his guitar with the band.)
JAY LENO: Nice job. Before I ask you about news, I want to ask you about the triple wide jacket. You lost quite a bit of weight. How much weight did you lose?
MIKE HUCKABEE: About 110 pounds.
(Applause.)
JAY LENO: Congratulations on that. What was your secret?
MIKE HUCKABEE: The legislature kept eating my lunch every day.
(Laughter.)
No. My doctor sat me down. I faced a health crisis in 2003, and he basically told me if I didn't make a lifestyle change, I was entering the last decade of my life. Then he described it. He said to me, "Here's what's going to happen." And when he described it, that's when I decided I needed a new exit strategy. So I really changed my lifestyle. I started eating differently, got rid of the fried foods and sugars. You know, I'll tell you something, when you grow up in the South, everything is fried. I mean, you don't eat anything unless you fry it.
JAY LENO: Fried water.
(Laughter.)
MIKE HUCKABEE: That's right. You know, it's very difficult to do that. If you don't fry it, you put sugar on it. It's just the way we eat. And between that and not exercising, which I did not do, it really caught up with me. I was in a health crisis. So my life was kind of representative of like a lot of people in this country that just don't take care of themselves. We don't have a healthcare crisis as much as we have a health crisis, and I was the epitome of it.
JAY LENO: So that's terrific. Now, you and Romney seems to have gotten into fisticuffs lately. What's going on here? You guys are neck and neck and seems to be getting
MIKE HUCKABEE: Oh, it's politics. I mean, that's what politics is about. I tell people that, if you can't stand the sight of your own blood, don't run for anything, just buy a ticket and watch it from the stands.
(Laughter.)
Because this is a full contact sport. No doubt about it.
JAY LENO: On Monday, you had a press conference. You were going to release an attack ad which seemed a little unusual for you. Why were you going to do that?
MIKE HUCKABEE: We had been hammered. We had been outspent 20 to 1 in Iowa. 20 to 1. And that's tough. And we had been hammered
JAY LENO: How much did you spend?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Oh, I think probably 3 to $400,000.
JAY LENO: And how much did Romney spend?
MIKE HUCKABEE: 8 or 9 million. So I mean, you know, it's a substantial difference. We just kept getting hammered with negative television ads, negative radio ads, and mail pieces. And finally, decided "We had better answer this, or somebody is going to believe all this stuff."
JAY LENO: So they work negative ads.
MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, they seemed to. Then he started hammering John McCain over in New Hampshire. John McCain may be a rival of mine in the presidential race, but I have nothing but respect for him. He's a great American hero. I think he's a great American and a wonderful man, and a great guy
(Applause.)
JAY LENO: So you were going to do an ad.
MIKE HUCKABEE: Right. So we put together an ad and taped the tape, got it all ready. We were going to release it at a press conference, and Monday I just didn't feel right. We had gotten where we are by being positive and talking about what this country needs to be rather than what's wrong with the other guys, and I just said
JAY LENO: As you were making it did you feel like
MIKE HUCKABEE: I needed to go take a shower or something like that or give Romney a shower maybe. I don't know.
(Laughter.)
You know, at the time you think this is what we have to do. You don't like it, but you think it's necessary, and at the end you just think
JAY LENO: So then you get a little conscience saying not to, but then why show it to the press at the press conference?
MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, they were very cynical about it, but the point is, if we hadn't shown it, they would have said, "You didn't have an ad. You're just bluffing us." If I had really wanted to be disingenuous what I would have done is run the ad for three days and then said, "Oh, I have a conscience now. I think I'm going to pull it."
JAY LENO: You did that very well. "Oh, I have a conscience."
(Laughter.)
That was a real good political
MIKE HUCKABEE: I hope I have a conscience, which would be very unusual for politics to have a conscience.
JAY LENO: I know. Now, you have some interesting positions. I was not aware of this one until just this week when I started to research you a little bit. You want to dismantle the IRS. Everybody cheers that.
(Applause.)
Everybody loves that idea, but what is your alternative? You do away with the IRS, then what?
MIKE HUCKABEE: We would have a consumption tax rather than a tax on productivity.
JAY LENO: Value added?
MIKE HUCKABEE: It really wouldn't be a V.A.T. It's a simple like a sales tax at the point of retail sales. Let me tell you why that's different. You, first of all, eliminate the underground economy. So everybody is paying drug dealers, prostitutes, gamblers all those people pay like the rest of us.
JAY LENO: There must be some legitimate work in there.
(Laughter.)
Boy, you really are in politics.
(Laughter.)
Now, what about a poor person goes and suddenly how much is this tax? 23, 24 percent?
MIKE HUCKABEE: It's 23. But here's the thing. Every person receives a "prebate" of the taxes that they would have on the level of the poverty, which means that what you really do with this fair tax, which is what it's called, is you untax the poor. They don't pay taxes, which means it's really a progressive tax system. That's why I love it because it would take the people least able to afford the taxes, and it virtually untaxes them.
Here's what it also does. It frees people up to earn as much as they want. You don't get taxed on income, savings, investments, capital gains, or debt.
I met a guy in New Hampshire. This is an interesting point. He's working a second shift at a machine shop, trying try to help his daughter go through Cornell. She's in grad school. $54,000 bucks a year to help her out. And he's working a second shift. My first thing was, "Thank you, Lord. My daughter is not in grad school at Cornell because that's a lot of money." But then he tells me, "I'm now in a new tax bracket because I'm working a second shift, and the additional taxes I'm paying almost takes away what I'm getting on the second shift." What we've done is we've told him that, if he really, really works hard, we're going to make it really hard for him to help his daughter. Here is how he can get his daughter some help: Quit both shifts, stop working, and he could then qualify for his daughter to have some federal assistance. That's nutty.
We ought to have a system that encourages people to work, to think about the small business guy that sketches out the idea on his kitchen table. He wants to go into business for himself, but his greatest competitor is not the guy across town or across the country. His greatest competitor is his own government that makes it real difficult for him to fill out the paperwork and pay the taxes.
(Applause.)
JAY LENO: Now, quickly the Democrats also seem to be gaining in Iowa. Let's say you win. Who would you want to win on the Democratic ballot? Who would you want to run against?
MIKE HUCKABEE: I still want them all to drop out, and let me have a clear shot all the way to the White House.
(Laughter.)
JAY LENO: So you're realistic about this.
MIKE HUCKABEE: Yeah, frankly, I think there's some Democrats that I think they're all sincere. I think there's a fundamental difference between us in terms of whether we think taxes ought to go up or down, whether government ought to be more or less involved. Look, I have respect for anybody that runs for president. I have a great respect for Barack Obama. I think he's a person who is trying to do in many ways what I hope I'm trying to do and that is to say let's quit what I call "horizontal politics." Everything in this country is not left, right, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican. I think the country is looking for somebody who is vertical, who is thinking, "Let's take America up and not down," and people will forgive you for being left or right if you go up.
(Applause.)
JAY LENO: I know you've got to get back to Iowa.
MIKE HUCKABEE: I do.
JAY LENO: I love Iowa. Thank you, sir, Mike Huckabee.
"Here's the bottom line: Of the tier-one candidates, whom do you trust on the most fundamental issues we face? Romney has flipped on every major issue preceding his run for the president – no wonder there's a laugh track when it comes to the question of integrity on that ad. Oh, and another thing. Romney just came out in favor of ENDA – The Employment Non Discrimination Act, "thought crimes for the workplace" – which was responsible for closing down Catholic Charities' adoption agency because they refused to place vulnerable orphan children in the homes of homosexual activists. Not surprising, Romney could have prevented it by executive order while governor, said Michael Dukakis (who is not known for his pro-family advocacy): "The state's anti-discrimination statutes do not preclude an exemption for the Catholic organization," he said. But, instead, the largest and most respected adoption agency in Boston was forced out of business while Romney was busy declaring "Youth Gay Pride Day" and his Department of Health was developing the vulgar "The Little Black Book … Queer in the 21st Century," indoctrinating children to perform "safe gay sex" – an oxymoron. Business owners, brace yourself. Unless you also embrace and subsidize the homosexual agenda, Romney will try to close your doors, as well."
Gov. Huckabee on Camera and Voice-over Graphics: “In a hundred and sixty years in Arkansas , we’d never really had a broad-based, wide-spread tax cut. I was able to sign the first ever. The economic policies that we did in my state, cutting taxes, streamlining government, resulted in the largest number of job creations. I cut taxes over 90 times. Balanced the budget every year I was governor. Left a surplus of nearly a billion dollars, and did it in the face of an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature. That's a pretty good record.”
From Joseph Farah's article, "The Many Faces Of Mitt":
"First, from a logical standpoint, this makes no sense. If you can't see why stabbing an unborn baby in the head with a pair of scissors is an overtly evil act, I don't think any amount of study of embryonic stem cell research will awaken your sense of moral outrage. But that's what Romney would like us to believe. After all, he's got to explain why he discovered so late in his public life that people have an inherent right to life." (Read More . . . )
In 2003, the story noted, Romney told the Massachusetts congressional delegation that when it came to the Bush tax cuts, he wouldn’t “be a cheerleader” for proposals he didn’t support.
“But I have to keep a solid relationship with the White House,” Romney noted to his state’s representatives in Washington.
Similarly, when Romney raised McCain’s unpopular immigration views in a campaign appearance Wednesday, the Arizonan’s campaign was ready.
“Last Year, Romney Supported ‘Path Toward Citizenship’ for Illegal Immigrants, Said Republicans Breaking With President Bush on Immigration ‘Made a Big Mistake,'" McCain’s aides reminded in a press release over 2006 stories in the Lowell Sun and Associated Press.
Also included was the November 2005 story from the Boston Globe where Romney deemed McCain’s immigration approach “quite different” from amnesty and “reasonable.”
Romney and his campaign have at-the-ready answers to counter the counters.
But his challenge is that there are seemingly few issues where he has not been previously more moderate than he is now or where a rival can’t at least find a discrepancy sufficient to blur an attack.
Abortion is the one issue that he fesses up to having flat changed his mind on, but that the list only begins there.
On gay rights, campaign finance reform, gun control and even his own political identity, Romney has tonally, if not substantively, moved to the right.
The Fair Tax Is About Economic Growth By Louis R. Woodhill
Mike Huckabee’s recent surge in the polls has focused attention on the FairTax, which would replace personal income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, corporate income taxes, and the death tax with a national retail sales tax.
There are many benefits to the FairTax, but the most important one is economic growth. By replacing taxes that burden capital investment with a tax that falls 100% on consumption, the FairTax would produce dramatically higher levels of investment, productivity, wages, and GDP growth. You would hear a “great sucking sound” as investment was pulled into the U.S. economy, not only from the rest of the world, but via the savings of our own people. (Read more...)
Governor Mitt Romney refused yesterday to endorse tax cuts at the heart of President Bush's economic program...In addition to refusing to endorse the president's tax cut, the governor surprised several people at the meeting by saying he is open to a federal increase in gas taxes. Boston Globe, 4/11/0
After he started running for President:
[Romney] said it was "absolutely critical" to renew tax cuts proposed by President George W. Bush. Letting them expire would result in a "massive tax increase" that would retard economic growth, Romney said. Detroit Free Press, 2/8/07
"I'm not intending to, at this stage, sign a document which would prevent me from being able to look specifically at the revenue needs of the commonwealth" Associated Press, 3/27/02
After he started running for President:
"Signing the pledge now sends a very clear message to those in Washington who have voted against tax relief and for tax hikes that such actions will never grow our regional and national economies." Romney spokesman, Boston Globe, 1/5/07
"Jesus said that we are to render to God the things that are God’s and to Caesar those that are Caesar’s. Our Caesar is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. In order for us to render to Caesar the things that are due him, we should indeed participate in our government. Our Lord would have it so." ~ Adrian Rogers
"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." ~ Thomas Jefferson
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