Mike Huckabee has popped up on more than a few lists of possible Republican presidential candidates in 2016. Last night, he gave a pretty loud indication that he’s testing the waters. He announced that night’s edition of his eponymous show on Fox News Channel will be its last.
In an announcement on his Facebook page, Huckabee said that he won’t make a decision about a presidential bid until this spring. However, he believed that “the continued chatter” about his run has put Fox in an impossible position. For that reason, he felt the only responsible decision was to end his show’s run of six-plus years now “so I can openly talk with potential donors and supporters and gauge support” for a possible campaign. However, he definitely sounded like a candidate when he added that he had to consider the possibility that it was time to “engage in the conflicts that have almost destroyed the bedrock foundations of America.” He had been with Fox since September 2008, not long after bowing out of that year’s Republican primary.
Huckabee sounded somewhat less strident later that night. He merely said that he could not bring himself to rule out a presidential bid and continue his show. Watch here.
The “chatter” Huckabee mentioned has been going on since November, when The Washington Post reported that Huckabee was reassembling a political team. In the past, Fox has cut ties with contributors who take undeniable steps toward partisan campaigns. Most recently, it parted ways with Ben Carson in November after he announced plans to introduce himself to the nation by way of a 40-minute documentary. However, Fox officials had been reviewing Huckabee’s activity since November, and by all accounts yesterday’s parting was very amicable.
If Huckabee does indeed run for president, he’ll have to overcome a lot of potential baggage. For instance, just hours after the Sandy Hook shootings, he declared that they would have never happened if we still had mandatory prayer in public schools. In August, while addressing a Tea Party-sponsored summit in New Hampshire, he suggested that North Korea may actually have more freedom than we do in this country.
The 500-pound gorilla in the room, however, is his decision to commute the sentence of Maurice Clemmons in 2000. For those who don’t know, Clemmons was serving 108 years in prison for numerous crimes dating back to his teenage years, including 60 years for robbing the home of an Arkansas state trooper. While he would not have been eligible for parole until 2015, Huckabee reduced the sentence to 47 years–which made him eligible for immediate parole. However, the decision-making process that led to Clemmons’ clemency was screwed up eight ways to Sunday. According to Jonathan Martin of The Seattle Times, who wrote a book about the Clemmons case, Huckabee apparently didn’t take a serious look at Clemmons’ prison file, which was laden with numerous incidents of violence. He also didn’t assure that Clemmons’ plan to live in the Seattle area was “solid, or even factual.” The sentences were undeniably harsh, and probably should have been reduced–but not under terms as generous as the ones Clemmons received. The result was nothing less than catastrophic. He murdered four police officers in a coffee shop near Tacoma, triggering a manhunt that ended with Clemmons’ death two days later.
Any one of these would be enough to disqualify Huckabee as a candidate in a sane world. But it says a lot about how far the GOP has drifted to the right that Huckabee can even think about running for president in 2016 in the face of all of this baggage.
Let us know your thoughts at the Liberal America Facebook page. Sign up for our free daily newsletter to receive more great stories like this one.
Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC on Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
