No. 2 in Iowa, Huckabee Now on Critics' Radar

Friday, November 16, 2007

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

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Rove Goes Over to Other Side: the Press

Less than three months after leaving the Bush White House, Karl Rove is becoming a member of a community not all that popular with his ex-colleagues: the media.

Newsweek has signed the president's former deputy chief of staff as a commentator who will turn out several columns on the 2008 campaign, among other topics, through inauguration day. The move is not likely to prove popular among liberals who believe the mainstream media have been too soft on the Bush administration.

"We want to give readers a feel for what it's like to be on the inside," said Jon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek. "Our readers are sophisticated enough to know that what they get from Karl has to be judged in the context of who Karl is . . . Readers will have to decide if he's simply an apologist."

Newsweek (owned by The Washington Post Co.) is granting regular space to Rove and Markos Moulitsas Z¿niga, the liberal firebrand who founded the Web site Daily Kos.

Rove, a longtime confidant of Bush, rarely granted on-the-record interviews during his 6 1/2 years in the White House, and he wasn't shy about criticizing the press. In a speech last year, Rove said that journalists often derided political professionals, perhaps because "they want to draw attention away from the corrosive role their coverage has played focusing attention on process and not substance."

Meacham said he contacted Rove the day he announced his resignation. He said that Newsweek will insist on disclosing any fundraising or partisan activity on the part of Rove and Moulitsas.

"Love him or hate him, Karl Rove has been at the center of the American political story for the last few years," Meacham said.

-- Howard Kurtz

KEY ENDORSEMENT

Obama Gets Support From Union in Iowa

While Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) prepared for the Las Vegas debate, his campaign announced a key endorsement, from the United Auto Workers Region 4, which includes 30,000 members and retirees in Iowa. Delegates voted to back Obama after a week-long conference, which included appearances by all the major Democratic candidates.

"There are many talented Democrats in the presidential field this year, but Barack Obama is the leader who will bring the kind of change to Washington that America's working men and women can believe in," said Paul Erickson, president of UAW Local 442 in Webster City, Iowa.

-- Shailagh Murray

FAMILIAR FACE

Blumenthal Working For a Clinton Again

Since Sidney Blumenthal's controversial tenure in the Clinton White House -- he wound up having to testify on the Monica Lewinsky mess -- he has, among other things, been a Bush-bashing columnist for Salon.

Now, to no one's great shock, Blumenthal is again abandoning the world of punditry to join Clinton's campaign.

The onetime Washington Post and New Yorker writer became something of a lightning rod for criticism during his White House stint, particularly after longtime friend Christopher Hitchens said he had described Lewinsky to him as a "stalker" of the president, thereby entangling Blumenthal in the scandal's investigation.

-- Howard Kurtz