but honestly, I was thinking of Johnson rather than Huntsman. In any event, I was tagging Huck as the progressive because he sure ain’t a conservative!

Term limits for the statehouse?
Some sort of inspector general clause?
Strengthened the role of the A.G.?
A Palin-style “anyone can file an ethics complaint” bill?

Anything?

Just what did the good citizens of Arkansas get, other than higher taxes, for electing this guitar-pickin’ preacher man?

Mew

(and why is someone claiming to be a libertarian spamming all over about him?)

You do a disservice to this site, your party and the country with your approach.

I’ll be back to briefly respond to your comment in a few minutes.

I had just commented to Scope about Huck and that he always gave me the willies. You have confirmed my belief in that. He is no conservative, and I am offended by his wearing his Christianity on his sleeve. I am a Christian, descended from a long line of ministers, deacons, etc., and none of them ever behaved as he does about it. Everyone knew they were Christians by the way they lived, and they never said a word.

Thanks for all of your comments, acat. They are most informative, and I certainly appreciate them so very much. I’ve learned so much in the short time I’ve been on RS – there are some really good folks here.

to illegal/undocumented migrants, and even passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) in 1986, partly to help the illegal migrants. So you’d disqualify him?

Dubya, on the other hand, ‘cut taxes’ (in reality, the Bush ‘tax cuts’ just tacked on 1.7 trillion to the national debt). And so you’d vote for Dubya over the Gipper?

Huckabee needed to raise taxes as budget shortfalls were expected and, like most other states, Arkansas doesn’t allow deficit budgets. But he also gave many tax cuts (see his book for details), despite a massively Democratic state legislature (Arkansas has been voting GOP in presidential elections, but their state legislature is 90% Democratic, and Huckabee was only the second GOP governor there since reconstruction, i.e. it’s heavily Democratic state in state/local elections.)

AR’s gross state product (GSP) increased by a robust 60.7% during Huckabee’s tenure as governor, and the state’s median household income rose by 36.6% during 1996-2006, higher than the national average of 35.8% for the same period, and higher than all of AR’s neighboring states other than Oklahoma (MO 30.1%, TN 32.2%, MS 30.2%, LA 20.6%, TX 30.9%, OK 41.6%).

Overall, Huckabee’s pro-growth and pro-people policies and governance helped turn a ~$200 million budget shortfall into a ~$1 billion surplus by the time Huckabee left office. Had he returned to the office, he would have given large tax cuts using that surplus. The analyses done by anti-tax groups about his tax policies do not seem to have taken into account the budget surplus that he left behind.

If you equate compassion and the upliftment of the weak/poor with liberalism, you aren’t doing conservatism a favor.

You don’t want an agency that controls trillions of dollars and affects the entire economy to be audited? What kind of a “conservative” are you? You sound like an establishment operative to me.