Huckabee Campaign Trail: 2012 Presidental Run Is Possible
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, said he expects Palin to continue to have a leading voice in the Republican Party, though he acknowledged he was envious of her meteoric rise after Sen. John McCain brought her out of relative obscurity as governor of Alaska to run with him this year as the vice presidential candidate.
Huckabee credited Palin with energizing McCains campaign and said that her surprise selection for the GOP ticket helped her to “leapfrog over the process” that other Republicans – including himself – had to endure to become national political figures.
“Im not frustrated by it,” Huckabee said. “Its not a resentment on her part. Its an envy.”
Huckabee plans to stay on the national political stage through his shows hell host on Fox News Channel and ABC Radio.
The former Arkansas governor ran a scrappy but underfunded presidential campaign this year, staying in the race until March, when McCain secured enough delegates to win the nomination. All the other serious Republican contenders had dropped out weeks before.
Huckabee ran as a religious conservative, though many conservative leaders wouldnt support him. Despite a lack of money, Huckabee won the leadoff caucuses in Iowa and seven other states. His book tour will take him to Iowa later this month.
Huckabee and McCain had a cordial relationship during the campaign, but Huckabee clearly didnt like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, another contender for the GOP nomination.
In his book, Huckabee slams Romney for changing positions on issues such as abortion rights and gay marriage.
“He spent more time on the road to Damascus than a Syrian camel driver. And we thought nobody could fill John Kerrys flip-flops!” Huckabee wrote.
Romneys record, he wrote, “was anything but conservative until he changed all the lightbulbs in his chandelier in time to run for president.”
A spokesman for Romney dismissed Huckabees comments in the book as “petty stuff.”
Huckabee said Wednesday he was simply writing with the same candor he showed during the campaign.
“There was obvious tension, and again, it wasnt just me, but with other candidates, and so I addressed where that came from,” Huckabee said. “One of the things people came to believe that they would get from me was candor.”
“If I had written this book and totally ignored some of the obvious issues that were there, I think people would have said the book lacked credibility and candor,” he said.
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Associated Press Writer Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Ark., contributed to this report.
Source: whiz
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