Tax Hike for Christ Mike

Of course the NY Times likes a tax-hiker like Huckabee, but they would especially like Mike Huckabee to be the nominee so they can invoke fears of a theocracy, something he plays into with his latest ad.

Here's the Club for Growth on Tax Hike Mike:

According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the average Arkansas tax burden increased 47% over Huckabee’s tenure. Huckabee supported (in chronological order) a sales tax hike; gas and diesel fuel tax hikes; another sales tax hike; a cigarette tax hike; a nursing home bed tax; another sales tax hike; an income surcharge tax; a tobacco tax hike; taxes on Internet access; and higher beer taxes. Huckabee also oversaw a 50-percent increase in spending; happily signed a minimum wage increase and encouraged national Republicans to do the same; favors a national smoking ban, farm subsidies, and a federally mandated arts and music curriculum; opposes private school choice; and employs class-warfare and protectionist language on the campaign trail. Huckabee calls himself an economic conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan, but the above list doesn’t sound like either.

Read more here.

Here's their ad in Iowa. Huckabee attacks the Club for Growth in this video of an interview with Chris Wallace, calling them the Club for Greed. (Does this guy even sound like a Republican?) And here's a follow up story by Carl Cameron, where Huckabee lies about his tax hikes. Do we need another liar from Arkansas?

And Huckabee's own ad essentially saying vote for me, I'm a Christian. (Oh, yeah, and he tucks in there a quote from Time magazine that he's one of America's best governors, hardly a conservative testimonial.)

Hey, I'm a Christian too, but I don't think it's a campaign platform, nor should it be. Even Pat Robertson back when he ran for president never went that far. The more I learn about Huckabee, the more creepy he seems to me. George Will puts his finger on it:

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee's candidacy rests on serial non sequiturs: I am a Christian, therefore I am a conservative, therefore whatever I have done or propose to do with "compassionate," meaning enlarged, government is conservatism. And by the way, anything I denote as a "moral" issue is beyond debate other than by the uncaring forces of greed. His is a moralist's version of the intellectual vanity once ascribed to Oxford's Benjamin Jowett:

My name is Jowett

Of Balliol College;

If I don't know it,

It is not knowledge.

Will has more to say to the point, especially about Huckabee's unpleasant attack on Romney. And add to that his liberal views on immigration, Huckabee is an outlier in the Republican party.

Tax Hike for Christ Mike Huckabee oughta lose in Iowa.

UPDATE: Huckabee has a lotta hutzpah--God is on his side?! Check this out.