Though he has made no formal declaration, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has said he’s considering a White House bid in 2016. The Southern Baptist minister had previously sought the GOP nomination in 2008.
In a November Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, Huckabee "defied expectations in 2008 by winning the Iowa caucuses [and] is viewed more positively by fellow Republicans than nine potential rivals, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Cristie, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul," according to
The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog.
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His staunch Republican positions, his talk show "Huckabee" on the Fox News Channel, and the fact that he is a potential contender for president have offered up plenty of Huckabee political fodder for liberal political pundits.
Peter Hart: "I'm just surprised that his numbers are as strong as they are," said the Democratic pollster who helps conduct the Journal poll with Republican Bill McInturff. "That tells you something about the Fox viewership."
Gail Collins, in a New York Times opinion piece: "Well, the lovable Mike lost [in 2008] and went on to a career as a radio commentator and a Fox TV host. Perhaps he wanted to juice ratings. Perhaps he wanted a new path to the presidency in 2016. But over the past five years, as his party got raw and angry and mean, Huckabee got raw and angry and mean.
"In his 2011 book 'A Simple Government,' he railed about everything from giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship (Amnesty!) to subsidized school breakfasts. He compared President Obama to 'an arrogant nerd,'" Collins wrote in the Times.
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Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, "ridiculed Mr. Huckabee and the Republicans' efforts to reach to women voters, who supported President Obama by overwhelming margins in 2012," according to The New York Times.
"If Huckabee's 'libido' comments are the GOP rebrand in action a year later, then all they've gotten is a year older," Wasserman Schultz wrote on her Twitter page.
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