Huckster for Big Government

Mike Huckabee, Huckster for big government. Drudge links to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette--a Governor Huckabee speech from 1998:

"The reason we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity," he said. "And the reason we have so much broken humanity is because sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior." [snip]

Huckabee said ungiving individuals are responsible for higher taxes. [Well, he's got that right--liberals are the cheapest people around, and they always vote for higher taxes.]
"I'm often asked why taxes are so high and government is so big. It's because the faith we have in local churches has become so small. If we'd been doing what we should have -- giving a dime from every dollar to help the widows, the orphans and the poor -- we now wouldn't be giving nearly 50 cents of every dollar to a government that's doing ... what we should have been doing all along."

He doesn't make the argument for smaller government--that faith-based solutions work better and government should be limited to what only government can do. No, he embraces Big Government.

He's the liberals' dark horse, dark-visioned common good (commie) candidate--with his hand in your wallet--all that passion, uh compassion...for power.

UPDATE: WaPo: Huckabee's a target; but lots of MSM liberal journalists like him (I wonder why). They like him for now, but the knives will be out for the general election. Newsweek cover, Holy Huckabee; RCP Blog, with the latest on the Iowa race with Romney, and Thompson?

UPDATE: Will Huckabee last? Kansas City Star:

A month before Iowa's first-in-the-nation Jan. 3 presidential caucuses, the former Arkansas governor was even drawing European reporters sniffing for the next Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton.

Yeah, Europe loved those guys but it didn't work out so well for us. More background on why Huckabee's a lousy choice for Republicans:

As Iowa has developed into a budding showdown with Romney, Huckabee fell into the awkward position of fielding questions about Romney's Mormon faith. "I don't think it's relevant to the presidency," the Baptist preacher and one-time religious broadcaster said, even as he aired commercials describing him as a "Christian leader."

He seemed to fumble questions Tuesday about a new National Intelligence Estimate that concluded that Iran shut down its nuclear weapons program four years ago. That focused attention on a potential weak spot: a lack of experience in military and foreign affairs.

His campaign ascendancy also has invited media attention to Huckabee's longstanding arguments with the Arkansas Ethics Commission over the propriety of gifts he received as governor.

And the anti-tax Club for Growth expanded its attack on his record of raising taxes in Arkansas to pay for better schools and roads.

"Huckabee himself admits that he's a `different kind of Republican,' a code word for more government involvement, less personal freedom, and greater dependence on government bureaucrats," Club president Pat Toomey said on the group's Web site.

UPDATE: Charles Krauthammer on Huckabee's unseemly use of religion for political purposes:

Just imagine that Huckabee were running one-on-one in Iowa against Joe Lieberman. (It's a thought experiment. Stay with me.) If he had run the same ad in those circumstances, it would have raised an outcry. The subtext -- who's the Christian in this race? -- would have been too obvious to ignore, the appeal to bigotry too clear.[snip]

Huckabee has been asked about this view that Mormonism is a cult. He dodges and dances. "If I'm invited to be the president of a theological school, that'll be a perfectly appropriate question," he says, "but to be the president of the United States, I don't know that that's going to be the most important issue that I'll be facing when I'm sworn in."

Hmmm. So it is an issue, Huckabee avers. But not a very important one. And he's not going to pronounce upon it. Nice straddle, leaving the question unanswered and still open -- the kind of maneuver one comes to expect from slick former governors of Arkansas lusting for the presidency.

I'd say this reveals the Ugly Huckabee.

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