Catalog of Huckabee Problems

An LA Times piece reprinted in the Register-Guard is a catalogue for the reason why I can't support Mike Huckabee's bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

SOFT ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

In 2005, a Republican state senator named Jim Holt introduced a bill to deny public benefits to Arkansas’ soaring population of illegal immigrants. Holt, a Southern Baptist minister, figured it was a rock-solid conservative idea — a matter, he said, “of right and wrong.”

Arkansas’ governor at the time also was a professed conservative, also a Southern Baptist minister. But Mike Huckabee had only scorn for his fellow Republican’s proposal.

Huckabee called the bill “race-baiting” and “demagoguery,” and argued that the denial of health services could harm innocent children. The bill, Huckabee said, did not comport with his take on Christian values.

“I drink a different kind of Jesus juice,” Huckabee said.

SOFT ON CRIME

Shortly after he became governor, Huckabee expressed his support for the release of a convicted rapist who, once freed, sexually assaulted another woman and killed her. Wayne Dumond had been sentenced to life plus 20 years in 1984 for raping a 17-year-old cheerleader. Tucker, Huckabee’s predecessor, reduced Dumond’s sentence in 1992, making him eligible for parole.

In 1996, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Huckabee questioned Dumond’s guilt and said he might commute his sentence to time served. He also met with the parole board in a closed session. Some board members have said Huckabee pressured them into releasing Dumond, while others said he did not.

Dumond was released from prison in October 1999. He chose his next victim 11 months later.

PRO-TAXES

He supported tax hikes on cigarettes, gasoline, groceries, sales and income. A video circulating on YouTube — and played, in part, on Wednesday’s CNN-YouTube Republican debate — shows Huckabee addressing the Arkansas Legislature in 2003 and suggesting that he would be open to raising a broad range of taxes.

GLOBAL WARMING DISCIPLE

As a presidential candidate, however, Huckabee talks about being “a good steward to the Earth” and argues that Christians have a duty to fight global warming.

SOCIALIZED MEDICINE

Huckabee also latched on early to the idea of expanding government health insurance to cover children of working-class people who made too much to qualify for Medicaid. The Arkansas plan, called ARKids First, was a forerunner to the federal government’s State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

MISC

That faith influenced major policy decisions that could be deemed moderate, if not liberal, including a significant environmental initiative and a vastly expanded health-care plan for low-income children.

In addition to finding nothing in either the Bible or the U.S. Constitution to support government doing what people should be doing for themselves, unlike Huckabee I agree with Ronald Reagan:

Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.