Republican: March 2008 Archives

Then there is the issue of Huckabee’s integrity, like McCain, considered his strong suit.  In December 2007, Judicial Watch announced that Mike Huckabee was named to its list of Washington’s "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2007. They stated that Huckabee, as governor, was the subject of 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office. Judicial Watch further accused Huckabee of attempting to block the state ethics commission's investigations of the allegations.

In addition, in 2000, Huckabee insisted on controlling the state Republican Party's separate Victory Committee, but the committee's finances were so poorly handled that a Federal Election Commission investigation resulted in the largest fine ever handed down by the FEC to a state party.

Should he become the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, expect Huckabee to be attacked for his flagrant use of his religion to affect his policy as governor of Arkansas.

While Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush were all elected president as open “born-again” Christians, none of them was ever hurt politically because there was no evidence that any of them ever let their religious views get in the way of their actions as public officials. 

However, as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee openly and repeatedly acknowledged that many of his policy decisions were based on his “born-again” Christianity.  The most damaging was his pushing the state parole board to parole a violent criminal who went on to murder an elderly woman.  Huckabee stated at the time that his decision was based on the murderer becoming a “born again” Christian.

This level of religious fanaticism scares most Americans, even many Republicans.  Given Huckabee’s candor with the press about his religious faith, Huckabee would not likely back down if this became a campaign issue.  As an example of his candor with the press, when responding to a New York Times Magazine reporters question regarding Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, Huckabee responded by inferring hat Mormons believed that Jesus and Satan were brothers.