Huckabee’s Conversion

I volunteered, working phone banks to raise money for Mike Huckabee when he was just an out-of-work preacher running for the U.S. Senate and then again for Lt. Governor of Arkansas. I drove him from event-to-event when he came to Searcy back in those days. When I left for D.C. all those years ago, he warned me not to get Potomac fever and let the big city change me. I think the governor’s mansion changed him.

He’s a great campaigner, which is why it was so disappointing to watch him become a not-so-great governor. He campaigned as a committed conservative but took wrong turns on clemency, ethics, and immigration. His open-borders rhetoric on immigration in 2005 was the last straw for me. He couldn’t merely differ with Arkansas politicians to his right on immigration issues. Huckabee had to explicitly question their faith and patriotism too:

Gov. Mike Huckabee Thursday denounced a bill by Sen. Jim Holt that would deny state benefits to illegal immigrants as un-Christian, un-American, irresponsible and anti-life.

Holt, R-Springdale, replied later that Christian charity does not include turning a blind eye to lawbreaking.

* * *

Huckabee said he took exception to characterization of immigrants in the bill and by its supporters as exploiters of social programs. “They pay sales taxes on their groceries,” Huckabee said. “They pay fuel taxes. If they’re using a fake Social Security number, they’re paying Social Security taxes and will never receive any benefit.

That was then. Now he’s trying mightily to backpedal on his open-borders record. In light of the Grahamnesty Backlash, that’s smart politics. I’m just not so sure it fits his straight-talk image to be doing more verbal gymnastics than Bill Clinton before the grand jury. Listen to this segment on the Laura Ingraham Show from yesterday and see what I mean.

Notice his pro-amnesty slip:

That’s where I have my problem, is that we tell people that essentially we’re going to look the other way as you run swim or jump across the border and then after you’ve been here 16 years, then we’re gonna say “Uh oh, you know what, we’re gonna now turn you back.”

Maybe I’m wrong but the clear implication seems to be if you’ve been here illegally for a long time, you should get a pass. Sounds like amnesty to me.

The Unofficial Huckabee for President Blog did some damage control too. My favorite part is the excerpt from an Arkansas News Bureau article followed by an editorial comment:

But the governor did not back down on his positions in support of certain benefits for the children of illegal aliens, such as allowing prenatal care for pregnant immigrants and his proposal to offer scholarships to undocumented children who graduate from an Arkansas high school. (EDITOR’S NOTE: This was not clearly described in the article. Huckabee did not want to “offer scholarships to undocumented children.” What he actually supported was allowing them to be eligible to apply for college scholarships if they qualified.)

Oh! They can only apply! Well that’s different then. That’s not endorsing scholarships for illegals, that’s just endorsing pointless paperwork. I get it. By the way, since when are recipients of college scholarships “children?”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 9:37 pm and is filed under Talk Radio, Immigration, Politics, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.