‘From hope to higher ground’
Huckabee launches second bid for White House.
Mike Huckabee launched his second run for the Republican presidential nomination by promising to take the nation “from hope to higher ground” and emphasizing his ability to work with Democrats while he was governor of Arkansas.
“I learned how to govern and I learned how to lead,” he said Tuesday in Hope, Ark., the hometown he shares with former president Bill Clinton.
Huckabee’s wide-ranging, folksy speech included a call to replace all federal taxes with a sales tax, criticism of trade pacts that he said would undermine U.S. workers’ wages and a defense of Social Security, saying that Congress should “end their own ... pensions,” rather than changing the national retirement system.
Huckabee’s opposition to citizenship for illegal immigrants and to Common Core educational standards is in sync with the rest of the crowded Republican presidential field.
But Huckabee, who left the governor’s office in 2007, took a shot at his rivals who hold elected office — a group that includes Sens. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul: “If you live off the government payroll ... have the integrity and decency to resign the one you don’t want any more.”
The one-time radio broadcaster, Baptist preacher and Fox News host appealed to evangelical Christian voters, saying the nation “has lost our way morally.”
Huckabee, 59, will spend today and Thursday in Iowa then head to South Carolina, where evangelical voters are more prevalent than in New Hampshire.
In 2008, Huckabee surprised the GOP establishment with his victory in the Iowa caucuses. He eventually won eight states, but didn’t have the resources to topple eventual nominee John McCain.
He has better favorable ratings in national and statewide surveys than former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Rubio.