Last week W$J pundit blasted Mike Huckabee's fiscal record in Arkansas. NRO further advanced Fund's critical exposition. Kevin Stilly provided a link to Northwest Nazarene University's Lucas Roebuck who copiously rebutts Fund's article. Roebuck establishes the apparent motive for the W$J hit piece:
Huckabee is obviously a stronger conservative on social issues than on fiscal ones, which is the opposite of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, hometown favorite of the Manhattan GOP crowd. The Journal, based in New York City, values fiscal conservatism over social conservatism, so the worst kept secret is the group-think going on among the opinion writers at the Journal favors Giuliani. Fiscal conservatives have become frustrated with their weakening influence in the GOP (not that I blame them) and have grown to resent social conservatives reign over the Republican party since President Bush took office in 2001. Also, the elite in the GOP have always looked down on their mostly Southern social conservative allies, and this is particular true for the Journal, which often, like much of the mainstream media, can’t see very well beyond the shores of Manhattan. Fund’s column against Huckabee embodies this frustration. Huckabee’s gaining in Iowa polls, and he is the strongest social conservative hands down among GOP candidates, so naturally he is drawing fire from the GOP elite.
In addition, the title "Southern Baptist Minister" strikes a strident tone, not only with the northeastern media elites, but also with various groups of socially liberal evangelicals. Furthermore, Huckabee's educational credentials pale in comparison to other candidates. A degree from Harvard Law School, unreasonably trumps a Master of Divinity from a "southern redneck" school such as Southwestern Baptist Theological
Seminary. But, past experience teaches us this perceived educational stigma alone is no reason to call in the fat lady.
John Fund responds to the rebuttal:
In response to your Arkansas correspondent. Gov. Huckabee likes to pretend that road taxes were raised by statewide referendum and he had nothing to do with that. But the referendum involved HIS road program and he campaigned for it and the higher taxes it represented. That is an established fact Secondly, while a Supreme Court decision did come down that forced higher education spending, Mr. Huckabee cannot escape full responsibility for that either. He was presented by both aides and GOP legislators with an extensive plan while the education litigation was moving through lower courts that would have put a Constitutional amendment on the statewide ballot that would have limited the court's jurisdiction. Polls showed it would pass. Huckabee ignored the recommendation, with the consequences that most observers predicted : higher taxes to pump more money into a failing system. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the state's largest newspaper, published a summary of Huckabee's fiscal record this month, nothing that he "boasts of 90 tax cuts during his tenure, which ended in January." But the paper's own analysis showed a "net tax increase of $505 million, a figure adjusted for inflation and economic growth, according to the [Arkansas] Department of Finance and Administration."
Mike Huckabee provides a personal response to John Fund here.
Aging, but highly esteemed evangelical spokeswoman Phyllis Schlafly has not denied disparaging remarks John Fund attributed to her concerning Huckabee. In fact her official media outlet Eagle Forum posted Schafly's remarks:
Phyllis Schlafly, president of the national Eagle Forum, is even more blunt. "He [Huckabee] destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles," she says. "Yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on George W. Bush as a 'compassionate conservative' are now trying to sell us on Mike Huckabee."
Stay tuned for more thrilling debate. Same Bat time, same Bat blog. (a little nostalgia here for those who remember the old fatman...I mean Batman television series.)
Is it true ole Huck's gonna git Tom Sawyer for a runnin' mate?
Posted by: Damian | October 29, 2007 at 04:00 PM