Huckabee's Liberal Tendencies

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost spent 30 days working for the Huckabee campaign following an earlier stint as the founder of Blogs For Fred. Joe is pretty much convinced of Huckabee's conservatism, but has been hearing from folks like me who point to Huck's liberal tendencies on several important issues. Joe asked for bloggers and others to provide evidence of Huckabee's liberal social and economic past, and I'm going to offer some information that I gleaned from various internet sources.

First of all, there's this interview with John Fund of The Wall Street Journal that provides a great deal of background on Huckabee's actions in Arkansas:


On the issue of immigration Huckabee has takena number of very non-conservative positions:

In Arkansas:

As Governor, Huckabee fought for in-state tuition and taxpayer funded scholarships for illegal immigrants. He opposed legislation to require proof of citizenship in order to obtain public benefits and to vote. He vocally opposed a raid on a factory in Arkansas that employed illegal immigrants. And he led an effort to bring a Mexican Consulate to Arkansas - one of the main functions of the Consulate would be to issue identification cards to Mexicans living, both legally and illegally, in the U.S.

Championed an effort in Arkansas to give in-state tuition at state colleges and taxpayer-funded scholarships to illegal immigrants, similar to the DREAM Act proposal at the federal level. (Laura Kellams, "Senators research U.S. law on aliens," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1/27/05)

When Republican state senators in Arkansas proposed legislation modeled after Arizona's Proposition 200 [to require proof of citizenship for voting and public benefits], "Huckabee described it as 'inflammatory ... race-baiting ... demagoguery.' He said the bill, which seeks to forbid public assistance and voting rights to illegal immigrants, 'inflames those who are racist and bigots and makes them think there's a real problem. But there's not.'" (Governor says anti-illegals measure could scare off companies like Toyota," A ssociated Press, 2/3/05)

Opposed a raid on illegal immigrants in an Arkansas poultry plant even though calls to his office were "about 1,000 to one" against his stance. (Melissa Nelson, "Huckabee Risks Political Fortunes To Denounce Immigration Raid," Associated Press, 8/5/05)

Federal Level:
2006: Supported President Bush's immigration plan and claimed that opposition to Bush's proposal was driven by "racism or nativism" and that it wasn't amnesty. (Ralph Hallow, "Huckabee 'Serious' About Presidency," Washington Times, 5/17/06)

Wrote in his 2007 book that implementing strict enforcement of immigration laws "would be sheer folly" and that it made sense to give "those here illegally a process through which they pay a reasonable fine in admission of their guilt for the past infraction of violating our border laws and agree to adhere to a pathway toward legal status and citizenship." (Mike Huckabee, From Hope to Higher Ground, 2007, p. 117-118)

Also on economics, I'll add this report by Larry Kudlow and his panel:
One of the things I learned in management classes is the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. Given Huckabee's past policies and statements on the issues above, I have to believe he would follow much the same path as president.

Is he a liberal? Not on every issue, certainly, but he is on some of the big ones that concern me.