The Huckster in His Own Words

The earlier post I had today that focused on Huckabee wasn’t meant to be critical. This one is! Since the latest fad seems to be defining conservatism, I wanted to share with you an interview from the Washington with Governor Huckabee in 2006, when he was contemplating a run for the White House. Here are some of the highlights from the complete transcript:

Huckabee on sealing the Mexican border with armed forces:

“I also would have had a real problem with using a military force for a police function… Part of my problem with that would have been that we have, in essence, militarized a peaceful border, and I think that’s a terrible precedent.”

Huckabee on Amnesty:

“I tend to think that the rational approach is to find a way to give people a pathway to citizenship. You shouldn’t ignore the law or ignore those who break it. But by the same token, I think it’s a little disingenuous when I hear people say they should experience the full weight of the law in every respect with no pathway, because that’s not something we practice in any other area of criminal justice in this country.”

Huckabee on President Bush’s illegal immigration plan:

“To think that we’re going to go lock up 12 million people, or even round them up and drive them to the border and let them go, might make a great political speech, but it’s not going to happen. What should happen, however, is exactly what I think the president has proposed, and that is that we create a process where people make restitution for the fact they have broken the law.

It’s not an amnesty, and I know that there are some who think that anything less than essentially grabbing them by the nape of the neck and tossing them over a fence, real or imaginary, is amnesty. But I think that’s ridiculous. And whether it’s Patrick Kennedy, Rush Limbaugh, or an illegal immigrant, there ought to be some rationality in how we apply our law. We do that every day.

…

“Suddenly to say that these people that came over here to pluck a chicken, pick a tomato, or make a bed should suffer the full consequences of the law as if somehow they’ve totally violated our peace and prosperity, is absurd.”

Huckabee on the reaction to the immigration bill:

“You can’t get them off of it, and you can’t have a discussion beyond the classic, “what part of illegal do you not understand?” I understand it correctly. I know exactly what that means.”

On Romney Care:

“The question that I have not had anyone answer yet is: If the mandated cost is roughly $200 per person on the mandated insurance, but the actual costs of providing it is more like $600 a year, who pays the $400 difference? That’s a question I have not been able to fully get an answer for. So if the government picks up the $400 gap, is that a huge tax increase? And who pays that tax increase? And how do you enforce?

I think, though, that what has been helpful is that it has opened up this whole discussion of the need to make sure that we didn’t have this vast population out there that really doesn’t have coverage. Now, one of the things, though, that has to be understood is there are a lot of people who don’t have coverage because they can’t afford it. There’s a whole group of Americans who could afford it; they just don’t choose to have it, because they either don’t anticipate needing it or they assume that somebody else will take care of it. And certainly, that’s a problem.”

From the summary by Chris Cilliza:

Asked whether he considers himself to be more “preacher” or “politician,” Huckabee insisted that it is impossible to separate the two. “I would say that my faith has everything to do with my politics,” he explained. “The reason I care about people in poverty, the reason that I care about people who live in substandard housing, the reason that I was moved to compassion [for the victims of Hurricane] Katrina without any doubt was because of my faith.”

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Huckabee said his faith leads him to take positions on issues — like immigration — that “tend to be a little unconventional.” On immigration, Huckabee aligns himself with President Bush rather than more conservative elements of the Republican Party, favoring a “pathway to citizenship” for those who at one time entered the United States illegally.

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“Huckabee’s insistence that faith should guide how government helps Americans struggling to make ends meet is creating some tensions within the national Republican Party.”

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Huckabee’s political philosophy is not simply a parroting of positions favored by social conservatives; rather, it is an attempt to fuse social and fiscal concerns. “There are a lot of people in the Republican Party who think there is this total disconnect between fiscal responsibility and social responsiblity,” said Huckabee. “I’ve never matched it up quite like that.”

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The best example of the intermingling of the social and the fiscal, according to Huckabee, is on health care — on which 16 percent of America’s gross national product is spent.

To hear him tell it, 75 percent of health care costs are caused by chronic disease, and the root causes of chronic disease are overeating, smoking and inactivity. “Change those three behaviors and there’s a dramatic shift,” argued Huckabee. “The one thing that will really change America is to go from a disease focus to a health focus.”

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“If you just look at the sheer statistical numbers from a dispassionate perspective, there has been in fact some real consequences as there has been a growing instability of the family unit,” he said. Huckabee’s solution is a refocusing — on a personal and public policy level — on rebuilding communities.

Compassionate conservatism to the core! Huckabee must’ve really studied Hillary Clinton’s “It Takes A Village.” This guy scares the bejeebus outta me…

“The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men who understand that their duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power that they have been given.”- Barry Goldwater