A McCain-Huckabee Ticket? The Right Reacts

Huckabee is a Winner for McCain

Huckabee's supporters are waiting for McCain to realize he is the best choice for VP - if he is chosen you will see an immediate response from social conservatives and will energize the party. My greatest fear is that McCain will be pressured to choose someone who Republican insiders like - a fatal mistake for McCain. He will lose if he does that.

McCain needs someone to be fun and appealing to voters, a down to earth person who relates well to all segments of our society. Mike Huckabee is a genuine guy and would work well with both Republicans and Democrats. He's the man!

mary of AR @ Jul 31, 2008 15:54:34 PM

Huck brings out the worst in me!

I get so angry everytime I think about him and about how he in his pretended innocence stirred up the anti-mormon sentiments of his followers. He is an anti-mormon big time. Now I don't care what a man's religion is so long as he is a good and decent man, an upstanding man, a wise and capable and above all conservative man. But no way a decent man would bash another's religion. Its snide and underhanded. That is Huckabee, horrible, snide and underhanded.

And furthermore, what kind of man makes jokes about shooting presidential candidates? Huckabee joked about shooting Obama and Romney. He has zero class!

I will not vote for McCain but will actively oppose him if he so much as picks the snide classless Huckabee. And I know many Mormons who feel the same way. Anyone but Huckabee!

Lori of CA @ Jun 09, 2008 16:48:54 PM

Huckabee as Prez not V.P.

Forget VP I want Huckabee as President! And why was he not invited to this weekend VP potential picnic McCain is having? And what is McCain saying about this partial birth ruling in Fla? And remember this folks McCain is the "presumptive" nominee! I love Mike Huckabee!

Nandi of KY @ May 21, 2008 22:40:29 PM

After 10 years of Huckabee- What is Arkansas like?

Let’s examine just how Huckabee left the state of Arkansas after 10.5 years as Governor:

1) Education- I will post details that will show it is still well below average and in some polls in the bottom 10.

2) Crime (in addition to pardoning murderers and rapists):

http://www.morganquitno.com/cit07pop.htm#25

Gee, Little Rock, AR ranks as the 23rd most dangerous city in the US.

Scroll down and find that out of the 25 most dangerous metropolitan areas in the US, four have AR after them: (Memphis, TN-MS-AR at #2; Pine Bluff at #3; Hot Springs at #13; and Little Rock at #16)

http://www.os.cqpress.com/Crime%20State%202008_Most%20Dangerous.pdf

Arkansas ranks as the 11th most dangerous state in the US in 2008, it was 13th in 2007.

3) Health Care:

http://www.os.cqpress.com/Healthiest%20State%202008_Rankings.pdf

In 2008, AR ranks as the 37th healthiest state, the same as in 2007.

(Please note that MA ranks 5th in 2008, but was 3rd in 2007.)

4) Most Livable:

http://www.os.cqpress.com/StateRank2008_Rankings.pdf

In 2008, AR was the 46th most livable state, up from 48 in 2007.

So, let’s summarize: After 10.5 years of Huckabee in charge, the state of Arkansas has a crappy education system (which has the benefit of the people being so stupid as to realize just how poor their life is), has the second lowest median household income in the US, has a high tax to income percentage, is a very dangerous place to live with 4 of the most dangerous metropolitan areas in the US being in AR, has well below average health and overall is not very liveable. In fact, it just down right sucks to be from AR. The only thing worse is to be moving TO AR.

HUCKABEE 2012 so he can screw then entire country!

Dean of WA @ May 18, 2008 02:16:08 AM

Huckabee vs. Romney spending patterns

From the http://www.census.gov/govs/www/estimate05.html website, we have the following (please note that for whatever reason there is no data for 2002-2003, this is unfortunate since Huckabee had been Governor in AR since 1996 but Romney was sworn in January 2003 and so his first budget was 2004-2005. Also note that the spreadsheet says dollars are in the $000, meaning you have to multiply by 1000 to get what I have below.)

AR MA

2001-2002 $14,599,361,000 $51,125,208,000

2002-2003 no data available

2003-2004 $16,323,339,000 $58,207,511,000

2004-2005 $17,253,392,000 $59,040,717,000

Population

In 2003-2004 2,750,000 6,407,000

So the percent increase in expenditures between 2001-2002 and 2003-2004 was for AR

(16,323,339,000/14,599,361,000*100)-100 = 12% and for MA (pre Romney making the budget) it was 14%.

See, you have to compare percent because the budget in MA is so much larger than in AR to start with because the population is 2.3 times as big and there are many more urban areas which are much more expensive on average than rural areas. Dust, this plays into your constant harping of Romney raising taxes $700M per year. Even if that were true, that is only 1% for a $59B budget.

What we see is that the rate of increase in MA and AR for the two years prior to Romney making the budget were close to the same, 12% and 14%.

But when Romney became Governor, the first thing he did was cut programs and consolidate government offices.

So the percent increase in expenditures between 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 are 5.7% in AR and 1.4% in MA. The important thing to note is that the rate of increase in AR was about the same as the previous years. Also, the inflation rates in 2003, 2004, and 2005 were 2.27%, 2.68%, and 3.39% respectively. That means Huckabee was increasing spending at more or about twice the rate of inflation every year- that is HE WAS GROWING GOVERNMENT. Romney’s first year, on the other hand, had growth about half the rate of inflation, so HE WAS SHRINKING GOVERNMENT!

I will admit, we know Romney did not continue that great trend, but we don’t have the numbers for us to do the independent assessment- but we also don’t know if Huckabee went on a spending binge his last couple of years either.

But this data clearly shows a big difference between the two. And remember, Huckabee had been in charge for quite some time- so a true leader would have been able to slow that growth in spending.

Dean of WA @ May 18, 2008 02:09:02 AM

Huckabee Tax Increases

Huckabee tax increases

- Imposed an income tax surcharge of 3 percent on tax liabilities of individuals and domestic and foreign corporations (Act 38, 1st special session of 2003). (It was temporary until revenues improved. The legislature repealed it in 2005.)

- Increased the sales tax by 1/8 of one percent by initiated act (but it was a personal campaign by Huckabee, who campaigned across the state for it and took a celebrated bass boat trip for 4 days down the Arkansas River holding press conferences in each river city to urge passage of the act)

- Increased the sales tax by one-half of 1 percent (Act 1492 of 1999)

- Increased the sales tax by 7/8ths of 1 percent and expand the sales tax to many services previously exempt from the tax (Act 107, 2nd special session of 2003)

- Collected a 2 percent tax on chewing tobacco, cigars, package tobacco, cigarette papers and snuff (Act 434 of 1997)

- Levied an additional excise tax of 7 percent on tobacco (Act 38 of 1st special session of 2003)

- Increased the tax on cigarette and tobacco permits (Act 1337 of 1997)

- Increased the tax on cigarette and tobacco – cigarettes by $1.25 per thousand cigarettes and 2 percent of the manufacturers’ selling price on tobacco products (Act 434 of 1997)

- Increased the tax on cigarettes by 25 cents a pack (Act 38, 1st special session of 2003)

- Levied a 3 percent excise tax on all retail sales of beer (Act 1841 of 2001 and extended by Act 272 of 2003 and Act 2188 of 2005)

- Revived the 4 percent mixed drink tax of 1989 and added a 4 percent tax on private clubs (Act 1274 of 2005)

- Increased the tax on gasoline by 3 cents a gallon (Act 1028 of 1999)

- Increased the tax on diesel by 4 cents a gallon (Act 1028 of 1999) Note: Contrary to what Huckabee has said repeatedly in debates, speeches and TV shows, the 1999 gasoline and diesel taxes were not submitted to the voters and approved by 80 per cent of them. It was never submitted to a vote. It was the governor’s bill and it became law without a vote of the people. What the voters did approve in 1999 was a bond issue for interstate highway reconstruction but it did not involve a tax increase. Existing taxes and federal receipts were pledged to retire the bonds.

- Increased the driver’s license by $6 a person, from $14 to $20 (Act 1500 of 2001)

http://www.arkansasleader.com/2007/11/editorialswhos-biggest-tax-raiser.html

Dean of WA @ May 18, 2008 01:56:19 AM

Like Britney Spears, Oops I did it again!

HuckaBEEN’s outrageous comment about a gun aimed at Obama is NOT his first major gaff. I love the photo at the link below of the New York Post’s “I HUCKED UP! MIKE APOLOGIZES TO MITT FOR MORMON DEVIL DISS”. Will this loser ever learn?!

http://michellemalkin.com/2007/12/13/reasons-i-love-ny-post-headline-writers-part-87523/

Shelby of WA @ May 17, 2008 18:53:42 PM

Really is he that stupid

I realize McCain likes to make his own decisions and go against the grain, but there's no way he will go against public opinion and pick Huckabee now. Huckabee is always one joke away from costing the GOP the General Election. Also if you give Huckabee a mic it's only a matter of time before he says something that is incorrect or extremely controversial. He sense of history and foreign relations knowledge are well below par. He's not even close to being ready to be President or VP. I'm sorry, but there's no way in the world I will vote for McCain if Huckabee is on that ticket.

Jesse Bradford of MA @ May 17, 2008 06:38:30 AM