Huckabee tries to gloss over Ark. record
By ANDREW DeMILLO
Associated Press
Mike Huckabee's presidential rivals are pointing to chinks in his record as Arkansas' governor — from ethics complaints to tax increases to illegal immigration and his support for releasing a rapist who was later convicted of killing a Missouri woman.
The Republican presidential candidate has plenty to champion from his 10 1/2 years as governor — including school improvements and health insurance for the children of the working poor. But his record has rough edges, and Huckabee has a habit of playing fast and loose with it.
Other campaigns for the GOP nomination, watching Huckabee's rise in polls in Iowa, are starting to mine his past for political fodder. Take ethics, for example.
"People are starting to contact us and they're saying we want everything on Mike Huckabee," says Graham Sloan, director of the state's Ethics Commission.
What they'll find is 436 pages of documents chronicling Huckabee's various tangles with a commission he's derided as a political tool of Democrats. It's a panel that has held proceedings 20 times on the former governor and lieutenant governor.
But the Ethics Commission files don't cover everything, and this year — anticipating criticism — Huckabee's campaign set up a "truth squad" to push his side of various stories. It often offers, at best, an incomplete account of his record.
On major issues:
_The truth squad says the only finding by the Arkansas Ethics Commission that Huckabee accepted a gift improperly was tossed out by a state court. In fact, the panel investigated 16 complaints against Huckabee and found five violations. Only one, for accepting a $500 canoe from Coca-Cola, was tossed out.
(Continued here.)
Associated Press
Mike Huckabee's presidential rivals are pointing to chinks in his record as Arkansas' governor — from ethics complaints to tax increases to illegal immigration and his support for releasing a rapist who was later convicted of killing a Missouri woman.
The Republican presidential candidate has plenty to champion from his 10 1/2 years as governor — including school improvements and health insurance for the children of the working poor. But his record has rough edges, and Huckabee has a habit of playing fast and loose with it.
Other campaigns for the GOP nomination, watching Huckabee's rise in polls in Iowa, are starting to mine his past for political fodder. Take ethics, for example.
"People are starting to contact us and they're saying we want everything on Mike Huckabee," says Graham Sloan, director of the state's Ethics Commission.
What they'll find is 436 pages of documents chronicling Huckabee's various tangles with a commission he's derided as a political tool of Democrats. It's a panel that has held proceedings 20 times on the former governor and lieutenant governor.
But the Ethics Commission files don't cover everything, and this year — anticipating criticism — Huckabee's campaign set up a "truth squad" to push his side of various stories. It often offers, at best, an incomplete account of his record.
On major issues:
_The truth squad says the only finding by the Arkansas Ethics Commission that Huckabee accepted a gift improperly was tossed out by a state court. In fact, the panel investigated 16 complaints against Huckabee and found five violations. Only one, for accepting a $500 canoe from Coca-Cola, was tossed out.
(Continued here.)
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