The Tolbert Report

Republican Congressional candidate Beth Anne Rankin flew to New York last week to appear on “The Huckabee Show.” This is the new daily talk show hosted by Mike Huckabee not his weekend show on Fox News.  The show does not air in the fourth Congressional district where Rankin in challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Mike Ross or anywhere in Arkansas for that matter, so I am not sure what the strategy is of appearing on a show that almost none of your potential voters will ever see.

Anyway, Rankin appeared with two other women running for Congress including Republican candidate for CA-37  Star Parker and Democratic candidate for NY-14 Reshma Saujani, which is in New York City where “The Huckabee Show” is both taped and airs.  Huckabee said he would vote for all three including the Democrat.

Rankin says she did not realize she was a part of a larger movement of women running for office but instead she was inspired by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

The last we looked at “The Huckabee Show,” Mike Huckabee was busy interviewing the founders of a website that helps people have affairs.  Lots of free media for a horrible website from the king of free media. Anyway, the last of the six week trial run aired today and indications are this will be the end.

Reading my blog over the past year is an interesting chronicle of a disenchanted Huckabee supporter.  But even I believed there was a level to which Huckabee would not go.  He has now crossed that level in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

Last week on his show, he had Noel Biderman on to discuss a popular website that promotes married or committed couples to find partners for affairs.  Biderman was joined by a current client and a former client to discuss the website’s benefits as well as the benefits of cheating in general.

Huckabee does the “aw, shucks” routine with his guest saying things like “I don’t get that” or “It’s very difficult for me to understand” but never denouncing the website. Instead he gives the owner over ten minutes of airtime to promote his product while launching him softball questions.

It is no surprise this website that promotes adultery is a sponsor of his FoxNews show.

Mike Huckabee, you really should be ashamed of yourself!

And also…For those of you breathlessly hoping that Huckabee will run for President in 2012, Iowa Politics - an Iowa blog – does not think the chance of that is very high based on the ground game in Iowa.  They quote Eric Woolson who was the campaign manager for Huckabee for President in Iowa in 2008 and is now the spokesman for Sen. Chuck Grassley’s re-election campaign.

“It sure seems like the campaign manager of the winning 2008 operation might get a call or two, but nobody has said anything to me about 2012 yet,” Woolson said.

Meanwhile…Huckabee wants to you to take a break from surfing for cheating partners to travel to Sacramento, California this weekend and fast and pray for the protection of traditional marriage.  It must be tough for Huckabee to serve the plethora of masters that advertise on his show and pay his speaking fees. Poor fella.

I did not hear about this one until Mike Huckabee put out a strongly worded denial this morning. A Florida blogger is quoting an anonymous source saying that Huckabee approached Republican candidate for governor Rick Scott about endorsing him for $250,000.  Huckabee ended up endorsing Bill McCollum.

“Let me be perfectly clear, Governor Mike Huckabee has never had a conversation with Rick Scott or anyone on his staff about such matters,” said Huckabee’s spokeman Hogan Gidley in a statement denying the charge on the HuckPAC blog this morning. “If Rick Scott made this claim, he needs to publically (sic) and immediately admit this is total lie – and if he didn’t say it, he needs to fire whichever member of his campaign staff said it.”

This could get interesting but obviously you can’t trust anything you read on a blog.

The Chad Causey for Congress campaign is crowing about the endorsements of a couple of appointees of former governor and current Florida resident Mike Huckabee.  (Press release on the jump.) I suppose turnabout is fair play as Rick Crawford’s campaign has highlighted the endorsements of several prominent supporters of Causey’s former Democratic opponent Tim Wooldridge.

The two Huckabee appointees are Mike Freeze appointed by Huckabee to the Arkansas Game and Fish and John Ed Regenold appointed by Hucakbee to the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.

These two are far from die hard Republicans. Both have donated heavily to Democratic candidates (Freeze and Regenold) over the years with Republican donations sprinkled throughout. They have given to Democrats including Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Sen. Mark Pryor, Rep. Marion Berry, and former President Bill Clinton.

These endorsements actually do more to highlight Huckabee’s Democrat leaning appointments more than anything else.

UPDATE – It looks like Causey’s announcement was meant to preempt this one from Crawford.  This afternoon he announced the formation of “Democrats for Crawford” which will be led by Dewaine Malone, a Democratic sheriff for the eastern district of Craighead County for the last ten years.

“I have been a registered Democrat all my life and the people in Washington are too liberal and out of touch with the folks here in Arkansas,” said Malone. “While I will continue to support Democrats locally, I believe we need someone in Washington that can stand up to Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama’s agenda.”

(Press release also on the jump.)

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Huckabee fans around the nation are rejoicing this morning at the news that he has a lead in a poll conducted by “The Iowa Republican.” The poll showed Huckabee earning the support of 22 percent of likely Iowa Republican caucus voters, Mitt Romey (who finished second to Huckabee in Iowa in 2008) was still in second with 18 percent, Newt Gingrich at 14 percent, Sarah Palin at 11 percent, Ron Paul at 5 percent, and Tim Pawlenty and John Thune each at 1 percent.

While obviously good news for Huckabee nation, I would caution reading to much into this poll.  As the 2008 caucus winner, Huckabee has the clear early advantage as at this point most people are going to support whomever they supported last time.  In addition, his media empire of radio, weekend talk shows, chicken dinner speeches, book tours and now a daily talk show gives him very high name identity.

I could be entirely wrong but my suspicion is that two or three of the top four people in this poll will ultimately not run. My eyes right now are on the bottom top.  I believe either Tim Pawlenty or John Thune have an equally strong opportunity at the nomination.  They are unknown at this point so they will not yet start showing up in the poll numbers. But they represent a fresh start for Republicans without the baggage from the very intense primary of 2008.

Interestingly enough, John Thume will be in Arkansas later this month. He will be at a fundraiser breakfast for Jeremy Hutchinson for State Senate at the Home Plate Dinner (one of my favorite breakfast spots) in Bryant on August 25 at 7:30 am.

If you have listened to Glen Beck’s radio program or Mike Huckabee’s “The Huckabee Report” than you have probably heard them talk up the benefits of buying gold from Goldline.

“Goldline is a solid, reputable company helping investors diversify their portfolios, which I believe is critical in these uncertain economic times,” said Huckabee when signing a contract for them to be a major advertiser for his radio show. “The Goldline team has tremendous experience and a keen understanding of the precious metals markets. They are certainly the ‘go to’ people for buying gold and silver.”

But the company is currently under investigation for pushing the sales of overpriced collectible coins. ABC News reports….

There are two main types of complaints we’re seeing,” said Adam Radinsky of the Santa Monica City Attorney’s office, which has launched what it described as a joint investigation with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office.

“One is that customers say that they were lied to and misled in entering into their purchases of gold coins,” he said. “And the other group is saying that they received something different from what they had ordered.”

In an interview broadcast on Good Morning America, Radinsky said the probe is in its early stages and involves more than 100 consumer complaints about Goldline and Superior.

Goldline executive vice president Scott Carter was on ABC’s Good Morning America this morning defending his sales practices (video above.)  According to him, the collectible coins are pushed because the government could take gold bullion from private citizens pointing to 1933 during the depreciation when the government purchased private gold stock at the current market price.

Goldline’s website touts the “testimonials” from Beck and Huckabee as well as former Presidential candidate Fred Thompson as evidence of the company’s creditability.

The Commercial Appeal reports tonight that Mike Huckabee will be the new chancellor of Victoty University Foundation in Memphis.  Now this one puzzles me on many levels.

First, I know a little bit about foundations and typically they don’t have chancellors.  That is a title that normally goes to one of the head honchos at the actually university, not the foundation. Maybe this is some sort of new honorary thing, but it is a bit of an odd title for someone who is raising money.

Second, Victory University President John Borek says in the article ”Huckabee will not be paid for his foundation work.”  Now that is odd.  Huckabee is a hard ticket to book for a speaking engagment.  Normally, you have to shell out over $30,000 plus expenses to get him to show up and give a speech.  If he were doing pro bono fundraising, why not help out an Arkansas college such as his alma mater (and mine) Ouachita Baptist University? 

The article does say something about him getting some sort of payment from Significant Federation which just bought Victory University.  They also remamed the school from its old name Crichton College and changed it from a non-profit to a for-profit.  So maybe Huckabee’s chancellor work is a bit more on the for-profit side as well.

Anyway, someone smarter than me will have to explain this one.  I don’t get it.

For those of you who can’t get enough Mike Huckabee books, it looks like you will soon get another one to add to your collection.  According to ChristianBooks.com, his next book will be a 32 pages children’s book about Huckabee’s experience growing up at Christmas time.  It looks like a repackaged version of his last years book A Simple Christmas  for children.  From the website’s description…

When Huckabee was a boy, he used to sneak a look at his Christmas presents—and then wrap them back up before Mom and Dad found out. The scheme worked until Mike didn’t clean a muddy football before re-wrapping it. Discover how a little boy’s curiosity and impatience led him to understand the true meaning of Christmas!

It is set for release on October 19. No word yet if it will include a book tour.

Okay, the headline is a paraphrase but in an interview with the Charlotte Observer over the weekend Mike Huckabee claims that he was a tea party pioneer.  From the Observer…

On whether the tea partiers will oppose him for raising taxes in Arkansas: “No. I was tea party before there was such a thing. If people go back and listen to what I said during the campaign, read the books that I’ve written, what they’re going to say is that, ‘Gosh, this guy was the tea party message before anyone identified it as a tea party’ … The fact is, I got criticized in 2007 and 2008 for the very things that have been the centerpiece of the tea party message. What I did in Arkansas was what the federal government should have done: I balanced the budget. I lowered more taxes than I ever was a part of raising. And I raised taxes only as a part of a court-ordered issue of dealing with an education crisis.”

In the past, Mike Huckabee has been a bit leery of the Tea Party movement so this is quite a claim.  My memory of Huckabee’s time as governor was that he was a level headed common sense conservative who was criticized from the right for not being conservative enough, hardly a “Tea Party” type of message.  And if balancing the budget makes one a Tea Party pioneer, then every governor of Arkansas since the 1930’s can claim this as well, including current Gov. Mike Beebe and former Gov. Bill Clinton.

If anyone from Arkansas should get credit for this, it should be former Gov. J. Marion Futrell who truly did make radical changes to Arkansas’ fiscal policy during a time of economic crisis in the 1930’s.  Maybe Gov. Futrell invented the Tea Party.

It looks like our former Gov. Mike Huckabee will parlay his successful cable show on FoxNews into a syndicate talk show on Fox.  According to an email obtained from HuckTix, (on the jump) “The Huckabee Show” will begin taping in New York on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays starting July 19 and will run at least through September 3.

The show will air at various time on local Fox channels.  No official word yet if or when it will air on Little Rock’s Fox affiliate – Fox 16.  I have asked and will let you know.

All the latest flurry of talk of Huckabee running for President in 2012 will likely boost the ratings on his new endeavor.  In addition to “The Huckabee Show,” Huckabee will continue to boardcast his weekly show “Huckabee” on FoxNews and his daily radio show “The Huckabee Report” on ABC Radio.

UPDATE – Little Rock’s Fox 16 says it is not one of the seven stations that will be participating in the six week test run.

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