* Wayne Dumond was a rapist. He had several years more on his sentence, but Huckabee got the parole board to spring him. Why well its complicated but of course Republican hate of Bill Clinton plays a role.
*Huckabee supports the un-Fair tax, a horribly regressive idea to replace national income taxes with a sales tax. Sure they will offer "pre-bates", or monthly payments to poor people to try to make it somewhat progressive; but this means only poor poeple will have to file an income statement with the feds. If you have any doubts about the crazy land of Fair tax consider the other candidates in the race who is pushing for it Ron Paul and Mike Gravel.
* Ethical questions have dogged this guy for years. While most of these are small time crimes, they fit a pattern of entitlement to office. Don't let his ministers charm fool you into thinking this guy is a saint. Why did he leave the ministry in the first place.
* Like the current occupant of the White House Huck can't be bothered to read things like say Intelligence Estimates on the country he thinks is our most dangerous enemy
* Huck doesn't believe in evolution. Sure he's backpedalled a bit now, and hedged; but the first answer is always the honest one.
* While I applaud Huckabee's belief that maybe sometimes you do need to raise taxes. I question his desire to raise taxes on people in nursing homes. 5.25/day or almost $2000 a year in taxes on Grandma and Grandpa; apparently he's anti "Death Tax", but ok with a Dying Tax.
What kind of picture does this paint? For me it's a very troubling one. His initial reactions are the most troubling. He is a man without courage. Afraid of catching AIDS; lock those folks up. Afraid of Iran, bomb them. Free the real criminals; out of fear of your base. Need money to pay for your schemes; go tax the middle class, the poor and the sick. Finally be sure to take a little something for yourself. Even his weight loss can be seen in this context of fear. To summarize his story, he was told by his doctors he would die if he didn't lose weight. Afraid of his own death; he drops the weight. A President should be motivated by hope, not fear.
Rudy, with his rampant corruption, authoritarianism, "Shag fund," etc?
Romney, with his complete flip flopping on everything he believed just a few years ago when he was running to the LEFT of Ted Kennedy?
Thompson, who was taking an niiiice long nap the last time anyone checked?
John McCain, who sold out all his 2000 reformer principles to LITERALLY embrace Bush and figuratively embrace the "Christian right?" (note: I think McCain is by far the best Republican candidate in terms of character and qualification, even if that's not saying much).
What a sorry lot on the Republican side.
Here's some good news --
In head-to-head matchups -- the first to include Huckabee -- the former Arkansas governor loses to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York by 10 percentage points (54 percent to 44 percent), to Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois by 15 points (55 percent to 40 percent) and to former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina by 25 points (60 percent to 35 percent).
The rub -- it may be lack of name recognition that's hurting Huckabee.
However -- I think one reason for his rise has been that people DON'T know much about him.