No. 2 in Iowa, Huckabee Now on Critics' Radar
Now that former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has risen to No. 2 in the Iowa polls, he has been hearing much tougher questions from his critics.
(By Matthew Putney -- Waterloo Courier Via Associated Press)
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ON THE RISE
No. 2 in Iowa, Huckabee Now on Critics' Radar
Mike Huckabee is discovering the flip side of a surge.
Now that he has moved up to second place in Iowa, according to two recent polls, the former Arkansas governor is learning what it is like to be asked about something other than his guitar-playing (which is quite good).
On Fox News on Wednesday, he was asked about a bill he supported as governor that would have granted tuition breaks to the children of illegal immigrants. He suggested that he had only wanted to give such children access to scholarships. In fact, the initial bill he supported did have a scholarship provision. But that provision was later stripped out and was not included in the legislation that Huckabee continued to push.
Ex-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, still leading in Iowa, has decided that it's time to take the gloves off with regard to Huckabee. Campaigning in Iowa this week, the Associated Press reported, Romney told reporters: "Giving a better deal to the children of illegal aliens than we give to U.S. citizens from surrounding states is simply not fair and not right."
On Fox News, Huckabee responded with a dig at prior reports that Romney had employed groundskeepers who were illegal: "I guess Mitt Romney would rather keep people out of college so they can keep working on his lawn, since he had illegals there."
Now that Huckabee is a threat, he's being targeted more aggressively for his positions on taxes.
An e-mail from the conservative Club for Growth yesterday had the subject line: "HUCKABEE FIBS AGAIN!" In the e-mail, the group, which has consistently bashed Huckabee, accused him of misleading voters about the reasons for tax hikes for transportation and schools.
Huckabee says that he raised taxes for roads only after a referendum. And he insists that the tax hike for schools was ordered by the state's supreme court to improve the state's educational system.
Club officials insist those are misleading explanations. They insist that the referendum Huckabee talks about came after the gas tax increase. And they say he is hiding behind the court decision.
-- Michael D. Shear
