Huckabee Insists His Slick Willie Wasn’t A Slick Willie
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee insisted he wasn’t trying to pull a fast one when he played a negative TV commercial for the media even as he promised not to air it for voters.
“It was not trying to be tricky; it was trying to be as honest as I could,” the former Arkansas governor said Tuesday. “If I’d have really wanted to be tricky, I would have let the ad run three days and then say, ‘No, I’ve had a change of mind.”
Huckabee had called a news conference Monday to say he was going negative in Iowa, where he is in a tight race with Mitt Romney, and to play the ad that was going to hit the airwaves.
Instead, he said he had a last-minute change of heart and would not air it. Yet he played the ad anyway, prompting incredulous laughter from the media.
Reporters peppered him with questions about it on Tuesday.
“You know, at the time, I thought it was an important way to prove that we actually had it,” he said of the ad. “Probably if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have shown it. And you would have said ‘Aww, show it, you don’t really have one,’ and then you would’ve beaten me up for not showing it.
“Either way I did it, somebody would have had some interpretation of whether it was right to show it,” Huckabee said. “The one thing I don’t have any regret about, I have no regret at all about pulling the ad.
“I know we did the right thing, and I have no regrets about trying to say ‘Let’s change the tone.’ That was the right decision.”
At that, supporters standing behind the crush of journalists applauded. Huckabee jokingly pretended it was the media clapping.
“Thank you, press, for clapping for me,” he said. “You laughed at me yesterday; you clap for me today, yes.”
Would it have made Huckabee look mean to have shown the media the ad anyway? “No, because I don’t think many people will ever see it. I’m not sure that anybody will.”
Told the ad was posted on a blog by Carl Cameron of Fox News, Huckabee asked, “Oh, is it? How did he get it?”
Iowa’s caucuses, the first votes of the 2008 presidential nominating season, are Thursday. Polls showed Huckabee surging ahead of Romney last month, but Romney has narrowed the gap with negative ads about Huckabee’s record of being more forgiving toward illegal immigrants, granting clemency to criminals and raising taxes. Huckabee has said the spots may have hurt him.
At the news conference, his campaign had placed signs that read, “Enough is Enough,” a response to Romney’s ads. The slogan remained on a campaign banner Tuesday in Cedar Falls, where Huckabee played the bass guitar and spoke to about 400 supporters at the Elks Lodge.
“It’s still valid,” Huckabee told reporters. “I said enough is enough of the negative campaigning. That’s speaking to me as much as anybody else.”
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Baptist Preachers are mere mortal too. Some of them are bigger liars than the common man especially when their caught.
This is the worst kind of smear campaign so Huck go jump in a lake please.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:48 amI’m not a Huckabee fan. I just think he’d get steamrollered by most of the international community. He has dimples for God’s sake. I, however, am willing to admit I am pretty picky.
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:57 amIt depends on what your definition of “tricky” is.
No Clintonism here, nope none at all.
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:57 amEnough IS enough huck. And you’re more of the same.
I really realy hope this ass gets weeded out early in the primaries.
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:24 amfrom the first debates I watched I thought Romney was the strongest candidate, I thought Guiliani was most likeable, and McCain, though I love him, was too senial to be President, and then there was this one guy that sounds just like an F-ing baptist minister, and he annoyed the piss out of me.
Well what do you know, he IS a baptist minister.
Now that the primarys are actually taking off Romney is coming out on top, I really hope he goes 4 for 4 on the first 4 primarys. I would love to see Romney as President. He is the toughest on immigration and he is strong on national defense. Beyond that he is mormon, so there is no questioning his family values, and he has experience as a business exec, so I am confident in his ability to handle the economy. I am for Romney 100%. No one has come out as strong agains illegal immigration as he has and thats number 1 in my book.
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:58 amThis is going to be an interesting year… and I hope Huck isn’t at the end of it.
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:01 pm