Huckabee gives thumbs-up to candidate’s ad using kids
Posted on Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Gov. Mike Huckabee said Tuesday that he likes Asa Hutchinson’s ad with children that Mike Beebe called “despicable.”
Beebe, the Democratic nominee for governor, complained Monday about the ad by Hutchinson, his Republican opponent in the race for governor. The ad features children saying they want to be politicians when the grow up. They state several negative qualities, concluding “just like Mike Beebe.”
Huckabee’s former campaign finance chairman, Ron Fuller of Little Rock, called the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to say the ad was “disgraceful” and that Huckabee never would have approved something like that.
“I was certainly surprised by his comment,” Huckabee said. “I thought the ad Asa is running is clever, and I thought it was funny and effective and saw nothing offensive about it.”
Fuller is a former Republican legislator who is supporting Beebe, the state attorney general, over Hutchinson, a former congressman. Huckabee, a Republican who is term-limited from running for re-election, has endorsed Hutchinson.
Beebe said Monday that he’s featured children in ads but in a “positive” way. He said he felt that Hutchinson’s ad “uses children in a mudslinging way.”
Huckabee said, “For someone who wants to be governor, you have to develop a little thicker skin for something as lighthearted as that.”
The Hutchinson ad, Huckabee said, is “from the same genre of spots” that Huckabee ran against his Democratic challenger in 2002, state Treasurer Jimmie Lou Fisher. That ad featured somebody resembling Fisher wearing a red dress and a gray wig while riding a four-wheeler and splashing mud on Huckabee campaign signs.
FAMILY CRISIS Beebe’s campaign declined comment, citing a family crisis. Anthony Taylor of Searcy was found Tuesday morning by Searcy police at a hotel, dead of “an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” according to a police report. A spokesman for the attorney general’s office confirmed that Taylor was married to Tammy Taylor, the daughter of Beebe’s wife, Ginger. Beebe has said he considers Ginger’s children from her first marriage his own.
“We are deeply grateful for the support and prayers extended to us by so many people across the state at this time of loss,” Beebe said in a statement. “We are certain everyone will understand that this is a time we must focus our attention on supporting Tammy and the girls.”
Tammy Taylor, 36, has two daughters.
According to Searcy police reports, Tammy Taylor had been staying at Beebe’s home in Searcy and had reported that Anthony Taylor recently had threatened her with violence and had “physically abused” her in the past.
On Oct. 17, she reported that her husband, whom she was divorcing, had left her messages saying, “I’m going to hunt you down and it won’t be pretty.”
IMMIGRATION On another issue, Hutchinson has criticized Beebe for opposing Hutchinson’s proposal to have Arkansas State Police enforce federal immigration laws in the course of their other duties, such as traffic stops.
Huckabee hasn’t entered into the agreement with the U. S. Department of Homeland Security, despite a bill sponsored by Hutchinson’s nephew, state Rep. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock, being passed in 2005 allowing such an arrangement.
“I’ll leave that up to state police to determine what their priorities are,” Huckabee said. “The one thing I have not done is tell them the priorities they need to set. The obvious one is solving crimes. They have to do it in the context of what they have resources for.”
Huckabee said he would “leave that” to the state police director, Col. Steve Dozier. Dozier didn’t return messages left for him at state police headquarters. Hutchinson and Huckabee have differed on other key issues Hutchinson has raised this year. Hutchinson wants to give some high schools exemptions from teaching the state minimum of course offerings. Huckabee and Beebe have said the standards should remain constant. Hutchinson has criticized Beebe for opposing the 2002 ballot initiative to remove the sales tax on groceries. Huckabee and Beebe said the state was in a budget crisis at that time.
NICK WILSON Also Tuesday, the state Republican Party issued a news released with statements from Huckabee differing with Beebe’s account Monday regarding 1997 legislation by former Sen. Nick Wilson, D-Pocahontas, that set aside state funds for the benefit of Wilson allies, a scheme for which Wilson was convicted in federal court.
Huckabee vetoed the legislation, and Beebe, in the state Senate at the time, voted to override the veto.
Beebe said Monday that no one, not even Huckabee, knew Wilson would use the program in the legislation for criminal purposes.
Huckabee’s statement Tuesday said, “How could somebody who is campaigning on his record as a leader of the Senate also claim he was utterly oblivious to one of the worst political scandals in the history of the Legislature taking place right under his nose ?”
Huckabee’s statement didn’t address whether Huckabee knew what Wilson planned do with the legislation.
When Huckabee vetoed the bill and other Wilson bills in 1997, he said he did so because they had “funding mechanisms that deal with what I would call ‘ off the normal path. ’”
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