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Mike Huckabee

Governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007

Michael Dale Huckabee (born 24 August 1955) is an American politician, Baptist minister, political commentator, and bassist who served as the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. He was a candidate for the Republican Party presidential nomination in both 2008 and 2016.

Mike Huckabee in 2015

Quotes

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  • I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives.
  • I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.
  • I'm not familiar that they're dodging it. Maybe they are. But I think schools also ought to be fair to all views. Because, frankly, Darwinism is not an established scientific fact. It is a theory of evolution, that's why it's called the theory of evolution.
    • Arkansans Ask, 1 July 2004 , quoted in Wiles, Jason (1 January 2005), "Is Evolution Arkansas's Hidden Curriculum?", Reports of the National Center for Science Education 25 (1-2): 32-36, retrieved on 2011-03-01 
  • I support and have always supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. As President, I will fight for passage of this amendment. My personal belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman, for life.

  • What are some principles worth living by? Ask a roomful of people, and you will get a roomful of answers. There already exists a code of principles established thousands of years ago and adhered to by people from a variety of religious backgrounds. It has been accepted as a basis for appropriate behavior. Fortunately, no one has copyrighted the Ten Commandments.

    Although some attempts have been made to prohibit these principles from being displayed, they have survived through the ages. They are the foundation of our laws and commonly accepted codes of human behavior.

  • [W]atching ducks land on a lake in Arkansas in the winter is about the closest to Heaven as you can find on this earth… and as someone who believes, according to my faith, I will go to Heaven when I die, I am pretty sure that there is duck hunting in Heaven!

  • There's only one explanation for it, and it's not a human one. It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people and that's the only way that our campaign could be doing what it's doing.

    And I'm not being facetious nor am I trying to be trite. There literally are thousands of people across who are praying that a little will become much and it has, and it defies all explanation. It has confounded the pundits, and I'm enjoying every minute of their trying to figure it out. And until they look at it from a just experience beyond human, they'll never figure it out. And that's probably just as well. That's honestly why its happening.

    • Liberty University convocation, 2007-11-28, quoted in James Joyner (6 December 2007), "Huckabee: God Wants Me to Be President", Outside the Beltway 
    • asked what he attributed his surge in the polls to
  • And they would ask, well, now, are you one of those narrow-minded Baptists who think only Baptists are going to heaven? To which I enjoy replying, now actually I'm more narrow than that, I don't think all the Baptists are going to make it.
  • It's a theocratic war. And I don't know if anybody fully understands that. I'm the only guy on that stage with a theology degree. I think I understand it really well.
  • Mike Huckabee: My plan to secure the border? Two words: Chuck Norris.
    Chuck Norris: Mike Huckabee's a lifelong hunter who'll protect our Second Amendment rights.
    Huckabee: There's no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard, only another fist.
    Norris: Mike Huckabee wants to put the IRS out of business.
    Huckabee: When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the Earth down.
    Norris: Mike's a principled, authentic conservative.
    Huckabee: Chuck Norris doesn't endorse, he tells America how it's gonna be.
  • I may not be the expert as some people on foreign policy, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
  • I don't think the issue's about being against gay marriage. It's about being for traditional marriage and articulating the reason that's important. You have to have a basic family structure. There's never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived. So there is a sense in which, you know, it's one thing to say if people want to live a different way, that's their business. But when you want to redefine what family means or what marriage means, then that's an issue that should require some serious and significant debate in the public square.
  • I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other, and how we treat the family.
  • When I was in college, we used to take a popcorn popper, because that was the only thing they would let us use in the dorm, and we would fry squirrels in a popcorn popper in the dorm room.
  • I didn't major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them, too.
  • It's more likely I'll dye my hair green, get a bunch of tattoos and go on tour with Amy Winehouse.
    • "Quotes of note". Boston.com. 2008-02-16. Retrieved on 2011-03-01. 
    • On the possibility of him running for the Senate seat after losing the White House run.

  • Here's the clear "science:"

    When the male sperm and female egg join, a new and unique life form is created. At conception. Not at birth or viability, or when a lawyer says so. At conception this happens. John McCain got it right; Obama pled less scientific knowledge than a 5th grader.

    This life is either human or something else. Science irrefutably would declare that the life which is starting from that moment is human. It's not a stalk of broccoli, it's not a parrot, squirrel, or dolphin. It will never become a tree—it can only become a human. It has the entire DNA schedule that it will have for the rest of its life right then. In days it will begin to take on increasingly observable human characteristics and form, but at conception, it is biologically human.

    If this life is human, then the only issue left is whether this human life falls under the notion that it has a fundamental right of existence or not. If not, it is because we as a culture have decided that some human lives are simply not worth living. If we can decide that about an innocent and unborn baby, we can also decide it on the basis of less absolute criteria than that. If we make that choice (and this is all about "CHOICE," isn’t it?) then someone may decide that a terminally ill person is not a life worth living. Maybe a severely disabled child is a life not worth living; what about a person with a limited IQ? Say that's absurd—that an educated and enlightened society would never be so audacious as to begin to terminate life based on such arbitrary excuses? Maybe you haven't studied Nazi Germany, in which the murder of six million Jews was justified because of their religion and millions of others were murdered because of their politics. Germany was not a primitive, superstitious culture. It was one filled with the intelligentsia and enlightened.

    This is an important issue. It's why we can't trust Obama with America's future because he's not even sure which Americans are worth saving and which ones aren't. And it's why that for many of us, McCain's selection of a running mate really does matter. Because John McCain clearly is pro life, I will support and vote for him because Obama is not an option for me as a pro life person. I will be disappointed if McCain doesn't pick a true pro life person and realize that should that happen, he will lose many of the very people who supported me. I cannot expect all of you to vote for McCain if he chooses someone whose record isn't pro life. It will be a less than perfect decision for all of us—our only real choices are McCain and Obama; one will protect life and one won't. Some will argue for a 3rd party candidate and I respect that, but in political realities, that is essentially a vote for Obama and I can't go there.

  • But it was President Obama himself who suggested that seniors, who don't have as long to live, might want to consider just taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them. Yet when Sen. Kennedy was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at 77, did he give up on life and go home to take pain pills and die? Of course not. He freely did what most of us would do. He choose an expensive operation and painful follow up treatments. He saw his work as vitally important and so he fought for every minute he could stay on this earth doing it. He would be a very fortunate man if his heroic last few months were what future generations remember him most for.
    • The Huckabee Report, 24 September 2009 , quoted in "Huckabee: Kennedy Would Have Been Urged To Die Earlier Under ObamaCare", The Huffington Post, 28 September 2009 
    • referring to Obama saying, in ABC's "Questions for the President: Prescription for America" forum on 2009-06-24, "But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that's not making anybody's mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."
  • Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.
  • So the stimulus didn't just waste your money; it planted the seeds from which the poisonous tree of death panels will grow.
  • Who will get rationed? Well, the very old and the very young, obviously, the most helpless and vulnerable among us. But it will also be those who don't live politically correct lives — those who have too many cigarettes or cocktails or cans of soda. "Death by Chocolate" won't just be a cute name on the dessert menu.
  • I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American.
  • But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.
    • The Steve Malzberg Show, 28 February 2011 , quoted in Hananoki, Eric (1 March 2011), "Huckabee: Obama Grew Up "In Kenya"", Media Matters for America, retrieved on 2011-03-02 
    • About Barack Obama, who grew up in Hawaii and did not visit Kenya until his adulthood, despite rumours and innuendos which imply otherwise and have been circulated since his nomination to run for the US Presidency
  • There was a kid who was 16 years old, he committed a burglary, he was aggravated, but not armed. And for that he got 108 years, one-hundred-and-eight years.

  • I think there were a lot of Christian people who simply stayed home for reasons that I can't figure out. But I think every time we lose major elections or major issues like the same-sex marriage issue or the marijuana issue, it's because Christians just didn't show up and vote.

    I lay the blame though at the feet of those who sit faithfully in church each Sunday; they probably heard their pastor talk about the importance of this election and how so much was on the line, and yet maybe because they just didn't want to bother with having to stand in line at an election polling place, they just didn't go vote. And we're going to pay dearly for that.

    If I were Cardinal Dolan or any of the Catholic bishops or priests, I would certainly be very frustrated and discouraged and wonder why aren't they understanding that if they join a church and belong to it, why would they not respect its teachings as having validity. It's one thing to say "well, I can't agree with everything" although I'm not sure why you'd join a church if you dismiss it. But to be openly contemptuous of its teaching and doctrine, it's something I can't understand.

  • Women I know are outraged that Democrats think that women are nothing more than helpless and hopeless creatures whose only goal in life is to have the government provide for them birth control medication. Women I know are smart, educated, intelligent, capable of doing anything that anyone else can do. Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women. That's not a war on them, that's a war for them. And if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government then so be it!
  • Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE. I'm pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, "Coach, I think I'd rather shower with the girls today." You're laughing because it sounds so ridiculous, doesn't it?
  • Josh's actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, 'inexcusable,' but that doesn't mean 'unforgivable.' He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities. No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things. [...] They are no more perfect a family than any family, but their Christian witness is not marred in our eyes because following Christ is not a declaration of our perfection, but of HIS perfection. [...] Let others run from them. We will run to them with our support.
  • This president's foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.
  • I have a message for the judge, and I say this with all my heart: If this judge believes that somebody must be put in jail because a person is willing to stand on the biblical definition of marriage, and is willing to stand because they believe that the constitution does not allow the courts to make up law according to their own whims— if the judge believes that, then I would ask this of him: Let Kim go, but if you have to put someone in jail, I volunteer to go. Let me go. Lock me up if you think that's how freedom is best served. Because folks, I am willing to spend the next eight years in the White House leading this country, but I want you to know, I'm willing to spend the next eight years in jail, but I'm not willing to spend one day under the tyranny of people who believe they can take our freedom and conscience away!
  • Because I've been just drilled by TV hosts over the past week, "How dare you say that, uh, you know, it's not the law of the land?"" Because that's their phrase, "it’s the law of the land". Michael, the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren't fully human. Does anybody still follow the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision?
  • There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's Judea and Samaria. There's no such thing as a settlement. They're communities. They're neighborhoods. They're cities. There's no such thing as an occupation. The only occupiers were the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Turks, the Brits, the Romans. They were occupiers. The Jews are the occupants.

Republican Debates

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  • But I'm pro-life because I believe life begins at conception, and I believe that we should do everything possible to protect that life because it is the centerpiece of what makes us unique as an American people. We value the life of one as if it's the life of all, and that's why we go out for the 12-year-old Boy Scout in North Carolina when he's lost; that's why we look for the 13 miners in Sago, West Virginia, when the mine explodes; that's why we go looking for the hikers in Mount Hood, because we value life, and it's what separates us from the Islamic jihadists who are out to kill us. They celebrate death. They have a culture of death. Ours is a culture of life.
  • My point is, I don't know. I wasn't there. But I believe whether God did it in six days or whether he did it in six days that represented periods of time, he did it. And that's what's important. But you know, if anybody wants to believe they are the descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it.
  • When our founding fathers put their signatures on the Declaration of Independence, those 56 brave people, most of whom by the way were clergymen, they said that we had certain inalienable rights given to us by our creator, and among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, life being one of them. I still believe that.
    • Republican Presidential Debate, 2007-10-21, quoted in "The Republican Debate on Fox News Channel". The New York Times. 2007-10-21. Retrieved on 2011-03-01. 
    • asked his opinion on Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's position to do nothing to change the laws that keep abortion legal
  • We don't have a health care system. We have a health care maze. And we don't have a health care crisis. We have a health crisis. Eighty percent of the $2 trillion we spend on health care in this country is spent on chronic disease. If we don't change the health of this nation by focusing on prevention, we're never going to catch up with the costs no matter what plan we have. … And we've got a situation with 10,000 baby boomers a day signing up for Social Security, going into the Medicare system. And I just want to remind everybody when all the old hippies find out that they get free drugs, just wait until what that's going to cost out there.
  • We have 6,000 kids every day drop out in this country. And they don't drop out because they're dumb. They drop out because they're bored to death. They're in a 19th century education system in a 21st century world. If we really are serious, then, first of all, we make sure that we build the curriculum around their interests, rather than just push them into something they don't care. Second thing, unleash weapons of mass instruction. I'm a passionate, ardent supporter of having music and art in every school for every student at every grade level.
    • Republican presidential candidate debate, Johnston, Iowa, 2007-12-12
  • It's the best proposal that we ought to have because it's flatter, it's fairer, it's finite, it's family friendly. And instead, we've had a Congress that spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop.
    • Republican presidential candidate debate, Johnston, Iowa, 2007-12-12
    • regarding the FairTax proposal


Misattributed

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  • Look, you're a conservative and so am I. We can agree, the day that the day Barack Obama was sworn into office as our 44th President, was the day the country started going to pot.

    Listen, you're a person of faith and so am I. In his administration and now on his re-election campaign, President Obama has surrounded himself with morally repugnant political whores with misshapen values and gutter-level ethics.

About Huckabee

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  • I think that, that it would be hard for New Hampshire to vote for somebody who was a fundamentalist minister, affable as he is. He does seem to actually want to write, for example, a prohibition against abortion into the Constitution, which Ronald Reagan, for all his talking about it, never tried to do one time.
  • Asked on CNN's "Larry King Live" Monday night about his beliefs on evolution, Huckabee rushed to assure King that he has no interest in altering textbooks that foist this fraud on innocent schoolchildren. I don't understand that. Does Huckabee believe Darwinism is a hoax or not? If he knows it's a fraud, then why does he want it taught to schoolchildren? What other discredited mystery religions — as mathematician David Berlinski calls Darwinism — does Huckabee want to teach children? Sorcery? Phrenology? Alchemy?
  • However, what Article VI [of the U.S. Constitution] does not do, and was never intended to do, is deny me the right to say, as loudly as I may choose, that I will on no account vote for a smirking hick like Mike Huckabee, who is an unusually stupid primate but who does not have the elementary intelligence to recognize the fact that this is what he is.
  • Oh please. No ethic lectures from you, you cheap carny hustler... [Y]ou since you sold your moral compass for dimes long ago.
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