Mike Huckabee on Tuesday told Americans he wants to take the country from hope to higher ground as he became the sixth Republican to declare for president during a rousing speech in his hometown of Hope, Ark.
The former Arkansas governor, who ruled in Little Rock for over a decade before leaving office in 2007, is hoping to recapture some of the magic that transformed him from an unknown to Iowa caucus winner during his first run for president seven years ago. Huckabee, 59, delivered a late morning speech before a full auditorium on the campus of a local community college, making a populist pitch for the White House that included term-limiting Supreme Court justices, replacing the income tax with a national sales tax and vowing no changes whatsoever to popular retirement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
“It was eight years ago that a young, untested, inexperienced and virtually unknown freshman senator made great speeches about hope and change. But eight years later, our debt’s more than doubled, America’s leadership in the world is completely evaporated and the country is more polarized than ever in my lifetime,” Huckabee said. “Ninety-three million Americans don’t have jobs, and many of them who do have seen their full time job with benefits they once had become two part time jobs with no benefits at all. We were promised hope, but it was just talk, and now we need the kind of change that really get America from hope to higher ground.”
The spot Huckabee chose to reveal his 2016 plans was meant to send another message — that he is uniquely qualified to take on the Clinton political machine. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, got her start in politics as the wife of Bill Clinton, the other famous politician to hail from Hope, Ark. Bill Clinton served as governor before going on to be elected president in 1992.
Huckabee, a Baptist preacher, is a charismatic orator with a proven ability to connect with evangelical and lunchpail conservatives. These voters don’t trust Washington — or necessarily identify with the GOP’s lately dominant strain of free market reformers who favor overhauling entitlement programs for younger workers and reducing the government’s role in regulating the economy and trade with other nations.
This time around, Huckabee is more prepared for a presidential campaign. The experience of having run before is valuable, and he has exponentially raised his name identification and fundraising heading into 2016 through fame earned from his popular television and radio programs. But the competition for the Republican nomination is greater than in 2008, when Huckabee failed to capitalize on his Iowa victory and ultimately lost out to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Huckabee must compete for voters with several candidates who have captured the imagination of various key GOP blocs. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is an establishment money favorite; Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is a rising Tea Party star; Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky attracts younger voters; neurosurgeon Ben Carson has become a repository for voters who don’t like career politicians; and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker have both shown an ability to draw support from multiple factions.
Huckabee is trying to use the low expectations to his advantage.
“I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I never have been and I’m not going to be the favored candidate of those in the Washington to Wall Street corridor of power. I’ll be funded and fueled, not by the billionaires, but by working people across America,” he said.
On one issue in particular, foreign policy, Huckabee converged with most in his party in calling for a tougher line on Iran. The governor decried Obama’s approach to international affairs and said under his presidency, Tehran would get a nuclear weapon when “hell freezes over.”
Huckabee was scheduled to spend the remainder of the week campaigning in Iowa and South Carolina.
Disclosure: The author’s wife works as an adviser to Scott Walker.
This article has been updated throughout the day.
