In the second of a two-part series Friday night, KATV’s Scott Inman asked Mike Huckabee about a column I wrote for the Arkansas News Bureau in which I speculated that he would not run for president for a lot of reasons, the evidence being that he is building a $2.2 million mansion on the beach in Florida. My point then: No one would build that kind of house if he were seriously planning on spending the next 17 months on the campaign trail and eight years in the Oval Office.
The link is below. At the 2:25 mark, Inman referred to the column by saying that “an Arkansas writer … and someone who served on your staff” had written that he wouldn’t run, in part, because “your life’s a little too cushy right now.”
Huckabee laughed and said, “It’s not about the cushiness and of the life. You know, frankly, the campaign’s pace couldn’t be more intense than what I’m doing now.”
That wasn’t quite true, of course, but he was exaggerating for effect.
During the interview, Huckabee also said, “It’s just impossible to run a presidential campaign without an obscene amount of money, and it’s especially going to be that way because the Democrats aren’t going to have a primary. The Republicans could end up with a demolition derby, which I hope doesn’t happen. And so part of what I’ve got to decide is, can I raise enough money to be competitive?”
Here is the column that led to that question.
Were he to run, Huckabee hopefully would add a voice of reasonableness to a primary process that has already become a circus. Asked in the Thursday segment about his recent spitting match with Fox News host Glenn Beck, who called him a “progressive” in part because he supported first lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign to combat childhood obesity, Huckabee said:
“I refuse to be one of those Republicans who hate everything Obama just because of the source. Whether it’s the first lady, or the president, and I think they’ve done something good, then let’s acknowledge that.”