Mike Huckabee is riding his second place win in Ames, IA for all it is worth. He says he sees his campaign momentum building, but also says he is the longshot:
“I’m having to bet the farm on certain imponderables taking place, one of which is that somebody’s going to goof up and say something that becomes the defining YouTube moment that sends them the way of George Allen,” he said, referring to the former Virginia senator and erstwhile presidential hopeful whose infamous racist remark last year wound up as a much-shared Internet video and derailed his political career.
The article from Boston.com highlights a few of Huckabee’s positions, from taxes to Iraq:
He acknowledged that fiscal conservatives had criticized him for shepherding a massive transportation bill, financed by a 4-cent gas tax increase, to fix the state’s poorly maintained roads.
Huckabee said he was not happy about the gas tax increase, but the roads had to be improved for the sake of the state’s economy.
“Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die,” said Huckabee, 51, a Baptist minister before he entered politics.
He said one of his top priorities is to overhaul the US healthcare system, which he said focuses too much on treating disease and not enough on improving health.
He also mounted a strong defense of the “fair tax,” a proposal to replace the income tax with a national sales tax that would include a tax credit for lower-income families.
None of the leading presidential candidates has endorsed this radical reordering of the tax system, but Huckabee contended that it would attract global corporations and would be a better deal for the bottom one-third of earners.
On Iraq, Huckabee defended the president’s decision — and Congress’s vote to authorize the war — because there was at the time “an overwhelming consensus” that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
He said he would not immediately withdraw from Iraq because he does not want to “leave in a way that makes it even worse.”
I am not concerned with Huckabee’s gas tax increase. He did what he needed to do for his state, and he did it without turning to the federal government to do it. I like that. Other governors could learn from that example.
That being said, Huckabee is a longshot. Right now, he looks like a great vice-presidential candidate. I would like to see him somewhere in the next administration pushing the FairTax.
