Is Huckabee a kinder gentler conservative?

Question

Interesting article on the onset of Huckabee's political career in Arkansas, a career deeply rooted in his evangelical calling, enjoy!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/us/politics/06huckabee.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Answer 1

Calling Huckabee a liberal is like calling hamburger a vegetable.

EDIT: Huckabee, COMPASSIONATE? Give me a BREAK! I worked as an office manager for a medical supply company during his first term of governor in Arkansas when he cut Medicaid spending for supplies like ADULT DIAPERS for quadraplegics who must have those to keep their skin from breaking down into sores and to prevent infection..and needed supplies for other needs sometimes like tube feeding ( if you strictly look at it from the financial aspect as he kept stressing it was NECESSARY TO SAVE the stressed Medicaid program)
I personally knew from our store alone a dozen families were stretched to the breaking point because of his cuts in funding. They could not affford the complete monthly costs of some of their supplies ( supplies for tube feedings and other necessities were cut as well ) Some ended up with sores or infections..and in and out of hospitals, at greater costs, but funded under hospitalization so he claimed a great victory in decreasing the costs in one area!

Medicaid did not cover the cost of nursing home care for some of these people because they had too many " assets"..despite little income. One has to be more or less destitute for Medicaid to cover nursing home care..and for most of these people they could remain at home if they could simply have supplies.

I can never forgive the pain and suffering his cuts caused people I knew and people I worked hard to help find sources of funding to simply buy their quadraplegic and paraplegic children and adult children supplies they needed to LIVE.

THAT is one of the main reasons why I SHUDDER to think of where this country would end up with Huckabee as a president. Our health care system is already in serious trouble.

His " healthy child" initiaive has left our state with children MORE obese than when it started. His legacy and record are all slick rhetoric followed by pandering to a fundamentalist fan base.

His "covenant marriage act" that he lauded as such a wonderful victory for families is now chosen by a miniscule number of new couples marrying beause of the hardships it places on women in abusive relationships seeking divorce!

http://marriage.about.com/od/covenantmarriage/Covenant_Marriage.htm < read here about covenant marriages and the pitfalls


Here are some pages to check Huckabee's record. http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/huckabees_fiscal_record.html ( also do a search on Huckabee at factcheck and these items appear:
Huckabee claimed he would “abolish the IRS.” He failed to mention that he’d replace it with another big tax bureaucracy.
Huckabee said he had proposed to make children of illegal aliens eligible for Arkansas scholarships if they "had been in our schools their entire school life.” Actually, the proposal required only three years in Arkansas schools.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee praised a "fair tax" but failed to note that it would ease the burden on the richest Americans while imposing a stiff retail sales tax of perhaps 34 percent. Whether thie proposal he said he supported is "fair" or not is of course a matter of opinion. In fact, President Bush's bipartisan Advisory Panel on Tax Reform rejected the idea, saying it would substantially increase taxes for 80 percent of U.S. taxpayers while benefiting those at the top. The panel calculated that a sales tax would have to be set at 34 percent of retail sales prices to bring in the same revenue as the taxes it would replace, meaning that an automobile with a retail price of $10,000 would cost $13,400 including the new sales tax.


LOOK HERE also to see if what he supported in 2002 is what you want for your president..( He refused to answer the questions to these issues again in 2007) http://votesmart.org/npat.php?can_id=1657 < Project Vote Smart

Here it indicates when given the choices of supporting either k) Support age-appropriate sexual education programs that teach about abstinence, contraceptives, and HIV/STD prevention methods.
or
l) Support abstinence-only sexual education programs.
He chose the abstinence only sexual education program.
I went to school in the 60s and 70s and we learned about STD's THEN! I can recall learning that a girl in my very own class figured out she HAD an STD from watching the film in high school that taught about it. I cannot imagine a responsible parent, yet alone responsible leader not wanting a populace that is educated about our own bodies.

What is compassionate about that?

Is he afraid if children and teens learn about contraception and STDs that it encourages sex in that population? ( if so, he is also too ignorant to be the leader of the U.S. )

Can the U.S. afford a President whose science literacy is so low that he believes that creationism is an alternative theory to a scientific theory?

For a time I just wrote off the popularity of Huckabee among the vocal Christian conservatives in Arkansas a reflection of our states lower educational and economic status..but now that I see his rise in popularity in the general populace it downright terrifies me to think I live in a nation that is heading into the dark ages, educationally, socially and morally.

It feels like the right wing agenda is leading our nation to hell in a handbasket and all I can do is look on with horror.

If this is an episode of the Twilight Zone, I sure need a commercial break about now.

Answer 2

He does seem to be a truly compassionate conservative, pointing out the biblical responsibility to provide for the poor. Nonetheless, this man scares me. He refers to gays as "perverts" and called the former governor who supported the National Endowment for the Arts a pornographer. Hardly mainstream views. I think he would be very vulnerable in a general election. The GOP has been kind to him in the primary because they do not want to alienate the Christian base. The Democrats and a possible independent would have no such incentive to give him a free pass on his extreme views.

PS Cornbread: Obvious bias against Huckabee and Christian Conservatives? Did you read the article? Why are Christian Conservatives always playing the martyr role?

Answer 3

I never met the man. He seems like a nice guy. The problem is the GOP. It's been devoured by reactionaries who view Ronald Reagan like a god and the American wage-earner like they're sheep to be sheared. There's no way Huck would be able to be anything but a 'me-to' as long as the movers and shakers of the party are industry shills, Oil Mafia dons and wild-eyed Jesus freaks that 'believe' in a lot of nonsense. The main thrust of the Republican party is throwing fear into the public about how the 'Islamofascists' are somehow going to 'defeat' us and somehow 'destroy' our country...meanwhile our social and physical infrastructure is experiancing far more damage by allowing it to fall apart, allowing toxic waste to even exist and putting up a massive fight against the obvious fact of climate change and that a single payer health insurance plan is somehow 'socialism'. Huck simply will have no chance against that kind of influence.....that's why I'm voting for Obama or Clinton.....'We the People' may have a degree of influence over the Democrats that we'll never have over the Republicans. No kiddin'!

Answer 4

He is a good and decent man. But for me, he is wrong on immigration and therefore, unacceptable.

I would like to take this opportunity to shout out to anyone who wishes to run for any office in the USA. Commit your heart and soul to enforcing current immigration laws, building the fence, criminalizing the hiring of illegals and forbidding amnesty or forget about your career.

.

Answer 5

Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani are all liberal republicans.

Each have fewer conservative tendencies than they have liberal.

No front runner in this election from either side well do good things for this country.

We are left with a choice of Socialism by swoop or by chip.

Answer 6

he did no longer safeguard him. yet he did attempt to rationalize the comments. yet in no way did he safeguard the statements! : or we've a decision in this usa. we are able to settle for a politics that breeds branch, and conflict, and cynicism. we are able to handle race in basic terms as spectacle - as we did interior the OJ trial - or interior the wake of tragedy, as we did interior the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly information. we are able to play Reverend Wright's sermons on each and every channel, on a daily basis and talk approximately them from now till the election, and make the only question in this marketing campaign no remember if or no longer the yankee human beings think of that I by some potential have self belief or sympathize together with his maximum offensive words. we are able to pounce on some gaffe by way of a Hillary supporter as info that she's enjoying the race card, or we are able to invest on no remember if white men will all flock to John McCain interior the final election regardless of his regulations. we are able to try this. yet as quickly as we do, i'm able to enable you to already know that interior the subsequent election, we would be speaking approximately another distraction. and then yet another one. and then yet another one. And no longer something will substitute.

Answer 7

This article, despite its obvious bias against Huckabee and Christian Conservatives, makes me lean towards Huckabee even more. We deseperately need a true conservative in the oval office. Mr. Reagan, your assistance is needed, Sir!

Answer 8

No what I see with him is a modified neo-con, softer spoken, more articulate.......but in the end a neo-con through and through....enhanced and upgraded.

The sick and infirm neo-con Party uses the billions of dollars saved by not providing health care to eliminate and kill people around the world who don't see things their way. How much more depravity is the Republican Party capable of? The GOP hits a new low when it denies people the medical attention they require. The GOP goes even lower when they fund depleted uranium, phosphorous bombs, cluster bombs, shock and awe, etc., over child inoculations, pre-natal care, dialysis, PTSD, etc. This is the Republican Party that shoves its Lord and Savior, Jesus, down everyone's throats the way it shoves tubes down hunger strikers in GTMO. Given the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has a hot place reserved for Republicans. If there was a reason Hell to exist, it would be you. Yes, you who profess Judeo-Christian ethics as you ignore them. You who lock up the hungry for pilfering food as you steal oil. You who protect discarded blastocysts under the guise that "all life is precious" as you drop high altitude bombs on pregnant women and children.

Answer 9

I really have a problem with the idea of an ordained minister being president of the USA.

Answer 10

No. He is another Bible thumping fruit who would let his personal religious beliefs interfere with his political beliefs.