Is Mike Huckabee a Liberal?- A Challenge

If you read my blog often enough you will find my pet peeve is conservatives throwing around the word liberal as to their fellow conservatives and republicans. I now think the use of the RINO(Republican In Name Only) should be banned because it is so overused.

I have sat in disbelief that Huckabee is being slander about his beliefs and his record by some parts of the Conservative press.

Joe Carter who runs the Evangelical Outpost has issued a Huckabee Challege. Go see Is Mike Huckabee a Liberal?. Mr Carter is one of the mostl widely read blogs in the conservative blogs sphere. He is in involved in Conservative politics in a huge way. He also took time out for 30 days to be a Huckabee Staffer.

He writes:
Am I wrong about Mike Huckabee?
For the past few months I've been arguing that Governor Huckabee is a solid and consistent conservative. I even went to work for his campaign in a role that gave me a clear and detailed view of both his record and his policy positions.
Yet many conservatives that I respect believe that I am wrong. In the last debate Sen. Thompson even said Huckabee would "bring about liberal economic policies, liberal foreign policies." Are they seeing something that I am not?

I think it is clearly time that both sides of the "Huckabee is a liberal" dispute either "put up or hush up." I want to start by allowing others to convince me that I am wrong. To do this I ask that they give me a specific and briefly detailed explanation for why they make the claim, providing both specific evidence and why it veers from conservative principles. For example, they might say:

"Point of fact: Mike Huckabee allowed the Democratically-controlled legislature to raise the fuel tax 3-cents a gallon in order to pay for improvements to roads and highways. Why this is not conservative: True conservatives do not believe that taxes should ever be raised for any reason whatsoever."

Feel free to leave your challenge in the comments section or on your own blog. Later next week I'll respond to as many of the points as possible. While we may not all come to a complete agreement, at least our reasons will be based on evidence rather than the hearsay of Huckabee's opponents.

Good Job. I hope people that are saying Huckabee is a liberal take time there to take him up on his challenge. Be sure though after you leave your comment you come back to for his reponse. As he says the Hearsay is horrible in this campaign.