Coulter on Huckabee

By now many of you have seen Huckabee’s interview of Ann Coulter. Steve Deace has been talking about it along with some blogs. Most have taken Huckabee’s side on this without giving Coulter her due.

First, I absolutely agree that many of the things Coulter said about Huckabee were over the line or just plain wrong. But, the major policy items she battled with Huckabee on she is correct.

Huckabee is soft on immigration. He is in favor of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Where Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo and others were tough on illegals, as Governor, Huckabee was a softy.

Huckabee was also Bushlike on spending. During Huckabee’s tenure as Governor of Arkansas, state spending increased by over 65 percent. Now that is absolutely not conservative and no one out there can argue that. After years of Bush and Republicans in Congress spending like Democrats, the last person we needed to nominate from the Republican Party was a big spender. Most of us conservatives blame Bush’s spending for much of the erosion of support for our Party.

On health care Huckabee was the only candidate who opposed Bush’s veto of the expansion of SCHIP. For those who don’t remember the details, Democrats in Congress wanted to expand SCHIP to families. In Iowa this means families who make as much as $83,000 would be covered. And conservative policy makers know Democrats plan on getting all children insured by the government first and once that is done, they can move to socialized health care for all Americans.

Huckabee was right about being very socially conservative. He is definitely pro-life and pro-marriage but so were many of the other candidates who were running. Coulter should have been more professional and not so outlandish but she was right to bring up those points about Huckabee and I’m glad she is around to do so. She just needs to do so with respect. Oh and kudos to Huckabee for making her defend her statements.