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September 25, 2007

Mike Huckabee: An Interview

By Blake D. Dvorak

RCP: As a social conservative who recently won the Palmetto State Straw poll, how do you explain trailing candidates like Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson in South Carolina?

Mike Huckabee: Well, the numbers that you're talking about really are reflecting two things. One is the money being spent by the candidates on paid advertisements; two is the amount of exposure they're getting and free media because of their celebrity status. But when we go head-to-head, I end up winning. So for us it's always been about the trajectory of momentum which for us has been upward very consistently and if you look at some of the numbers of the so-called frontrunners, they're polling behind where they themselves were before. Ours have continued to go up, they can continue to level off or slip backwards.

As more people get familiar with me and my message, we end up getting [voters'] support. So it's not really that big of a concern at this stage. January, you know, is a whole different deal. I mean, we're seeing it just as we thought it would play out for us back last January when we started. We knew we were starting at rock bottom and had to just build it on message. And it wouldn't be about that we could lay down as big as check book as some of these other candidates. But our numbers are picking up and the good thing for us is that in the three early states we are in play with all the boys in the big league.

RCP: As you know, the deadline for reporting third quarter fundraising totals is Sept. 30. How did you do this quarter? Any surprises?

Huckabee: We're still pulling it in. we have some things that will happen right at the end of the month. But for us, our goal is to do better than we did before and have enough money to start the next quarter. And we're going to be there. Will it impress anybody? No. But it's what we need to have. We're operating on a totally different budget then let's say a [Mitt] Romney or a [Rudy] Giuliani, and they're going to always say, "Look at how much money we've raised and these guys have to raise the same amount of money." Well, you know, the last time I checked Mitt Romney wasn't running my budget. And, with all due respect, what we see in some of these campaigns is, yeah, they raise a lot of money but they spend so darn much money and I can't see that they're getting their money's worth, if you look at that they're not further ahead in the polls, to have spent that kind of dough. It just doesn't make sense.

A lot of our fundraising that resulted as a consequence of the Iowa Straw Poll is going to start happening in October and November, because out of that event, we started scheduling a lot fundraising events that we hadn't been able to get scheduled. A lot those won't even start until October. So this quarter is going to be good enough for us to stay on our feet and keep going. We've added staff, we know are moving ahead and doing what we need to do. But our next quarter is the one where obviously it's really got to start coming together through December.

RCP: You're certainly one of the strongest social conservatives in the race, but so much of the debate is focusing on national security and foreign-policy issues, like the war, Iraq, but also Iran and rising countries like China. How do you hope to compete without much foreign-policy experience?

Huckabee: I would certainly say that even though the mayor [Giuliani] will talk about the experience of 9/11, that's not commanding an army in a war. I actually have more executive experience than anybody on the Republican or Democrat side, having been a governor 10 ½ years. Nobody's had that level or running and managing a government. Governors don't have what maybe some perceive as the level of foreign experience, but you know they have more than most people understand, because we actually negotiate contracts and sign agreements with foreign companies as well as with foreign government and trade agreements. Most governors have traveled extensively throughout the world, so it's not like we're devoid of any international experience.

RCP: Any particular example from your administration that you might use to highlight your foreign-policy experience?

Huckabee: Of course dealing with crises, whether it was dealing with 75,000 evacuees of Katrina that came to our state in less than five days. That's a massive undertaking to try to deal with housing, feeding, finding employement, clothing, medical care for 75,000 people at one time. I would challenge anybody to manage that sort of crisis.

We also had ice storms that obliterated 2/3 of our state's electrical supply for almost two weeks. It put us virtually in the dark ages. It would be the equivalent of a terrorist attack, if you went back and thought about what would happen if somebody was able to destroy your electric grid and took 2/3 of electricity away from your citizens. In some cases, it was restored within a few days, but there were areas of the state two and three weeks without electricity. So to manage that crisis of making sure that hospitals, nursing homes, that gas pumps could get gas to people. It was a significant event. All of those things are a part of what I've spent my ten years around here dealing with.

RCP: You've take criticism in conservative circles for what is called "nanny-state" politics. Is the "nanny-state" label fair and do you consider yourself a "compassionate conservative" in the George Bush-style or do you consider yourself to be a different type of compassionate conservative?

Huckabee: I'm always reluctant to use the term "compassionate conservative" because in my vocabulary a true conservative is compassionate and the adjective isn't necessary. A true conservative is interested in conserving things which are valuable, whether it's family, a marriage, a school, education, the health of a citizen, or our natural resources. So I don't know that I have to add descriptive terms to saying I'm a conservative.

But it certainly should mean that while government is not responsible for providing everything people want or need, it should act in a way that it does not have a heartless or a cold approach to the needs of its neediest citizens. I think that's consistent with the history of our nation and the fact that while it's not our responsibility to become the nanny state, I'm certainly not favorable toward that at all. I do believe that if we're going to have an education system it ought to be effective. If we're going to have a health-care system for the elderly, it ought to be functional. If we're going to provide health-care for veterans, it ought to be accessible and affordable.

RCP: Looking over the last 15 years or so, can you point to an example of what you would consider government intervention in the domestic sphere done right, and an example of government overreach?

Huckabee: There have been some things in this particular administration that have been troubling to me. I'm certainly a 10th Amendment guy. I'm a federalist at heart. I think Jefferson was right and Hamilton was wrong. And at times this administration seems to have become Hamiltonian and not Jeffersonian. For example, with REAL ID, that's a huge mistake. It's putting a burden on a state that should not be the state's function, which is to provide the frontline of national security defense at the hands of a DMV worker at a state office. That's absurd. And then not funding it. That's a real problem. If you're going to have federal program then the feds ought to pay for it.

I think the federal government has failed on the borders, forcing many states to try to pass legislation to deal with things at a local level. That's a national security issue. It's not a local, law-enforcement issue; it's an issue of national security if somebody can sneak a dirty bomb across the border, which they very easily could do, because people who are poorly educated, can't speak the language, have very limited skills, if they can get across our border with the skills basically that would allow them to pluck chickens or pick lettuce, I think it's very safe to say that a very sophisticated, well-educated, and well-trained person could get across the border with a dirty bomb.

RCP: You've had a much publicized spat with the Club for Growth.

Huckabee: I've heard about that.

RCP: Right. Are there examples in your administration where you held the line with things like spending, where you vetoed spending proposals?

Huckabee: Sure. For example, one of the tax increases that the Club for Growth accuses me of I actually did not sign and I didn't sign it because I thought it was too little reform for too much money. And I told them that while I realized we needed more money in education, I would not support the fact that they didn't go far enough in some of the reforms I wanted to push.

In another case, we actually during the time of recession in 2001-02 cut 11% out of the general revenue budget. Now why that's so significant is 91% of our general revenue budget is in three things: Education, Medicaid, and prisons. All the rest of state government is funded within the final 9% percent of that general revenue. So when people talk about just cutting travel for the state employees, you can cut the entire agencies and it wouldn't make the big dent people think it would because where most of the money goes are in three and only three things.

So when we cut 11% out of the budget, I mean there were people who thought I had turned the water off and forced people to eat once a week, but we made significant budget changes to keep from having a tax increase at a time when the economy was really struggling. I never get credit for that. It was during that time that we did the "Tax Me More" fund, that's when the legislature was every day having a press conference demanding that I have a special session for higher taxes and I held the line and said no and in fact said, "You know there's nothing that keeps people from paying more tax if they feel like they're just not paying enough."

So I created the "Tax Me More" fund, had envelopes printed and passed them out whenever anyone said to me we needed to raise taxes. I said, "Here's your envelope, fill it out. Tell me what you think you ought to personally put in and you just go ahead and send it in." Because there's not a thing in the world prohibiting you from paying more if you feel like you're just not anteing up enough. And after a year I think we had, like, $1,200 in the account. So it was a great way to demonstrate that when people were screaming for more taxes, what they meant was somebody else being the ones to pay them.

RCP: Moving off the question, a Huckabee administration would most likely face a Democratic Congress. What, if any, sort of guidelines would you lay out for the Congress to follow on spending and taxes?

Huckabee: Romney may say he had a Democratic legislature - mine was more Democrat than his. That surprises a lot people. When I was sworn in 1996, 89 out of 100 House members and 31 out of 35 senators were Democrats, so I had the most lopsided legislature in the country. I know something about dealing with a legislature that is overwhelmingly the other party, so I'm probably more comfortable with it than anybody else would be and I understand the dynamics.

Frankly, what you first of all do is you don't just see how many fights you can pick with people who have the majority votes. If you're going to try to sell things, you have to do two things: One, build relationships with the reasonable, responsible people that will work with you, and when they do work with you, go out of your way to extol their efforts as true statesmanship. In other words, don't hog all the credit for what success has happened.

The second thing is, you have to make your case directly to the people. And when you can't sell your program to a partisan legislative body, you sell it to their bosses; you go out and sell it to the people. Which I believe means one of the most important skills that a president has to have is communication skills. You've got to be able to articulate and be able to make your program understandable and supportable - not just to people of your own party, but to people who aren't in your party, to the constituencies that don't normally support you.

That's why I think things like being the first Republican in 119 years to get the endorsement of the Machinists and Aerospace Workers Union was very significant. The fact that I'm the only Republican presidential candidate in the history of the country to go speak to the NEA is very significant. I understand that if I'm president, I've got to be able to sell my plans not just to the Republican members of Congress or even the Republican constituency. I've got to sell those plans to the American people, [who] represent a far broader interest than just the GOP hard-line voters.

RCP: The Club for Growth has singled out the Machinists' endorsement in their criticism of you.

Huckabee: Sure, that's fine. I'm almost increasingly proud of their attacks because as I've often said, as a hunter, you never put the crosshairs on the carcass of a dead animal. You only aim at a trophy that you want to bring down. So the fact that they've spent so much money and effort trying to bring me down just is an affirmation that I must be one heck of a trophy and someone they really fear.

RCP: At the same time, you still need to appeal to the fiscal conservatives in the Republican party.

Huckabee: Fiscal conservatives know that if we enacted the Fair Tax, of which I'm the most staunch supporter and perhaps proponent, there's nothing that ought to be more embraced by true fiscal conservatives than a Fair Tax. That's why [Club for Growth criticism] has not had an impact. If anything, the more the Club for Growth has attacked me, the better my numbers get. So it's like, please, keep heaping it on. They went against us so hard in Iowa. While we had no ads we were running, they ran $100,000 of TV against me. And it must have done me some good. So maybe they'll run a national campaign.

RCP: Speaking of partisan attacks, you seem to have eluded attacks from the left. How do you take that?

Huckabee: Well, I went after MoveOn.org pretty hard, it's just that, you know, if you're not Rudy or Romney, McCain or Fred, you just don't get the attention for it. I've probably said some of the most provocative things. What was most distressing is that Democratic candidates for president who are asking to be commander in chief would not defend a sitting four-star general against the charge of treason. And I've said that's unconscionable. How can the military ever respect a commander in chief who wouldn't even defend their commander in battle against the charge of treason? It's one thing to say we don't agree with his policies, but treason is a charge that, if true, could be punishable by death.

And I've said some of these candidates who are on the Democratic side need to get their lips off of George Soros' rear end and start working to condemn his vicious attack on a general. I was pretty clear about it. My frustration is sometimes we may be saying the things but it's just not necessarily getting heard.

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