Huckabee's Union Speech
Last week, I pointed out that Mike Huckabee was the lone Republican presidential candidate to accept an invitation to speak at an NEA event. Here's how the editor of one Arkansas newspaper reacted [emphasis added]:
One news account said [Huckabee] was the first Republican candidate for president in history to address the NEA, which sounds implausible. Every Democratic candidate accepted the invitation and Huckabee followed Sen. Barack Obama to the lectern. While an NEA official warned the delegates in advance of Huckabee’s appearance that it was not good form to boo or hiss, it was recorded that the crowd actually gave Huckabee four standing ovations.
While we do not have a transcript of the governor’s speech, the NEA press release and the news accounts made no mention of his usual campaign mantra — that he would never raise taxes and that he had slashed taxes “94 times” as Arkansas governor, a record that was kept secret from Arkansas taxpayers. He could not very well say it in that forum because there were 60 delegates — the Arkansas contingent — and probably many more who knew that Huckabee had raised taxes repeatedly as governor, the largest share of them to improve the public schools and higher education. No governor in Arkansas history raised taxes so much and so often or raised government spending and debt to such heights.
