Talk radio vs. Mike Huckabee
For several weeks, so-called conservative radio talk show hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have been railing against Mike Huckabee as a threat to the Republican party. Limbaugh has been saying that if Mike Huckabee wins the Republican nomination, it will change the party forever and destroy it. Yesterday, Mr. Limbaugh made a statement that is as wacko as it gets. He openly stated that he would rather have a Democrat in the White House than Mike Huckabee. On the Sean Hannity program, Tom Delay was being interviewed and Mr. Hannity asked him about the top three candidates, which he named as Rudy Guiliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson. He did not mention Mike Huckabee and was very shocked to hear Mr. Delay bring up Huckabee’s name himself.
It is no big secret that these two men, among others, do not want to see Mike Huckabee win the Republican nomination and they are doing everything to make sure it doesn’t happen. That being said, why would Limbaugh make such a statement? Why would he rather have a Democrat in the White House than Mike Huckabee? Why does Sean Hannity refuse to even acknowledge Mike Huckabee, even though he is in second place in the delegate count?
As far as Limbaugh goes, the man has to be one of the most conceited men I have ever listened to. He is convinced he knows what is best for our country and he didn’t think Mike Huckabee stood a chance, from the very beginning. Now that he has been proven wrong, he can’t stand to face the facts and he has attacked Huckabee, trying to prove he is right. Face it folks, he doesn’t like it when the mere peons of this country, people like you and I, go against what we are told is good for us.
Sean Hannity has been railing against Hillary Clinton for months now, calling his show the “Stop Hillary Express”. While I agree Hillary Clinton needs to be stopped, I would ask Hannity this question. Does stopping Hillary Clinton have to come at the cost of destroying the one true conservative in the Presidential race? I would contend it does not.
Talk radio hosts, the above mentioned in particular, have been and will continue to rail against Mike Huckabee and tell us he is the worst thing that can happen to the Republican party. They will try to convince us how wrong we are to support him and his ideals. They will tell us our values do not count as much as certain fiscal conservative issues they like to hype. They will tell us a vote for Mike Huckabee is surely a vote for the Democrats. I say they are wrong. A vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote for us and our country. A vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote for our values. If you have questions about where Mike Huckabee stands on the issues, please take a moment to visit his website at www.mikehuckabee.com Take a look at where he stands for yourself and do not let someone else give you links that are filled with lies and half-truths. Do your own research and find out why we need Mike Huckabee as our next President.
That’s my take!
Larry
There are many who have invested heavily in off shore investments who fear that Huckabee, with his natural ability to connect with the mainstream of America, will change the tax system to one like the fair tax thus causing the richest to actually contribute to the cost of government here. Those who advocate a flat tax do so as long as it only covers “taxable income” and doesnt cost them when they purchase goods with the cash they have stashed in the Islands. They fear the working man will actually be treated fairly
FairTax will bring more jobs back to US as corporations no longer will be taxed. Bob is right that, the current big corps and richest people (not high-income people but people with bunch of money) find their ways in all sort of tax shelters. With FairTax they will have to pay taxes again when they buy their next yachts or private jets. These people have hijacked GOP for too long and the middle-class has been over taxed for too long. Off-shoring should be stopped and can be stopped if we make our environment more favorable. With FairTax, that’s the best environment a company wants to be in (no payroll tax, no income tax).
Mega Dittos, Larry, YOU are a great American! I used to always listen to Rush and Sean, but after listening to how they have distorted Gov. Huckabee’s position over and over again, I have been listening less and less. A caller asked Rush yesterday why he didn’t go after Romney’s record, Rush replied, “Well, I don’t have Romney’s record in front of me…” but then went on to attach McCain and Huckabee. Maybe Rush ought to go to Youtube, and take 10 min. of show prep and examine all of Romney’s flip flops and lies. Maybe Rush ought to go to Huckabee’s website and take 30 min. of show prep to see what he really believes, instead of taking short little sound bites, and twisting them to make Huckabee sound liberal. I suppose he will rail against Huckabee today because Bill Clinton said yesterday, “Huckabee is a good man.” I can hear Rush saying, “If Bill Clinton says Huckabee is a good man, you know he must really be evil.” He won’t mention that Clinton also said, “There is not much we agree on.” If that’s the case, perhaps Huckabee is conservative after all.
You are very right in calling them so-called conservatives. They don’t care about the unborn (they are willing to allow Rudy Giuliani to redefine the Republican Party to be socially liberal but say they fear Mike because they say he will change the party).
My proposal – if they keep unfairly bashing Mike and especially if they nominate Rudy or Romney – we go on strike. Stop listening to them and don’t support either of these socially liberal candidates.
thevaluesvoter.spaces.live.com
This article, and the subsequent comments are such an obvious set up. I know Huckabee is running out of funds, but this is ridiculous. Can you say “big hairy troll”?
Stunnedsilence,
I approved your comment for one reason and that was so I could respond. This article is the result of my thoughts for the last several weeks, after seeing the obvious bias against Mike Huckabee. That has nothing to do with his funds or lack thereof. Also, where do you get off calling me a troll? This is my blog and if you will look back at the archives, you will find that is one thing I am not. I bend over backwards to allow comments, even when I do not agree with them, but if anyone is a troll, it is you. Unless you can come up with a substantive comment, the above comment will be the last one from you I approve. It is up to you.
I’ll concede your post is probably legit, and most likely your own views. Be that as it may, the comments “you approve” are skewed in your favor right up to my comment, and unless you have a following, the lack of any con views, seem to me not representative of anyone’s views but your own.
Stunnedsilence,
The only comment that has been deleted was a comment that simply made no sense and would add nothing to the discussion. The only other comments are the ones you see.
I want you to browse through the comments on some of my other articles and you will find that I do not delete comments that have views other than my own. Stupid and senseless name calling gets trashed. Legitimate comments get approved, even if I do not agree with them. Look and see for yourself.
Thanks for your comment.
Ty, point taken. I’ll certainly be watching for your articles a little closer, and maybe add a little diversity to the comments made here. Having said that, Go Mitt!
Stunnedsilence,
Thanks for keeping your comments civil and even though I do not agree with your Mitt comment, you are welcome to comment here.
So Sean’s top three are Rudy, Mitt and Fred? Well, Fred just dropped out, so for Sean is it just Rudy and Mitt now? With Sean’s pattern, I can see him finding a reason not to mention Huckabee, but to exclude McCain from the discussion when Rudy barely registers on the meter anymore is insane. Of course Sean lives in Rudy’s back pocket (or so it seems to me).
I see that this site is not a neutral site allowing comments that may not be positive to Huckabee. Will send to my loop of friends to avoid.
I can not vote for Mike, I am conservative and while I do not totally agree with Rush’s “Democrate before Mike…” statement I feel where he is comming from. The guy said the earth is 6,000 years old. I know that has nothing to due with being a president, but when you just refuse to trust science so blatenly you have to ask if he will govern or the leader of his church. Also you can bet that if he gets elected the greatest scientific advancement of our lifetime (Stem cell reasearch) will continuue to not get funding.
Joop,
You need to take a look at the comments on my articles and you will see your statement is not the truth. I allow comments all the time that do not agree with my point of view. You need to do a little browsing around before you start throwing accusations around that are not true.
Ryan,
When did Mike Huckabee say the world was only 6,000 years old? I believe you are misrepresenting what he actually said. He said he believed in the Creation, yes, but he did not say the world was 6,000 years old. He just said he didn’t know how God did it or how long it took Him, but he just believed He created the Heavens and the Earth.
Kerry,
Yes, Sean Hannity is grasping at anything he can find to exclude Mike Huckabee from the process. It’s almost as if he believes if he ignores him long enough, he will just go away. That’s not going to happen.
Sean Hannity seems to be nearly infatuated with Rudy Giuliani. They ignore the fact that many GOP members who voted for Bush said they’d never vote for Rudy. The hypocrisy is that if he were a Dem, all these guys would be attacking him on the basis of “moral values.” The values that were supposedly important to these guys until this election cycle.
Ryan, Larry answered the creationism response very well. As for “stem cell research” not being funded. Nothing is stopping porivate funding. The federal government has no business funding it period… you want it funded, donate to an organization that does. Don’t take my money to fund it.
Joop, Larry has always been fair in allow comments from people who disagree with him. I should know as he allows mine…
Larry, I am not suprised at some of the talk radio “personalities”. We are seeing the same thing with the TV & print “personalities”. Unbiased journalism is becoming more and more a thing of the past.
Tam,
Thank you for your support. I felt like I needed it today, what with all the comments. I never expected such a response to this post.
The 6000 year old earth thing has been reported on by everyone from CNN to Fox. Mike Huckabee even mentioned he belived it on the Colbert Report (I know its a comedy show but still…). As for stem cells private funding is great but not nearlly enough we should be doing something to support it. Mike is a great guy I like him as a person but I am just tired of people wrapped up in there religion on there all high and mighty morality horse running this country. I think the video where he made the comment (at the very least denies evolution) is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXajXz4DF1w I cant watch the clip but I think that is the right one…
I dont’ think Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity want a “good” Republican in office, it would take away what they have to rant about, day in and day out.
Ryan,
I do not believe in evolution myself. Huckabee says he believes God created the Heavens and the Earth. How long it took and how he did it, he doesn’t know. He says in the clip you have provided that it may have been 6 Billion years, but he belives God did it. What is wrong with that?
Nothing is wrong with it at all if people want to ignore scienctific evidence and think some guy snapped his fingers and created earth more power to them. I just think religous ideals should stay out of policy making. Whats next forcing the bible to be a required course in school? The point here is why the bible, if you want kids to study that you should have them study the koran and any other religous text (just to be “fair and ballanced”). It is a slippery slope and I just prefer to stay off it. Honestly though this is what makes the US such a great country I can think this and have this opinion and other people can think differently and thats ok, no one gets persecuted just for there belifs.
From what I gather about Huckabee, he is a “man of God” but believes in the death penalty.
“According to the Pew Forum on Religion and American Life, “Huckabee supports the death penalty. In his book, From Hope to Higher Ground, he described the death penalty as ‘a tough issue.’ He wrote that he believes ‘some crimes deserve it, but that does not mean I like it.’ He also described carrying out the death penalty as the worst part of his job as governor of Arkansas. In a December 2005 interview on PBS that he said that he has had to ‘carry out the death penalty more than any governor in the history of my state’ and that ‘it is not something I’m proud of.’”
Only one thought comes to mind, Mike……”thou shalt not kill.”
I honestly do not believe Mike Huckabee believes God just snapped his fingers and everything was created. I also do not believe he wants to force his beliefs on anyone else or let them interfere with public issues. Time after time, he has said he is running for President and isn’t interested in writing a text book.
You are correct about this making our country great. We can all agree to disagree and still get along and not have to blow each other up to prove our point.
Thanks for commenting.
JC,
Mike Huckabee did not make the laws of Arkansas, he was just faced with the task of carrying them out. Sure, he could have pardoned everyone of the people on death row, but then he would have gotten trouble for that. It seems like he is either too soft on crime or not soft enough. One thing about Huckabee, he actually took his job seriously and tried to do the best job he could do.
Larry, thank you for your reply and my response is that each of us has to decide which of the two masters we are to serve. It is not possible to be a true man of the cloth and a politician because of those serious unholy choices one would have to make. It appears that Huckabee has chosen to ignore the highest law, that of our Creator, so that he may follow a lower path. These statements are not in judgment, but only in observing what is true.
Huckabee is not currently the governor of any state and at this time favors the death penalty. Personally, I find it very disturbing of a candidate who is pro-life but would support the death penalty.
JC,
I do not agree with your assessment that a true man of the cloth can not be a politician. If that is true, then no Christian could be a politician. Christians that are lay members are supposed to walk by the same commandments as a preacher, even if the preacher is more out front with his walk with Christ. Mike Huckabee has not shown himself to be anything but a man of high integrity and honesty.
Honesty means – 1.the quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness.
2.truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness.
3.freedom from deceit or fraud.
Integrity means – 1.adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
2.the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished.
3.a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition.
Serving the Creator only when it suits is not being honest and there is no integrity. I feel sympathy that you don’t see the difference.
Serving as president would mean he would have to follow man’s law, which is certainly not the Creator’s. Mike Huckabee has already shown which laws he will follow.
I simply do not understand how you can say Mike Huckabee is serving God only when it suits him, just by being Governor of Arkansas and running for President. If that is the case, I say again that no Christian could be in public office without betraying their faith. I do not believe that to be true.
Honestly, I am not sure how much good this conversation is doing anyone. It is clear we are not going to agree about Mike Huckabee and if he should even be running for President. We will probably just have to disagree and be done with it.
Well, if a christian can’t be president, then a christian can’t hold any job in this country. Other than pastors, using JC’s logic would hold that Christians can have no job in this country. Ridiculous. I suppose that means the founding fathers should have been run out on a rail as well. And while we’re at it, let’s throw out all the founding fathers’ writings that mention God the Creator and grantor of our inalienable rights.
Kerry,
You are so right. Christians have as much right to run for President or any other public office as any other candidate. It is getting tiresome to see Mike Huckabee put down the road for his Christian beliefs, especially when other candidates are seemingly given a pass on theirs.
Isn’t usuary (charging interest) against God’s law? Then I guess all true Chirstians should not work in the banking industry, have credit cards, get a car loan, morgage, etc… that is, if we follow JC’s logic.
I actually donl;t get how someone can say that if one is president, they would not be living according to God’s Law. Does that mean if one is president they will suddenly start murdering people? Engage in sex outside of marriage? or some other sin?
I really get tired of people using the Christian arguement for or against a candidate. As long as someone is not going to force to me either belong to their religion, or live according to their religion – I really don’t care what they believe.
It will be a shame if big money takes the presidency away from Mike Huckabee. Mike has the grass roots support. I want him to talk about the real change for this country that he has committed to. Dismantling the IRS and replacing it with a FAIR TAX for everyone. This is what we want to hear about. Religion and abortion issues are devisive and will be used against him. We know his stand on those issues, so let move on the issue that could get him elected, taxes and the economy.
While I agree with Rush regarding Huckabee and McCain not being true Conservatives, I must add that neither is Romney nor Rudy. There is no point even discussing Rudy, but McCain is a true threat. Huckabee is not a true Conservative based on his running Arkansas as a Big Government state. It has nothing to do with being Christian.
The fact is he raised taxes, increased spending and gave scholarships to Illegals. There is no arguing that this is NOT a Conservative form of government. But, as a Christian who believes in Parents’ Rights, I am furious with Huckabee for being the only governor to actually restrict the rights of home-schoolers (1999 AK House Bill 1724) by imposing numerous restrictions on parents who pull their children out of public schools, as well as forcing home educated students to participate in state testing under threat of truancy prosecution. It is well-known that public schools increasingly teach through a very immoral, un-Christian lens. Soon enough the state and federal tests will reflect these values, and home-school parents will be put in a very tough position knowing that if their children fail these tests because they refused to teach this immorality, that their children will be forced into pubic schools, or worse that these parents may lose custody of their children to the state. Unfortunately, Mike Huckabee has a very Socialist view of government, even if he does preach Christian values. Any politician that tries to take away Parental Rights for any reason, even a Christian reason, must be questioned.
This is why I do not support Huckabee.
I do not base my views on talk radio, but on actual analysis of each candidate’s record. Even Fred did not pass 100%.
Only one GOP candidate has a perfectly Conservative anti-tax, cut spending, pro-Parental Rights, pro-Life record. McCain and Romney fail across the board. Huckabee may be pro-Life, but that is not enough for most Conservatives.
Only one GOP candidate still in the running has actually written legislation to cut taxes and spending and to overturn Roe v. Wade (HR 300), to outlaw federal funding for abortion (HR 1095), and to declare that life begins at conception (HR 1094). Only one candidate wrote a bill to guarantee Parental Rights, the “Family Education Freedom Act” and stated “No nation can remain free when the state has greater influence over the knowledge and values transmitted to children than the family.”
So, while I may agree with Rush on some points, he argument fails miserably, as is the case with all the Pundits, because they deliberately ignore the one candidate who truly does have a clear and consistent Conservative track record (and happens to be Christian as well).
Natschultz,
I would like you to read ar article by Kerry, over at One Mom, that addresses the very homeschooling bill that you are talking about. It is Huckabee and Homeschoolers, The Rest of the Story. Yes, Huckabee did sign that bill, but it was a bill brought forth by a homeschooling parent and supported by Arkansas homeschoolers, as a way to prevent a much more resctretive bill from passing.
In response to your comment about Huckabee running Arkansas as a big government state, you need to keep in mind a couple of things. He was Governor of a state with a very heavily Demorcratic controlled legislature. He had to make compromises, otherwise, they would have ran roughshod over him and he would have been able to accomplish nothing. From your comments, I would suspect you are supporting Ron Paul. If so, I would respectfully submit one thing. It is altogether easier for a legislator to vote yes or no on legislation, than it is for a Governor to actually implement policies and govern a state. That is the task Mike Huckabee was face with and that is what he did.
I want to comment on the overwhelming bias against Huckabee and McCain displayed by Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and others. I believe that these talking heads have no sincere disdain for Huck or McCain, but rather are merely “clearing the way” for Romney. If Thompson or Guiliani had become a real threat to Romney, I don’t doubt that they would receive like treatment. Why?
Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck are part of Premiere Radio Networks, which is a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, which also owns over 1100 radio stations and 30 TV stations. Near the end of 2006, Bain Capital purchased Clear Channel. Bain Capital is the private equity firm founded by none other than Mitt Romney. Although Romney is no longer CEO of this firm, his money is still there and one must assume that Bain Capital’s leaders want him to be in the Oval Office for obvious reasons.
Everyone in the world can dismiss me as a conspiracy nut, but the connections between talk radio and Romney are public record.
Larry has a very good point on the difference between what a legislature can do, and what a governor has to do.
I am very much a small, “get out of my life” governement person… but I do think we need at least some standards/over-sight for homeschooling. My state has some that I think a fairly reasonable. The sad fact is… without any kind type of oversight, you do not know if the child is actually being taught (and I have seen cases where the kids weren’t).
Larry I strongly agree with your post. I have tried to restrain my anger and figure out what motivated the attacks against McCain (who, imo, mostly deserved it) and Mike Huckabee. After decades of false accusations against Rush, etc. I found it truly shocking to see him behaving exactly like a mindless jackbooted thug … and even more shocking to see so many other talk radio hosts doing exactly the same thing. This was imo obviously a coordinated attack; since show after show day after day kept bashing McCain and Huckabee with half-truths and outright lies. This must be what life is like in a totalitarian state.
Whether there really is a “Dr. Evil” in charge of this conspiracy I have no idea … could have resulted mostly from sloppy careless work by Rush and then many others just copying him? How could they expect to get away with their credibility in tact? Any fool can just go to mikehuckabee.com and see they have totally distorted his written positions on point after point. There are many other things we can argue about but they have made countless distortions to his written positions. Wonder if they are big enough people to admit they were wrong and ask publically for an apology? I’m going to guess they are not that big .. hope I’m proven wrong. It would be nice to at least get an explanation for why they’ve been acting exactly like Nazis.
You are so right about the talk show comments of Rush and Hannity. The other day I listened to Rush’s show one more time to see if he had any relenting of his dogma, and he had a caller ask him to recommend wines for everyday use. After wine banter back and forth, Rush finally recommended a bottle of wine with the word “screaming” in the label. The caller was a bit taken aback, saying, surly that isn’t for everyday use, that wine costs about $1600.00 a bottle.
Suddenly I saw his hatred of Huckabee and all things normal. He and Romney can drink their $1600 bottles of wine and not blink an eye, but they don’t speak for all of us. The comments about the money being tax free off shore are probably right. It has to be about money. But the average value voting Republicans have finally awakened, these loud mouths with no honorable private life do not speak for us. We must stop listening to them and reacting to them. All they want is the money from being sensational.
As a moderate conservative who supports Huckabee, I am outraged at how Limbaugh and Hannity distort his record and how the media pigeonholes him as the guy who only gets Evangelical votes. If you look across the board, Huckabee has only gotten about one third of the Evangelical support in the Republican primaries. He also actually happens to be a fiscal conservative. He only raised taxes because Arkansas had the worst roads in all of America. When you fix roads and infrastructure, that helps create jobs. Furthermore Huckabee left office with an $800 million surplus.
It’s just baffling how so-called conservatives like Rush and Hannity supported a guy like Romney who has taken two different stances on every major political issue. When he was running against Ted Kennedy for the Senate he even said that he was not affiliated during the Reagan era, and that he didn’t want to go back to those days. I love how this man has gotten away with so many convenient changes of heart. Now these pundits say Huckabee is only staying as a spoiler for Romney, when the fact is that most of the people voting for Huckabee don’t like Romney anyway. I have officially given up on so-called conservative talk radio (Rush, Hannity, Levin). I will no longer waste my time with uninformed intellectual pygmies who can’t get their facts straight. I guess Savage is the only guy who’s tolerable.
I was not a Huckabee supporter. I was hoping that Fred would become our nominee. But because of the constant on- air bias against Mike Huckabee from Rush and Hannity, I decided to do my own research. To my amazement, I really loved the things that Gov. Huckabee was proposing. I found myself agreeing with most of his ideas. So I now I am really confused. Huckabee seems to be more conservative then any of the previous guys including Mitt. So why the hatred toward him from the likes of Rush, Hannity and Laura? I don’t get it. I use to love listening to talk radio but lately I have found myself seeking alternatives. Please help me understand what’s going on.
Floyd,
The Republican establishment and the talk radio establishment decided long ago that they didn’t want someone like Mike Huckabee as the Republican nominee. That is the reason they have distorted his record like they have. The same goes for a lot of the Christian leaders. They don’t want a candidate who connects to the people and would rather have someone they can manipulate. That is why they are against him so much, in my honest opinion. That is also the reason I have urged people to do their own research, instead of relying on the likes of Hannity and Limbaugh to tell them what to think about Huckabee. When you listen to them, you are most certainly not getting the full and complete story of Mike Huckabee’s record.