The Heat Turns Up on Gov. Huckabee

RUSH: Harry in Naples, Florida. Hello, sir, nice to have you with us.

CALLER: Helloooo?

RUSH: Hi, Harry.

CALLER: Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: I’m about a 20-year-listener. Basically, my concern as a staunch Republican is that Huckabee has no chance of being elected in the general election because he is a Southern Baptist. Not so much the slavery issue, naturally, which went from 1845 to 1968 when finally the Southern Baptists agreed to repent on the slavery but it’s really a question of the issue of women. Women are sort of equal, but not in the Southern Baptist faith, and, for instance, they cannot teach men. They can teach children and other women, and I think once the issue of how women were equal but not gets brought up in any kind of a general election that enough votes would be lost so that there really wouldn’t be a chance.

RUSH: Well, interesting. A lot of people are aiming a lot of fire at Huckabee these days. One of the stories today… It’s actually a press release from Americans for Legal Immigration, by William Gheen, or Gheen, it’s G-h-e-e-n, and they are reacting to the Minuteman endorsement of Huckabee, and they’re stunned by it, and here’s the pull quote: ‘The Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is considering commissioning a phone poll in the 50,000 Republican households in Iowa to ask, ‘Do you support Mike Huckabee’s plan to have illegal aliens leave and walk back in legally within a day?’ Mike Huckabee was on all the networks last week crowing about the endorsement of Minuteman cofounder Jim Gilchrist. We are rebuking that endorsement. Huckabee’s immigration plan with 80 organizational leaders…’ Never mind. ‘Please review our press release below and the letter signed by 80 leaders and let me know if there’s any way you can help us warn the nation, a major deception is underway here.’ This is one of the attacks on Huckabee, one of the many. One of the complaints is that he is disingenuous and is sort of Clintonesque: will say whatever he has to say to whatever audience he’s speaking to.

Selwyn Duke today writing in the AmericanThinker.com: ”The Huckabee Hustle’ — When evangelicals embraced Jimmy Carter during the 1976 presidential campaign, they didn’t know he would repudiate the Southern Baptist Convention a generation later. Today the very same constituency has glommed onto Mike Huckabee, and I can’t help but lament how history truly does repeat itself. One can see why [Mike Huckabee] would appeal to evangelicals. He’s a pro-life Southern Baptist minister with charm, wit and a good-ol’-boy, yuck-it-up style. Yet this resplendent exterior only serves to obscure the stain of liberal sin. Huck would be a disaster — a disaster — on immigration. In fact, in 2006 he compared those who would crack down on illegals to antebellum slave masters, saying, ‘One of the great challenges facing us is that we do not commit the same mistakes with our growing Hispanic population that we did with African Americans 150 years ago and beyond. We’re still paying the price for the pathetic manner in which this country handled that.’ Outrageously, it seems Huck[abee] can’t distinguish between denying citizens the protection of the law and requiring non-citizens to follow it,’ and it’s replete with quotes.

He was an absolute ‘disaster’ on immigration as governor — and there’s this line from Betsy Hagan, the ”Arkansas director of the conservative Eagle Forum and a key backer of his early runs for office, was once ‘his No. 1 fan.’ She was bitterly disappointed with his record. ‘He was pro-life and pro-gun, but otherwise a liberal,’ she says. ‘Just like Bill Clinton he will charm you, but don’t be surprised if he takes a completely different turn in office,”’ and other people. This is the stuff that happens when you’re the front-runner out there, and when you’re at least surging into the lead, and a lot of people are taking aim at Huckabee now. It will be interesting to see how he’s going to react to it. One thing he’s not going to do, is go on Meet the Press. You know, Russert has offered all of these candidates an option to appear for a full hour, and Huckabee has turned it down. He doesn’t want the media scrutiny right now. He’s going to run his TV ads and do whatever. Ron Paul has run in and said, ‘Okay, if Huckabee doesn’t have the guts to go on Meet the Press, I will! I’m not afraid of Tim Russert. I’ll go on Meet the Press!’ So Ron Paul’s going to be there instead of Huckabee, who’s going to continue to rely on his TV ads.