Blatant Reality

Today, Mike Huckabee visited the campus of the University of South Carolina to speak to students about why we should support him in his presidential bid. He began by giving a brief bio about what happened in his life and then went on to answer students’ questions. In his planned speech, his listed off three things that a country needs to be able to do to qualify as free: feed itself, fuel itself, and fight for itself.

Basically, Huckabee believes that a country should be able to be self sufficient if worst came to worst. We shouldn’t have to worry about late food shipments or crop failures from other countries. We shouldn’t have to have a reliance on foreign oil; We should be energy self-sufficient. And we shouldn’t be buying our weapons from countries that could potentially turn on us. To achieve all this, our government needs to establish policies that promote business here in the United States so we won’t have to outsource all our needs to foreign countries. Huckabee asserted that if elected president, he will support such economic reforms, like the Fair Tax, that would eliminate the need for our country to outsource jobs.

When the Q&A section started, one question asked about Huckabee’s view on global warming. His basic view is that everyone has the responsibility to take care of the environment and that true conservative need to remember that we are the ones who came up with environmental conservation. One thing Mr. Huckabee can’t stand are those who don’t practice what they preach. For example, since USC is playing LSU this weekend, Huckabee made the analogy that he can’t stand those environmentalist who have “jets that suck up fuel like LSU fans suck up alcohol.” Even if you didn’t agree with his particular viewpoint, that poke at LSU still made the room erupt with laughter and earned him points with everyone in the crowd.

Mr. Huckabee also made it a point to promote his own ideas without attacking his opponents. When asked about his views on Hillary’s universal health care plan, some people in the audience chuckled. In response, Huckabee went on the say that it is easy for Republicans to hate Hillary, but hating people doesn’t advance your beliefs, it just disables your opponents. I found this very honorable and a refreshing difference from the 2004 Democratic campaigns that were mainly fueled by the people’s hate of President Bush.

Overall, Huckabee seemed like a straight shooter that didn’t dodge any of the questions he was asked. He was very personable and did pepper his speech with personal stories that were tailor-made to fit the crowd (ie he referred to a past experience he had at LSU since USC is playing them this weekend). His morals are excellent and will satisfy most, if not all, of the Christian conservatives that are out there. The only thing that Huckabee is missing is money and a broader support base. Lets hope in the coming months he will receive both.