Huckabee love

Read this lengthy transcript of a session GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee had at the Pew Forum in Washington. I'm really starting to dig this guy. Excerpts:

I became a Republican largely because of deep convictions that America was a great place, not because its government was wonderful but because it could enable me and empower me to set goals and to achieve them. I don't think we're a perfect party. I think we have not captured the market on the best ideas. I have sometimes angered Republicans because I have said things like, "Republicans aren't right all of the time and Democrats aren't wrong all of the time." I still believe that. If that makes people mad enough to not want me to be president then so be it. One of the problems in this country is that people – particularly people in politics – see things too much from a horizontal perspective. Everything is left and right, Democrat and Republican, and liberal and conservative.

Yes, some things are divided that way. Unapologetically, if you want to peg me on the horizontal scale, I'm a conservative. Anybody who wants to find out if I have a pedigree is going to find out that I'm a conservative, and that is fine. I'm not mad at anybody about it.

On his state government organizing Katrina refugee relief:

When we couldn't get a meaningful answer out of FEMA, and we couldn't – in fact, I started saying that FEMA stood for "forget expecting meaningful answers" – I called our cabinet together, and I said, look, we are rowing our own boat here. There is no cavalry coming called the federal government. We're on our own. I can't even guarantee we are going to be reimbursed for what we do. But that is immaterial. These are our neighbors, and we simply are going to do one thing: We are going to treat these people like we would want to be treated if the New Madrid fault had erupted along the Mississippi River and we were fleeing from an earthquake to New Orleans.

And I said, so when you see an elderly lady coming off that airplane, ask, If that were my mother, how would I want someone to treat her? I said, do whatever you would do for your own mother. If you see a seven-year-old kid that comes off that bus with that dazed look on his face because he has been separated from his family, ask, If that were my child, what would I want someone to do to help that kid? And then do it. I said, nobody is going to get in trouble and nobody is going to get fired if you treat these people like you would want to be treated. But if I hear you made someone stand in line for five hours to fill out paperwork while they were hungry, tired and hadn't slept in three days, you're going to be in real trouble over that. And it worked.

On the future of social conservatism:

I think social conservatives will succeed because there are still a lot of Americans who deeply believe that human life is important and intrinsically valuable. They believe that families are the crux of our society and nation and that if we lose that sense of purpose and primacy of that basic family unit, our country will be in trouble not just economically but socially. I do think that we're going to have to communicate it in a much more sophisticated manner that's not offensive, that's not divisive and that's not so much – Maybe in the way in which it has been seen as an all-or-nothing approach – I'm trying to think of the best way to describe that, but – Confrontational, maybe that's the word I'm looking for – Less confrontational and more conversational.

On America's role in the world:

There was a time in this world when America was everybody's hero. Now, we're the bully that people resent, and it is not so much because we're different in terms of our economic and military power. I want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, both militarily and economically. But the more powerful we are, the less we have to act like it. When a person goes around saying, "I'm in charge, I'm in charge, I'm in charge," it proves one thing: he's not in charge. You know that from your workplace. A person who's really in charge doesn't have to announce it; he doesn't have to shove it in anybody's face. People automatically respect him because he's truly in charge. If America is really as strong as we ought to be, we ought to use our strength to encourage and to help. Not by giving away money – make sure you understand here that I'm not saying this is a giveaway, that's not it at all. But rather than tell nations, "You're either with us or you're against us, it's our way or no way," we respect that in this neighborhood of ours, we need to treat our neighbors with the same respect we want to be treated with. It's amazing what a little humility and a little less arrogance would do in that realm.

On the economy:

On the jobs outsourcing – It does trouble me greatly. Frankly, my faith does generate this thought that when CEOs are making 500 times the average wage of their workers, how can one justify that? Do I think that there is a free enterprise system that the market essentially decides? Yes. But ethically – This is not as much an issue about legality and do you pass a law that says a CEO can't earn – But ethically, I think a president ought to call out companies – and I think people ought to call out companies – in which the CEO leads his company into bankruptcy – It has happened many times in this country – He leads his company into bankruptcy and gets a $100-million bonus while the workers down below end up losing their jobs and have worked 20 and 30 years for pensions that are gone. They're gone.

That's immoral. That is a moral issue. I don't see how we can call it anything other than a moral issue. That's not free enterprise; that's theft. I think a president ought to be bold, and if there is a way to do a policy that does not disrupt or interfere with the free enterprise concept, then those actions should be taken.

It's really sad. Look at the airline industry. I said something tacky about the airlines when I started, and it may be a good way to kind of bring it to a close. The baggage handlers, the flight attendants, the gate people and the pilots, in many airlines, are all taking significant pay cuts yet the CEO gets a big, big, huge bonus – for taking them into bankruptcy. Now, tell me how on Earth? Part of it is that we have some issues that do relate to regulation on corporate boards where there is a lot of hand-holding and collusion. A man is on one board and another on a related board. One helps him get his bonus; he helps another get his bonus. There are some things I think should be more scrutinized.