The two Republicans most like Bill Clinton (in different ways) are sniping at each other. Romney is stealing my line about Huck being the Republican Clinton:To hear Mitt Romney tell it, Republican Mike Huckabee shares more with Democrat Bill Clinton than a hometown in Hope, Ark., and a stint as Arkansas governor.
Both men, Romney suggests, have left-leaning governing philosophies, particularly on taxes and spending.
"Governor Huckabee's record is more liberal than our nation needs right now," the former Massachusetts governor said in Iowa last week, seeking to link his GOP presidential rival to the former Democratic president who is loathed by many Republican loyalists.
Retorted Huckabee: "This nonsense about being a liberal is pure nonsense."
Romney started giving Huckabee that brand - and implicitly linking him to Clinton - as polls started showing a tight race in the first state to speak in the GOP nomination fight. Romney had led in Iowa for months, but Huckabee's recent rise here and elsewhere has prompted Romney to go after him.
The effort may be paying off. Polls show Huckabee's double-digit lead dropping to single digits less than two weeks before the Jan. 3 caucuses.
Romney's aides argue Huckabee's record as governor undercuts his claim that he's the only authentic conservative in the race. Romney himself has stopped short of explicitly saying his rival is simply another Clinton, though he's less shy about it in campaign literature mailed to thousands of Iowa Republicans.
Now, don't get me wrong, Huckabee is lefty in his views on taxes and on being a health nazi. But Gov. Romney, come on. You were the guy who acted unilaterally and some would say unconstitutionally to institute gay marriage. And what about your views on abortion, Mitt? And what about those fundraising ideas and the acquisition of Clearchannel by the company you are part of? Those are Clintonian traits (for more description on Romney's corruption and unfitness for the office of President, see Bizzyblog).
This article referenced above also puts some holes in Huckabee's main claim about taking on the Clintons. He never actually did....
Huckabee, for his part, is seeking to inoculate himself against such comparisons and turn a vulnerability into an asset. He counters Clinton comparisons with a ready, though exaggerated, response at just about every campaign event.
"I'm the only person running for president who has actually run against the Bill and Hillary Clinton machine, and I didn't just run against it. I beat it four times in Arkansas," Huckabee says now as part of his standard pitch. "They campaigned against me every time. They raised money for every opponent I ever had."
"Against the headwinds of their machine, I not only won the election every time - I didn't just win it one time and say oh I won't do that again - I kept going up against them and kept winning, and by the largest margins that any Republican had ever won," Huckabee said.
The line always draws applause - but it's a stretch.
Huckabee never ran against either Clinton for elected office. They moved to Washington after Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992 - four years before Huckabee, then lieutenant governor, assumed the state's top job when Democratic Gov. Jim Guy Tucker resigned after his conviction in the Whitewater investigation.
The Clintons did support Huckabee's opponents and raised money for them, and they still had a lot of connections and supporters in Arkansas after leaving the state. But they had little to do with politics in the state after they left and hardly controlled a political machine.
These days, Huckabee preemptively uses the Clinton line not only to try to distance himself from comparisons but also to argue that he's more likely than other Republicans to beat Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.
So Huckabee is twisting details to tell a tainted picture. Sounds like Bubba to me.
Bottom line: both of these guys are too much like Bubba to be of interest to me. Romney is the slick slimy guy and Huckabee is the ethical dunderhead who plays fast and loose with the rules and then tries to blame everyone else for his faults (see Limbaugh, Rush).
This article and its details are more reasons
