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Pro-life, pro-gun liberal Monday, Nov 5, 2007 By John Brummett It's always not so much what Mike Huckabee does as what he says. In Arkansas he governed more responsibly than he talked. Now he talks as a candidate for president less responsibly than he governed. Huckabee is indeed a different kind of Republican, even as he tries by his latest words to be a standard variety. Former state Rep. Randy Minton of Cabot, one of Huckabee's many Arkansas critics on the zany right, pegs him well enough as a "pro-gun, pro-life liberal." That would be more precise if "moderate," but you must understand that, to Minton, anything left of Limbaugh is liberal. Huckabee is snugly on the right on issues like guns and abortion and keeping down the gay people, but not when it comes to the role of government and the taxes to pay for it. State government grew more during his time as governor than during Bill Clinton's. We approved massive debt for highways, invested the tobacco settlement in health and health education, raised taxes for schools to pay for court-ordered reform and started a health insurance program for kids. This outfit calling itself the Club for Growth that tried to knock Huckabee out of the Republican presidential race early, and failed spectacularly and hilariously - is not a credible thing. It's made up of extremist economic conservatives who, in preaching "economic freedom," oppose practically any tax and regulation of business. A guy trying to govern a needy state like Arkansas by Club for Growth standards would have to open the prisons and close the schools. So, in response, Huckabee tries to pass himself off as an indistinct conservative in spite of his laudably distinctive record. He wrote to The Wall Street Journal to present his Republican bona fides, boasting: "Every living Republican in Arkansas who has been elected to statewide or a federal office has endorsed my candidacy." Sounds impressive, doesn't it? But, as with much of what he says, there's not so much beneath the soaring words. He refers to the two Hutchinsons, Asa and Tim, who were always more his rivals than allies; John Paul Hammerschmidt and John Boozman, the former congressman and current one from a few counties in Northwest Arkansas; and Tommy Robinson, the crude wild man now all covered up in financial and legal trouble in eastern Arkansas. I suppose we could throw in two former Republican congressmen now working as Washington lobbyists - Ed Bethune and Jay Dickey. Still, Huckabee's glowing recommendation encompasses a grand total of seven varingly substantive people. He purposely didn't mention Republican state legislators, most of whom haven't any use for him. Once I was talking to the Beebe Chamber of Commerce and explaining that Huckabee fit into a line of moderate, progressive Arkansas governors in the Bumpers, Pryor and Clinton mold. A guy down front was beaming. He was familiar, but I couldn't place him. Afterward he chased me out the door to hand me a thick report chronicling Huckabee's supposed liberalism. I suddenly realized this was the aforementioned Randy Minton, former Republican state legislator. How could I have forgotten? The only time I ever saw the Republican state legislative contingent stand intact with Huckabee was when he extracted its support for his tobacco spending plan only by promising to make proportionate cuts later in the state government payroll. So far as I can tell, he never followed through. In his further defense against that kind of thing, Huckabee claims to have cut taxes 94 times. That's another bloated pronouncement encompassing every penny-ante tax break the Legislature passed during his time. Some legislator wanted to exempt the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra from taxes, and now Huckabee crows of his genuine conservatism for signing it. He ought to own up to what he is, a pro-gun, pro-life moderate. And there's this: If he wants to brag that a liberal columnist back home liked him 30 percent of the time, I'd be happy and able - just this once - to vouch for him. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
