{"id":608,"date":"2008-01-24T20:25:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-24T20:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=608"},"modified":"2008-01-24T20:25:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-24T20:25:00","slug":"huckabee-alienates-gop-in-arkansas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=608","title":{"rendered":"Huckabee alienates GOP in Arkansas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Those who support Huckabee will not like this…but the
\ntruth should always be on the table.<\/p>\n

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http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20080124\/NATION\/8463148\/1001<\/a><\/p>\n

Article published Jan 24, 2008
<\/span>Huckabee
\nalienates GOP in Arkansas<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nJanuary 24, 2008 <\/p>\n

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\nBy Stephen Dinan<\/a> – LITTLE ROCK,
\nArk. — Jake Files was a newly elected representative when all two dozen
\nArkansas House Republicans met for their first caucus in 1999. They had doubled
\ntheir numbers in elections two months earlier, and were ready to join
\nRepublican Gov. Mike Huckabee in pushing for conservative government. <\/p>\n

That was when Brenda Turner, the governor’s chief
\nof staff, entered. <\/p>\n

“Just walked in, shut the door and said, ‘There’s two kinds of people in
\nthe world: those who are for Mike Huckabee and those who are against Mike
\nHuckabee. I’ll do everything I can to help the first group. I’ll do everything
\nI can to hurt the second,’ ” said Mr. Files, who left the legislature
\nafter two terms. <\/span><\/p>\n

And that’s the way it was. <\/p>\n

“Not only would he not help you, he would go out of his way to do things
\nin opposition to you,” Mr. Files said. <\/p>\n

For the 10 years he was governor of Arkansas, Mr. Huckabee was at war with much
\nof his party. <\/p>\n

Now that Mr. Huckabee is seeking the presidential nomination, many Arkansas
\nRepublicans warn that he could wage a bruising battle with the national party,
\ntoo. <\/p>\n

“One can hardly argue that the Republican Party has thrived,” said
\nformer Rep. Jim Hendren, who was House minority leader and ran for state party
\nchairman in a bitter 2001 race won by a Huckabee surrogate. “We thrived as
\nwe were an opposition party and standing on principles as the Republican Party.
\nBut unfortunately, when we got some power, particularly at the state level, we
\nbegan to fight among ourselves.” <\/p>\n

The former Southern Baptist pastor-turned-politician took control of the
\ngovernor’s mansion in 1996 with expectations that he would lead the kind of
\nRepublican ascension in other states of the Deep South. But he left office last
\nyear by turning over the governorship to a Democrat and with Republicans
\nbitterly divided over his legacy for his party. <\/p>\n

“He destroyed it,” said Randy Minton, a former state representative
\nwhom Mr. Huckabee worked to help get elected but who later clashed repeatedly
\nwith the governor. “We had one U.S. senator, we had two congressmen, at
\nthe tops we had 37 out of 135 legislators in the House and Senate. Now I think
\nthere’s 32 in the legislature, we have no U.S. senators and we have one
\ncongressman.” <\/p>\n

In both on-the-record and private conversations with Republicans in Arkansas,
\nthe picture that emerges is a governor who succeeded at advancing his causes
\nand was willing to fight anyone who didn’t agree. <\/p>\n

That matters because the next Republican presidential nominee will be tasked
\nwith trying to rebuild a congressional majority and stoke a Republican Party
\nafter eight volatile years under President Bush. <\/p>\n

Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Huckabee achieved some early successes. By the beginning of
\n1999, when he was sworn in for his first full term, his party had gained nearly
\na quarter of the state’s House, added state Senate seats and held the
\nlieutenant governorship, one of the two U.S. Senate seats and half of the four
\ncongressional seats. <\/p>\n

But also like Mr. Bush, who battled congressional Republicans on immigration
\nreform and prescription drug coverage, Mr. Huckabee found himself fighting
\nmembers of his own party. <\/p>\n

‘Shi’ites,’ ‘socialists’ <\/p>\n

Almost immediately after taking office from Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, a Democrat who
\nresigned after federal fraud and corruption convictions, Mr. Huckabee
\ncampaigned for his first tax increase — one-eighth cent on the sales tax to
\ndedicate to conservation projects. He followed up with both budget cuts and
\nincreases, but the net effect was nearly $500 million in new taxes and an
\naccompanying rise in spending. <\/p>\n

What followed were clashes over the growth of government and, as the issue
\nheated up nationally, over immigration policy. Republicans and conservative
\nDemocrats wanted a crackdown on illegal aliens, but Mr. Huckabee resisted. <\/p>\n

The war of words was just as harsh. In 1998, when he faced a primary challenger
\nwho said Mr. Huckabee lacked certain conservative principles, the governor
\nreplied that his opponents weren’t really Republicans, but rather libertarians
\nor independents. <\/p>\n

By the end of his tenure, Mr. Huckabee was calling his Republican opponents the
\n“Shi’ites” and they called him a “Christian socialist.” <\/p>\n

Mr. Huckabee’s defenders said the governor was simply firing back at frustrated
\nRepublicans who were waging a battle against him. <\/p>\n

Jim Harris, a campaign spokesman who also worked for Mr. Huckabee in the
\ngovernor’s office, said Mr. Huckabee was deeply involved in helping state
\nRepublicans. <\/p>\n

“He raised a lot of money regularly; he campaigned tirelessly for GOP
\ncandidates up and down the ballot; he gave from [his political action
\ncommittee] to GOP candidates,” Mr. Harris said, adding that Mr. Huckabee
\nappointed years’ worth of Republicans to boards and commissions. <\/p>\n

“This created a strong network of individuals who will run for office in
\nthe future under the Republican banner,” he said. <\/p>\n

Arkansas Republicans, though, said Mr. Huckabee was building an organization
\nfor himself, not a farm team for the party. He left many appointments of former
\nGovs. Bill Clinton and Jim Guy Tucker in office, including some department
\nheads who stayed through Mr. Huckabee’s tenure. <\/p>\n

They said no Republicans hold any of the statewide constitutional offices, and
\nthe state party chairman told the Associated Press last week that he doesn’t
\nexpect to field a candidate this year to run against Sen. Mark Pryor, a
\nDemocrat. <\/p>\n

“In the 10 years where the governor was the title head of the party, we
\nactually took steps backwards,” Mr. Files said, noting that Republicans
\nwere advancing in other Southern states. “The overall morale of the party
\ndid not take any of those same stages it did in the other states. It started
\nplateauing and took a dive.” <\/p>\n

On the campaign trail <\/p>\n

The campaign finance records for Conservative Leadership for Arkansas PAC, Mr.
\nHuckabee’s political action committee, also seem to bear out the charge that he
\nwas building his own organization. <\/p>\n

Records kept with the secretary of state in Little Rock show that CLAPAC spent
\nonly a third of its money on candidates between 2001 and 2006, with the rest
\ngoing to consulting, accounting and, in later years, travel and fundraising for
\nMr. Huckabee. <\/p>\n

Mr. Huckabee gave contributions as well during those years to at least three
\nDemocrats. Given that $5,000 of CLAPAC’s money came in a 2003 donation from the
\nstate Republican Party, that means some Republican money was used indirectly to
\naid the party’s own opponents. <\/p>\n

“Go out and ask those ladies at bake sales or out raising money if they
\nthought that money would end up in the hands of Democratic candidates,”
\nMr. Hendren said. “That’s what drove us up a wall.” <\/p>\n

One Democrat who received CLAPAC money was Barbara Horn. Mr. Huckabee supported
\nher even though a Republican planned to run for the same seat in 2000. The
\nAssociated Press reported that Mr. Huckabee’s support for the Democrat chased
\nthe Republican from the race, delivering an open seat to the Democratic Party. <\/p>\n

State Republicans repeatedly called that race demoralizing. <\/p>\n

Mr. Huckabee’s campaign denied charges from a host of Republicans that he aided
\nDemocrats over Republicans in other races. <\/p>\n

“Governor Huckabee never gave money to a Democrat who had a Republican
\nopponent,” Mr. Harris said. “He did give to some conservative
\nDemocrats money in the primaries when there were no Republicans running in the
\ngeneral election.” <\/p>\n

Records for CLAPAC’s activity in 2000 are missing from the secretary of state’s
\noffice. The accounting firm Mr. Huckabee used said it couldn’t provide records
\nwithout the client’s approval, and Mr. Huckabee’s campaign didn’t respond to
\nrequests to produce them. <\/p>\n

In 2005, Mr. Huckabee registered another political action committee in
\nVirginia, which has less stringent limits on campaign activity. <\/p>\n

The stated goal of that PAC, Hope for America, was to aid state and local
\ncandidates nationwide. But records show it hasn’t donated to a single candidate
\nbut instead has paid for Mr. Huckabee’s consultants, travel and fundraising. <\/p>\n

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………read full story at the link……….<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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    Those who support Huckabee will not like this…but the truth should always be on the table.   http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20080124\/NATION\/8463148\/1001 Article published Jan 24, 2008Huckabee alienates GOP in Arkansas January 24, 2008 By Stephen Dinan – LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Jake Files was a newly elected representative when all two dozen Arkansas House Republicans met … Continue reading Huckabee alienates GOP in Arkansas<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-huckabee-shameful-record"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}