Summary
We’re going to wrap up our live blog coverage for the day. The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino (@lgamgam) is at the Hillary Clinton event in Las Vegas and our home page will host her full coverage. Here’s a summary of where things stand:
- The race for the White House accepted a new contender Tuesday in Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor.
- In a launch event in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas, Huckabee staked out ground on the right that could make him competitive in Iowa and other states with large blocs of evangelical voters.
- Huckabee railed against abortion, said hell would freeze over before Iran got a nuclear weapons and said that if he were president, “we would deal with jihadis just as we would with deadly snakes.”
- Huckabee also favors a flat consumption tax to replace most all other taxes and would abolish the IRS.
- Huckabee may have violated campaign finance laws, but that’s OK, because they don’t expect to enforce those this time around anyway.
- In non-Huckabee news, Republican hopeful Carly Fiorina, who announced her candidacy yesterday, said she would roll back net neutrality. ““I think it’s a terrible thing that the FCC just issued 400 pages of new regulation over the internet,” Fiorina said at a TechCrunch Disrupt event.
- New Jersey governor Chris Christie was asked about continuing legal action in the Bridgegate case. “Listen, if they want to subpoena me, that’s fine,” he said – one of those phrases you don’t want to hear yourself mouthing if you’re thinking of running for president. Or anything else.
- Hillary Clinton was to speak about immigration policy at a roundtable event at Rancho High School in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- Jeb Bush sent viewers his best wishes on the occasion of Cinco de Mayo. Is your Spanish as good as his?
Updated
What a welcome!
What a welcome from Rancho HS! Can't believe they made this @HillaryClinton sign. Theyre excited! #Hillary2016 pic.twitter.com/ne8zrp5Nv6
— Christopher Mendoza (@CMendoz_a) May 5, 2015
Here’s more on the Christie “subpoena me” remarks, via AP:
“Listen, if they want to subpoena me, that’s fine,” Christie said with Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant outside a restaurant in Flowood. “I’ve fully cooperated with the investigation right from the beginning, and I’m happy to tell anybody everything I know, which I’ve done with three separate investigations now that have come to the same conclusion that I said the day after this happened. And so, you know, I don’t have any misgivings about that at all.”
Asked about the indictments, Christie said: “It’s always sad to see people who have been charged with a crime. Now, we’ll let the justice system take its course.”
Christie on Bridgegate: 'Subpoena me'
Be careful what you wish for... asked in Mississippi Tuesday about the double indictment and guilty plea last Friday in the George Washington Bridge lane closures, New Jersey governor Chris Christie was quoted thusly:
“If they want to subpoena me, that’s fine,” Christie said at an event in Flowood, Mississippi, as quoted by NJ.com.
Chris Christie on BridgeGate: subpoena me, why dontcha? http://t.co/5WRmrjdBAi pic.twitter.com/jqcnsT1Z8C
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) May 5, 2015
Is Chelsea Clinton actually going to talk to the media this time? Here she is deflecting criticism that the Clinton Foundation knowingly inappropriately accepted money from foreign donors who wanted something out of the state department while Hillary Clinton was secretary:
Chelsea Clinton pushes back: http://t.co/6CWkUYK1vh pic.twitter.com/ECmzobRrHB
— Rebecca Sinderbrand (@sinderbrand) May 5, 2015
The Mike Huckabee campaign has just sent out a fundraising letter that does not repeat his launch-event mistake of violating federal elections laws by soliciting more than the sanctioned limit.
In the letter he asks that donors consider a donation no larger than “the maximum gift of $2,700” (and if he makes it to a general they get to give that much again).
The fundraising letter reads in part:
Please join my campaign for President by making an immediate donation of $25, $50, $100, $500 or even the maximum gift of $2,700. Your immediate and generous donation is critical to building early momentum for our campaign and to putting American workers and families first again.
Let me be clear, I’m a Republican not because I grew up rich. I’m a Republican because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to rescue me.
Clinton’s in the building:
Happy #NationalTeacherDay! Here's to teachers who educate and inspire, in and out of the classroom. pic.twitter.com/ppFoCpI2Cl
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 5, 2015
Hillary Clinton is scheduled to talk about immigration policy at Rancho High School in Las Vegas this afternoon:
When Hillary Clinton arrives at Rancho, she'll be met by this student made banner featuring her announcement quote. pic.twitter.com/NBMipDbAoo
— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) May 5, 2015
A strange story from Capitol Hill – two lost handguns – in two bathrooms – connected to the two top Republicans in Congress. One pistol discovered in January, one in March, but neither Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell nor House speaker John Boehner was informed at the time, Roll Call reports.
The incidents were revealed when Roll Coll on 30 April obtained a report to the Capitol police board.
First, a member of McConnell’s security detail apparently left his Glock pistol hanging from a dispenser for toilet seat covers in a bathroom stall at the Capitol Visitor Center’s Senate office space. “A CVC worker found the gun on Jan. 29, resulting in a recommendation of six days of unpaid suspension for the officer,” Roll Call reported.
“Leader McConnell learned about these incidents last week,” Michael Brumas said in an email to CQ Roll Call...
Leaders weren't briefed on #Glocks left by their security details in Hill bathrooms http://t.co/WZeWzC7fsH @rollcall pic.twitter.com/xAhVHgykkP
— CQ Now (@CQnow) May 5, 2015
In the second incident, “Boehner spokesman Michael Steel also confirmed his boss was not aware until last week of the March 24 incident, when a child visiting the Capitol with his parents allegedly found a loaded Glock lost by a dignitary protection officer in the bathroom of the Speaker’s Suite,” Roll Call reports.
It’s still nearly two hours before Hillary Clinton is due to speak in Las Vegas and as long as we’re disinterring awesome famous people from Mike Huckabee’s past...
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs (@bencjacobs) (back when he was the Daily Beast’s Ben Jacobs) reported that Huckabee had criticized President Barack Obama and the first lady for allowing their daughters to listen to Beyoncé, whose lyrics Huckabee has described as “obnoxious and toxic mental poison”:
The former Arkansas governor also expressed concern about the pop star’s marriage to Jay Z, wondering whether the rapper “is arguably crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife as a sex object?”
So which one is it, America? Chuck Norris or Beyoncé? You can’t have both.
Repeat candidates can’t count on repeat endorsements from whoever backed them last time, even where old friends are concerned. Just ask the Clintons.
But there’s one presidential endorser who does not change. Who is not swayed by political fashion or polls or headline hype. An endorser who invented the martial art Chun Kuk Do, and who loves plaid, and who on Monday warned of a federal government plot to take over the state of Texas.
His name: Chuck Norris.
“I still believe Mike Huckabee is the most qualified,” Norris told the New York Times in a statement published Tuesday. “He has the moral clarity and experience to lead our great country forward.”
For more on the Norris warning about the supposed government plot to take over Texas, read the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt:
Writing on the right-wing website WND, or WorldNetDaily, Norris discussed the potential for Jade Helm 15, a US military training exercise planned for July and August, to turn into a full-scale occupation of his home state.
“The US government says, ‘It’s just a training exercise’,” wrote Norris, 75. “But I’m not sure the term ‘just’ has any reference to reality when the government uses it.”
Would Norris be OK with a federal government takeover of Texas if Mike Huckabee were president? There’s only one way to find out.
Updated
Mike Huckabee: an outrageous big government conservative?
Read Ben Jacobs (@bencjacobs) on the newest entry in the Republican presidential field:
But, to some in the conservative movement who are far more concerned about economic issues than social causes, Huckabee is anathema.
Perhaps Huckabee’s biggest intraparty political opponent over the past two decades has been the Club for Growth, the powerful pro-business Republican Pac. As Dave Weigel at Bloomberg News noted, Huckabee has feuded with the group since a 2001 battle over a congressional primary in north-west Arkansas, and the battle has continued since then.
Read the full piece here.
Hillary Clinton’s sole-so-far opponent takes one on the chin from the Socialist Worker:
When you’ve lost the Socialist Worker, you’ve lost middle America. pic.twitter.com/Xm6pvUe20H
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) May 5, 2015
From the piece:
But in running for the Democratic presidential nomination as the liberal outsider with almost no chance of winning, Sanders isn’t very “bold”--no more so than the fizzled campaigns of Dennis Kucinich in past presidential election years. And by steering liberal and left supporters into a Democratic Party whose policies and politics he claims to disagree with, Sanders--no matter how critical he might be of Hillary Clinton--is acting as the opposite of an “alternative.”
Fake Huckabee titles quiz answers
Did you participate in our earlier fake Mike Huckabee titles quiz? Here are the answers!
Never Say Diet was authored by Richard Simmons – not Mike Huckabee
Sappho’s Leap was authored by Erica Jong – not Mike Huckabee
Masters of Greatness was authored by Jean K Foster – not Mike Huckabee
The other 11 titles on the list – all Mike Huckabee books, and that includes “Do the Right Thing” and “Kids Who Kill.”
The Guardian’s Matt Sullivan (@sullduggery) flags a Fiorina line about a potential general-election competitor, Hillary Clinton.
“Obviously I’m running to beat Hillary Clinton, but I think it’s a great thing that there are women on both sides of the aisle who are running for the highest office in the land,” Fiorina says. “I’ve never been a token in my life. ...
“The first thing out of people’s mouths is not, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re a woman’ ... the first thing out of people’s mouths is, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re not a politician’.”
Fiorina went on to describe some contrasts between men and women as she sees them. She said women want longer conversations and men want shorter. She said women get turned off by vitriol and a political culture that prizes sound bytes.
So we know whom Fiorina thought she was speaking to when she said in March, “Hillary Clinton lacks a track record of accomplishment. She is not candid, which suggests her character is flawed.”
Fiorina is off.
Carly Fiorina: "I've made lots of mistakes in my life, & I hope I don't make the same mistakes over and over again." pic.twitter.com/iZqVOTY8oj
— RupertNeate (@RupertNeate) May 5, 2015
No questions allowed for Fiorina, and she's rushed off out a backdoor
— RupertNeate (@RupertNeate) May 5, 2015
Fiorina says vice presidency is not the goal
The TechCrunch moderator, Sarah Lane, asks Fiorina a final question: If she doesn’t win the presidency, would she consider a run at the vice presidency?
Fiorina: “And you see, would you ever ask a man running for president that?”
“Yes,” says Lane.
“Well you haven’t, so I’m going to have to take you at your word,” says Fiorina. “I’m not running for something else. I’m running because I think I can win this job, and I think I can do this job.
“I think we can’t just say that somehow, the political class is all that we need. It’s a modern invention actually.”
The Guardian’s Matt Sullivan checks in on Fiorina. Our Rupert Neate (@RupertNeate) is at the event. You can watch a live stream here.
Carly Fiorina on net neutrality: "I think it's a terrible thing that the FCC just issued 400 pages of new regulation over the internet."
— Matt Sullivan (@sullduggery) May 5, 2015
Updated
Carly Fiorina is onstage at a TechCrunch “Disrupt” event in New York City. The presidential-candidate-as-of-yesterday jokes about not claiming carlyfiorina.org until it was too late.
“You can’t buy every domain name,” Fiorina says. “Hopefully people will go to Carly for President instead ...”
For further reading: Trolling in the name of Republicans: website squatters beat candidates to the punch
Then she begins talking tech. It’s difficult to conceive of an onstage turn by a candidate that could be less like the one we just saw from Huckabee.
“Back in 1999, there were some artificial things pushing the dot-com boom,” Fiorina says. “There was Y2K, there was a very aggressive buildout ... that was in many ways not sustainable...
“We’re [now in] a rather frothy time,” with lots of money being spend on apps and not as much on manufacturing, she says.
Technology is a tool to re-imagine government & to re-engage citizens in the process. #TCdisrupt #techcrunchdisrupt pic.twitter.com/yDMov5x4Xl
— Carly Fiorina (@CarlyFiorina) May 5, 2015
Updated
This Upshot analysis of Huckabee’s prospects points out that unlike in 2008, when Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses in part by winning evangelical voters from John McCain and Mitt Romney, in 2016 Huckabee will be competing against candidates who may offer viable alternatives for evangelicals: Ted Cruz or Scott Walker or even Rand Paul.
The analysis points out that Huckabee is a relatively weak candidate in terms of funding and organizational strength, but that the Baptist minister could still exert pressure in a race in which white evangelical Christians will make up about 40% of Republican primary voters.
Why Mike Huckabee can't win the GOP nomination--but still matters a lot in the primaries. http://t.co/3vF3dJ0xhc pic.twitter.com/shYISkSd09
— The Upshot (@UpshotNYT) May 5, 2015
Quiz: Pick the fake Huckabee titles
Here’s a challenge for our readers: name the THREE titles below that are NOT Mike Huckabee books (answers to come later) (no Googling):
UPDATE: Answers are here
God, Guns, Grits and Gravy
Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork!
Never Say Diet
Character Makes a Difference
Living Beyond Your Lifetime
Sappho’s Leap
A Simple Christmas
A Simple Government
Do the Right Thing
Kids Who Kill
Master of Greatness
From Hope to Higher Ground
Dear Chandler, Dear Scarlett
Character Is the Issue
Updated
The Washington Post points out that Huckabee’s joke about welcoming anybody who wanted to give him a million dollars was technically a violation of campaign finance law, since federal candidates can’t solicit more than the contribution limit. The Post:
“A federal candidate cannot solicit a million dollars, let’s start there,” said Larry Noble of the Campaign Legal Center when the Post reached him by telephone. “If he’s there announcing his candidacy, he cannot ask anybody for a million dollars. The most he can ask is the contribution limit; from a PAC that’s $5,000.”
Full piece here. But good news for Huckabee! The chairwoman of the FEC, the regulator in charge of campaign finance, is telling anybody who will listen that there are basically no rules for 2016, because there’s no enforcing them. The New York Times:
The leader of the Federal Election Commission, the agency charged with regulating the way political money is raised and spent, says she has largely given up hope of reining in abuses in the 2016 presidential campaign, which could generate a record $10 billion in spending.
The likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim,” Ann M. Ravel, the chairwoman, said in an interview. “I never want to give up, but I’m not under any illusions. People think the F.E.C. is dysfunctional. It’s worse than dysfunctional.”
Read that full miserable piece here.
Here’s Jeb Bush in a new video extending his best wishes to Spanish speakers on the occasion of Cinco de Mayo, the holiday that began as a Mexican celebration of a 19th-century military victory over the French.
Bush is so fluent in Spanish this doesn’t even count as showing off his Spanish:
(h/t: @moneyries)
Summary
As our live blog coverage continues, here’s a summary of the Huckabee rollout:
- Mike Huckabee, the Republican former governor of Arkansas, announced he is running for president, proposing to take the country “from Hope to higher ground.”
- Huckabee pitched his candidacy as a combination of curing what’s wrong with Washington but protecting nice government things such as Social Security and Medicare.
- Huckabee tried on his culture warrior armor with a line about the “slaughter of 50 million babies” from abortion and a lot of talk about faith and god and Faith in God.
- The biggest applause line may have been about Iran, however. If he were president, Huckabee told the crowd, “the ayatollahs of Iran would know that hell would freeze over before they get a nuclear weapon.”
- “We want Mike! We want Mike! We want Mike!” people chanted.
- Huckabee resurrected a proposal from his 2008 run for a tax on consumption he calls the Fair Tax to replace income taxes.
- Huckabee called for abolishing the department of education and the IRS.
- No bass was played in the making of this event. At least not by Huckabee. There was a heck of a lot of (new-) country music.
Updated
If you’re tempted to write off Mike Huckabee’s candidacy, here’s an important reminder from 2008, in the run-up to the victory in Iowa:
The Guardian’s Jessica Lee (@jessicalee27) is tracking the hashtag #fromhopetohigherground on Twitter. Some people are using it, but it’s difficult to tell what they think about it because by the time they type it they’re out of characters.
#hopetohigherground is showing some activity too. We appear however not quite to be in “avalanching national trend” territory yet.
Huckabee event ends
The candidate ends with a story about his father, who died just before he became governor, watching him from heaven as he, Huckabee, was inaugurated:
I always want to think that he did see that moment, from the best seat in the house. And I hope that he’s able to watch... when that bashful little kid... is sworn in as the president of the United States. And with your help and god’s, we will make that journey from hope to higher ground!
Anybody for some Brooks & Dunn? Only in America, the hit is called:
Updated
Huckabee has a bunch of catchy campaign slogans. He way outstrips, for example, Ben Carson, in this category of campaigning. Packaging your message and delivering the package. He’s just repeated his line about not fighting over a minimum wage – he wants to fight for a maximum wage!
Then he says the country needs to feed itself, fuel itself and fight for itself.
Then, seamlessly, he falls into pass-the-hat mode:
$25-a-month contributions can take us from Hope to higher ground. Now rest assured, if you want to give a million dollars, please do it.
“I’ve walked away from my own income to do this...” Huckabee says. “I don’t have a global foundation... I grew up blue collar, not just blue blood.”
I’m asking you to join me today, not just so I can be president... so that your children and grandchildren can someday go from Hope to higher ground.
Oh good, Huckabee is returning to a tax plan he pitched last time around: a tax on consumption he calls the Fair Tax:
As president, I’ll work to pass the Fair Tax, which would no longer penalize people’s work.
Huckabee promises to abolish “the biggest bully” in the country, the IRS. “The IRS would disappear and April 15 would be just another beautiful spring day,” he says.
Huckabee says the department of education has “flunked and it needs to be expelled.” Get it. He’s against common core standards for national student testing.
On to immigration: “We need to start by taking control of our borders. But as Americans, we ought to get on our knees every night, and thank god we live in a country that Americans are trying to get in to, rather than one they’re trying to get out of.”
Applause applause applause. Huckabee’s moving quickly though, he’s already on to the need for a law requiring Congress to balance the budget.
Huckabee decries 'slaughter of 50m babies'
Huckabee flexes some of that preacher’s anti-abortion muscle: “We have watched the slaughter of 50m babies by choice.”
Huckabee focuses blame for what he has elsewhere called the “holocaust of liberalized abortion” on the judiciary:
“The supreme court is not the supreme being, and they cannot turn over the laws of nature or of nature’s god.”
Huckabee comes out in strong defense of Israeli West Bank settlements:
We face real threats from radical jihadism... but we put more pressure on our ally Israel to cease building bedrooms for their families in Judea and Sumeria than we do on Iran for building a bomb.”
Biggest applause line so far, by far:
We would deal with jihadis just as we would with deadly snakes... and the ayatollahs of Iran would know that hell would freeze over before they get a nuclear weapon.
Updated
Huckabee names another problem with Washington: “unbalanced trade deals that forgo congressional scrutiny” and the inflow to the country of low-wage workers “that drive wagers lower than the Dead Sea.”
Huckabee is pitching his record Arkansas governor for ten years. He cites family income increases, tax cuts, repaired roads.
Then he moves through a theme that separates him from some of his Republican peers: The importance of protecting Social Security and Medicare.
“As president I promise, you will get what you pay for,” Huckabee tells seniors. That’s an applause line.
Huckabee’s refrain here is “from Hope to higher ground.” It works because of the city he’s speaking in.
But it also works as a dig at the sitting president, whom he has just mentioned, though not by name. It was only eight years ago a young senator was talking about hope, Huckabee says. But that hasn’t worked out.
Huckabee has moved on to a tribute to veterans of wars.
“But friend, we owe them more than a pat on the back. We need to take them from Hope to Higher Ground.”
Huckabee: I am a candidate for president of the USA
Huckabee announces. The crowd cheers. He smiles happily. The camera pans back from the stage. There’s a chant: “We want Mike! We want Mike!”
Huckabee cracks a joke:
“Well I’m glad you reacted that way. It would have been a very lonely day had you been quiet,” he says.
Huckabee: 'I never thought of using a firearm to murder someone'
Huckabee hits his favorite themes right away. Too much power is concentrated in Washington. Hard work doesn’t pay in America like it used to. And god-fearing small-town America holds the future.
“They sweat through their clothes... but in some cases can’t even stay even,” Huckabee says of working families in 2015.
But then comes a weird line, meant to underscore how firearm ownership does not imply criminality, but landing a bit strangely and with a half-chuckle by the candidate, who realizes it:
It was here in Hope that I learned how to handle a firearm and a fishing pole. ...I learned the basic rules of gun safety and I never thought of using a firearm to murder someone.
Huckabee comes on. To yet more Montgomery Gentry, a band that whatever it knew apparently well knew its address, this time “Where I come from”:
After Janet we get a little Montgomery Gentry, My Town:
How great is this Huckabee event? Meh. It’s cleanly produced. Feels a bit scripted next to the Carson event yesterday. Huckabee has a lectern with his campaign logo on it and everything. The logo looks a lot like the Bank of America.
Janet Huckabee is telling about the earlier years of her marriage. She says Huckabee’s plan was to become a rock star, “the fifth Beatle.” But that didn’t work. But being president is better than being a Beatle. Right?
Some of these photos of the young Huckabee family are cute cute cute.
Here’s Janet Huckabee on video:
And now she takes the stage in person.
“Mike and Janet, we are here today to tell you that Arkansas is on your side!”
Hutchinson’s done. Next is a testimonial video by Janet Huckabee. She begins with a description of her spinal cancer diagnosis at age 19 – when she was already married to the future governor.
“If he coulda left me, he should’ve done it right then. And he made a decision to stick it out.”
Governor Hutchinson, just elected in November, is less than totally electrifying, some say.
“Time magazine called Mike Huckabee one of the best governors in America. And they were right about that.”
Mild applause.
And in the interests of comprehensiveness, for when the judges will have to decide whether Mike Huckabee or Ben Carson had more awesome launch event music, Hutchinson came onstage to Randy Houser’s country hit, How Country Feels.
The lyrics are kind of risqué!
You never rolled in the hay
You never thrown it in four wheel
Climb up on here girl
Let me show you how country feels
Let your hair down, hair down
Get you some of this laid on back
Kick your shoes off, kick ‘em off
Get you some of this slow down fast
I’ll take you up and down these hollers and hills
Let me show you how country feels
Tony Orlando! Of course. Is Huckabee’s emcee. He’s now singing his “America is my Hometown.” He’s reading the lyrics from a music stand.
“Thank you ladies and gentlemen! God Bless You and God bless Mike Huckabee. And god bless America.”
Orlando leaves the stage.
Here’s Asa Hutchinson, the current Arkansas governor.
Here’s who sang the anthem. They looked great. Would it be churlish to question the perfection of their harmony on the “land of the free” part? Yes. Yes it would.
Ooh Huckabee has Boy Scouts. Carson didn’t have that. Here’s an honor guard presenting the flag. Then we’ll have a Pledge of Allegiance – also missing from the Carson event – and a singing of the Star-Spangled Banner.
Now the prayer. That’s just one song before the prayer, compared with Carson’s eight. Advantage: Carson. This prayer is sounding pretty good though.
“We are so grateful for the work that You’ve done in the life of Mike Huckabee to prepare him for a time such as this.”
We have the opening number. It’s Wayne Newton – no not Wayne Newton – it’s a different lounge singer hitting the crowd with Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree, the humorous standard about young love.
Too obvious?
Did you watch the Ben Carson launch event in Detroit yesterday? The one with his wife on violin and the two choirs singing Eminem and The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the hit from the musical Carousel?
If there’s one candidate who can blow Carson right out of the water, in terms of show tunes and good-time singin’, that candidate is Mike Huckabee. Let’s see what he’s got.
Good morning and welcome to the day in next year’s politics. We need to get right down to business, because in a matter of mere minutes Mike Huckabee, the Fox News personality, former governor of Arkansas and 2008 presidential candidate, is expected to announce that he’s back in the hunt for the White House.
Huckabee is holding an event in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas – Bill Clinton’s hometown, too, coincidentally, although they didn’t know one another as kids.
After Huckabee announces, we’re going to pick up an event with Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard executive who announced her own candidacy yesterday.
Finally, it’s on to Sin City, where Hillary Clinton is scheduled to make a speech about immigration reform. The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino will be in the crowd.
Here comes Huckabee! Who likes Skynard?
