After speaking with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Mike Huckabee addressed the Knesset Immigration and Absorption Committee. He urged the world to keep an eye on the growing threat of Islamic extremism. Huckabee related the crisis in Egypt to it's impact on the entire region, “a threat upon Israel is a threat upon all those in the world who love peace and freedom... Radical Islamic jihadism is an anti-freedom threat.“
Read the latest updates on Mike Huckabee in Israel:
"Any threat to Israel is a very real threat to the United States,And one of the reasons I come here is because I want to be an ambassador in my own country, to help explain that our solidarity with Israel is not merely organizational, but it is organic, and that we cannot afford to allow Israel to be threatened."
"the situation could threaten the world and all those who seek peace and security. The real threat to Israelis not the bomb but the people behind it, not weapons but the madmen behind them."
Huckabee dismissed the notion that Jewish settlements are obstacles to peace. Instead, he backed the settlers' view that they have the right to build anywhere in the biblical Land of Israel, including the West Bank.
Mike Huckabee was a guest on Redeye with Greg Gutfeld. Gutfeld asked Mike Huckabee his thoughts on Meghan McCain's attack of Michele Bachmann. Being the gentleman that he is, Mike Huckabee defends Michele Bachmann while not commenting on McCain.
Meghan McCain tweeted this : McCainBlogette Meghan McCain
Governor Huckabee you are a former candidate for President and now you spend your time criticizing me on a show that airs on fox at 2am.
To which Greg Gutfeld replied: greggutfeld GregGutfeld
.@McCainBlogette actually huck didn't criticize u. he was far more gracious than u have been to Bachman, Palin, Malkin, etc. #redye
As we listen to the tape, we can clearly see that Mike Huckabee defends Michele Bachmann while not discussing Meghan McCain. It is the other guests who talk about McCain, not Mike Huckabee.
We can see from a past question on Meghan McCain that it is not in Mike Huckabee's nature to criticize her. Here we have another instance where Mike Huckabee defends the conservative principles of the Republican party without going after Meghan McCain.
We know from history that Meghan McCain is not a fan of Mike Huckabee because she finds him too socially conservative for her tastes. I am sure we will see more comments from her regarding Mike Huckabee when he announces that he is running for POTUS. Hopefully next time she will have her facts straight.
Mike Huckabee tweets that he is on his way to Israel. This will be his 15th visit to the Holy Land. He will be leading a tour through the holy sites and will visit Judea, Samaria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Last year Mike Huckabee met privately with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. He is scheduled to meet again with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Monday.
While in Israel last year, Mike Huckabee interviewed President Shimon Peres for his 'Huckabee' show.
Mike Huckabee has been invited to speak to the Knesset Immigration and Absorption Committee. Huckabee will discuss diplomacy, anti-Semitism and Israel’s public relations effort.
Last year Mike Huckabee spoke to the Knesset where he emphasized the threat of a nuclear Iran and stated that he would become a voluntary ambassador for Israel.
In 2008, Mike Huckabee won the West Virginia Nominating Convention. Yesterday PPP released it's polling data which shows that Mike Huckabee would beat Obama by 18 points. Huckabee is the only Republican candidate who has a positive favorability in the state. Looks like West Virginia still likes Mike.
West Virginia's one of the most conservative states in the country. But even there voters don't like any of the leading Republican candidates for President, with the exception of Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee's favorability in the state is a 48/27 spread. But the rest of the pack all have negative favorability ratings. Mitt Romney's at 34/37, Sarah Palin's at 41/47, and Newt Gingrich is at 33/43.
Only Huckabee can take advantage of the President's unpopularity in the state and build on the Republican margin of victory from 2008, leading Obama by 18 points at 54-36.
None of the Republican front runners, with the possible exception of Huckabee, can really build on the party's performance from 2008.
Mike Huckabee has posted his response to President Obama's SOTU address at Huck Pac. As I read through his response I am reminded again why Mike Huckabee should be the Republican nominee in 2012. Mike Huckabee was a successful governor who worked with both parties in his state to do the work of the people. He was re-elected two times and left office only due to term limits with an approval rating in the 60's.
January 27, 2011 - 03:58 PM
The President's State of the Union Speech:
by Mike Huckabee
I was a bit confused when I listened to the President's speech Tuesday night - mainly because it sounded more like one of his campaign speeches from just two short years ago instead of the speech it should have been.
Somewhat surprisingly, the President doubled down on some of his campaign promises and again vowed to work with Republicans and even pleaded with Republicans to work with him; wanting everyone in Washington to look past Party politics and come together in order to accomplish greatness. Noble? Sure. But his speech sounded all too familiar and rang a bit hollow since we heard the same empty rhetoric during his campaign in 2008.
In fact, upon taking office, the President had the supreme chance to cross the political aisle and work with Republicans - but not only did he refuse, it seemed to many as though he put up an impassable velvet rope excluding Republicans and ultimately the American People from a seat at his table.
Instead the President and Congressional Democrats immediately passed dangerously unexplored and wildly unpopular legislation all the while refusing listen to a vocal majority who expressed civil but adamant concerns. Those concerns have become a reality as many of the President's pet programs are now rapidly bankrupting this nation - and the country knows it.
Ignoring the wishes of the American people cost the Democrats Congress and the President his popularity - but it has cost us much much more. Last night, the President renewed his promises and made a new push to spend more money to try and solve our problems despite the fact that the people overwhelming rejected that agenda this past November and the fact that it clearly hasn't worked.
It's time for the President and the Democrats to get on board with a new agenda that won't bankrupt our country. Now is the time to admit if we want Washington to change, we must first change Washington.
Are you ready for Mike Huckabee vs Barack Obama in 2012?
I am.
Should Mike Huckabee make an extra effort to woo the voters in New Hampshire or should he go straight to South Carolina where history shows that whomever wins the South Carolina primary wins the Republican Nomination?
Strategic National surveyed a random sample of typical New Hampshire Republican primary voters. The statewide, automated poll had a total of 940 respondents. It was conducted on January 19, 2010, and has a margin of error of +/- 3.2%.
As we can see, there is a difference between those polled by phone and those who attended last weekend's straw poll. As WMUR stated, the straw poll shows "just how deep the support among the GOP worker-bees who help these candidates fundraise and organize their campaigns in the state."
273 ballots were cast out of the 500 Republicans who were eligible to vote in the straw poll.
Those who cast their ballot also had the opportunity to let the New Hampshire Republican party know what was their top priority: Which issue is the most important for the republican presidential nominee to focus on? Reducing the size of government 49%
Do straw polls really indicate which candidate will take the state on actual voting day?
In July of 2007, the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers conducted a straw poll and the clear winner was Ron Paul with 65%, Rudy Giuliani 8%, Mitt Romney 4% and Mike Huckabee 3%. Clearly Ron Paul was not able to transfer that straw poll energy to the actual NH primary.
In August of 2007, Mitt Romney won the Iowa Ames straw poll with 31.6%, Mike Huckabee 18.1%, and Sam Brownback 15.3%. Both Giuliani and McCain skipped the Iowa straw poll. Mitt Romney was not able to transfer his lead from the straw poll to the actual caucus. Instead Mike Huckabee transferred the straw poll energy and beat Romney in the Iowa caucus by 10%.
PPP released their survey results showing that Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are tied in the state of New Jersey. Looks like Mike Huckabee's presence in New York City is paying off.
Mike Huckabee was recently photographed and video taped playing with Def Leppard's Phil Collen. While the emphasis from reporters was on the fun Huckabee was having, Huckabee's message was on Arts in Education. Mike Huckabee has spent well over a decade working to improve education in the public school system. When he spoke to reporters at the NAMM event, Huckabee said that he has
"a passionate commitment that I have to see that we would put musical instruments into the hands of every kid in America. I have partnered with the NAMM Foundation and the Wanna Play Fund to try and raise money (privately) so that we can see that kids who wanted to play music would be able to have access to an instrument.
But I also recognize that there is a direct correlation to music and academic success and achievement. And a lot of school districts across America are doing the dumbest thing they could possibly do, that is they are cutting music and arts programs out of their budgets.Well that is foolish. We have 1 out of 3 kids drop out of school today in America. And they are not dropping out because they are dumb, they are dropping out because they are bored. A lot of these are the right brained dominant kids, the kids who are creative by the way they have been hard wired. Those are the ones where music and art are the very vehicles by which they are going to learn. The fact is that every student, even the ones who are right brained dominant, we know that if they are introduced to music at a young age, they are going to do better in math, better in language, their cognitive reasoning is going to be better. So there is an academic correlation, and that is reason enough. But I would also argue , that even if there was not an academic correlation, the value of music is intrinsic to the very soul of a country and a culture, from one generation to the next, from one person to the next. And perhaps now more than ever, we need the symbolizing influence of music. Music is very important to who we are as a civilization. I hope and pray, that every kid in America who wants to play a musical instrument will have access to one. That no one would somehow be deprived of participating in music because of the lack of resources to an instrument. That is why I have been working with the Wanna Play Fund and will continue to do so."
Mike Huckabee didn't just talk the talk when it came to education in the state of Arkansas. Shortly after being sworn in as governor in 1996, he took action by implementing reforms which in turned produced results and success for students in K-12. "We have made progress in improving education with programs like Smart Start, which places a heavy emphasis on reading and mathematics for students from kindergarten through the fourth grade, Smart Step, which has similar emphasis for students from the fifth through the eighth grades, and Next Step which does the same for grades nine through 12."
Improving education for children in the United States is important in order to compete in the global economy. The United States cannot be successful if their students are failing. Mike Huckabee lead his state in reforms and saw results as a governor:
* Twenty-three percent, or almost one in four, Algebra I test takers and 17 percent of geometry test-takers scored at the advanced level on the tests, up a whopping 7 to 9 percentage points from the previous year
* More than half the test-takers in each subject scored at advanced or proficient levels
* Sixty percent of algebra test takers scored at proficient or advanced levels, up 7 percentage points from the previous year
* Fifty-five percent of geometry test-takers scored at those levels, also up 7 percentage points from the year before
* Even more impressively, as the percentages of students scoring at the top two levels on the math exams improved, the percentages of students scoring at the basic and below-basic levels on the test have dropped
* A total of 79 percent of Algebra I test-takers scored at below basic and basic levels the first year the test was given in 2001. That has dropped to 40 percent
* A total of 82 percent of geometry test-takers fell below mastery level in 2001. That has dropped to 45 percent
*Arkansas Reports 108 Percent Increase In AP Exams- The Department of Education said that's the largest increase any state has seen in a single year in the College Board's 50-year history in the AP exam. The president of the College Board, which administers the exam, commended Arkansas for its efforts and Ken James, who is head of the state Education Department, said Arkansas students are on the right road because taking an AP exam is a predictor of later success. Mike Huckabee agreed stating, " it proves education reforms are working."
Let's play a different tune in 2012. Let's elect a leader with a proven track record. Huckabee has that record as a governor, but he also has that record as a private citizen who continues to advance education through his involvement in private funding for music education.
Imagine in President Obama's upcoming state of the union address, if he gave a Pro-Life vision for the coming year. What if he gave us a Culture of Life guide with goal setting, long term planning, and an end of the year evaluation? What if his cultural goal for the country was to educate the people on the value of human life? If this seems too unrealistic, then picture the same values and vision addressed by a different president in 2013.
Opinions can change and with the right message, positive action can follow.
Take Abby Johnson who recently left her position at Planned Parenthood and became an advocate for the Pro-Life cause. In her book released this week, Johnson shares her journey from trying to educate women on pregnancy prevention to trying to educate women on the harm of Planned Parenthood. Johnson learned the hard way that the company she worked for was not what she thought it to be.
In her interview with Mike Huckabee, she was asked if she felt the focus was on healthcare and the prevention of illness? She replied stating that preventing pregnancies was the reason she began to work there in the first place. But she soon realized that Planned Parenthood had another motive: "One of Planned Parenthood's goals is to make money. And the way they make money is to increase the number of abortions they do." As reported earlier by CNSNews.com, Planned Parenthood received $363.2 million in government grants and contracts during its 2008-2009 fiscal year, according to the organization's annual report. That was up from $349.6 million in FY2007-08. A fact sheet on Planned Parenthood's Web site, states that the organization performed 324,008 abortions in calendar year 2008. That was up from 305,310 in 2007 and 289,750 in 2006.
Abby Johnson's heart and mind were changed when she was asked to assist on an ultra sound assisted abortion. "As she watched an unborn child 'crumple' before her very eyes as the infant was vacuumed and dismembered by a suction device 20-30 times more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner. 'I could see the baby try to move away … I just thought what am I doing … never again."
"It was all very shocking," she said. "The fact that everything I had believed was being turned on its head… I was figuring out that so many things I had believed were, in fact, a lie."
Abby Johnson has a vision: to convince the workers, clerks, receptionists, nurses, even doctors, that what they are doing is wrong. And do it without arguing. "That's what we want to fight against. We want to be reshaping that brand so that Planned Parenthood is not the first thing that pops into their mind," she said.
Indiana Congressman, Mike Pence started off the year focusing on the Value of Life by introducing a bill in the House of Representatives that would prohibit abortion providers from receiving federal funds through Title X of the Public Health Service Act, including Planned Parenthood, which received more than $360 million in government grants and contracts in Fiscal Year 2008-2009. This bill has 122 co-sponsors.
“The largest abortion provider in America should not also be the largest recipient of federal funding under Title X,” Pence said from the House floor when he introduced the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act today, Jan. 7.
“Federal funding should reflect the priorities and the values of the majority of the American people,” Pence said. “Whatever people think about abortion across this country since Roe versus Wade, survey after survey has shown that an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the use of taxpayer dollars to support, subsidize, or promote abortion at home or abroad.”
“For the sake of American taxpayers; for the sake of the important work being done at Title X clinics across this country; and, most importantly, for the sake of the defenseless unborn and vulnerable young women who find themselves in a crisis pregnancy, we must enact the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act and end the day of taxpayer support for these organizations,” Pence said.
Imagine if President Obama presented these statistics and cited the residents of New York City as the initial place for goal setting, long term planning, and an end of the year evaluation. We recently learned that New York City had a record year, not in job growth, but in the number of pregnancies ending in abortion (41% of all pregnancies). If the number of miscarriages are taken out of the equation, that figure increases to 48% or almost half of all pregnancies. Clearly there is too much Sex in the City and a mentality that inconvenient pregnancies should be disposed of quickly. To put that number in context, the rate for the rest of the country is 20 percent. While New York City's numbers are going up, the rest of the country's has been going down. Over the last two decades the rate has been reduced from one in three to one in five pregnancies ending in an abortion and the destruction of human life.
What is America to do? Do we continue to sit by and let those statistics keep rising? Thankfully the Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan has stated a vision for efforts in the nation’s largest city to truly make abortion “rare,”
According to LifeNews, Dolan and other Catholic and pro-life leaders gathered on Thursday to discuss the new figure and what to do about it. Although he admitted there is no way to end abortions immediately, he said it is important "to tell people what is happening” so they are motivated to do something about it.
The problem: abortions that are used to end inconvenient pregnancies. The answer: education. The method: discussion. Initiation begins with courage.
Mike Huckabee, despite attcks from pro-choice groups, has stayed on message for over a decade. In a speech he gave last year for the Majella Foundation, Huckabee said,
“If we teach the generation behind us that some lives are expendable and can be put to death because they represent an interference with the economic well-being of their mothers or a social interruption in her calendar, that generation will someday become adults, and they’ll be taking care of us.
“We will have taught them that when we become an economic interference or a social interruption for them, they’ll believe they have the same right to terminate our lives in our older years that we thought we had to terminate theirs as infants.”
He said the signers of the Declaration of Independence understood that every human life has equal intrinsic worth, even though they knew it would take generations to make the principle work in practice.
“They altered the course of history, in part because of this radical understanding of the value and worth of human life, that no one had more worth and value than another.
“They (the Founding Fathers) challenged that conventional wisdom with a biblical understanding that everyone is of equal worth.”
Now is the time for an American president to use his bully pulpit to educate the people. Now is the time to rally around the cause of LIFE. When history books are written, phrases such as Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" can be joined by the phrase, "Every human life has intrinsic value and worth." Surely we can reduce the number of abortions. It starts with using the courage from within to get out the message, acting on our values, educating the country, and actively pursuing an end to abortion for convenience sake.
We do need a pro-life president, one who is willing to face the opposition and declare a Values Vision for America.
Earlier this week we saw Mike Huckabee leading amongst potential Republican candidates in Texas. This lead holds as shown in the competition against incumbent Obama.
From PPP Blogspot, "Huckabee's favorability rating is a 51/30 spread and he blows Obama out of the water. But none of the other GOP hopefuls come close to matching that appeal. Romney's favorability is narrowly in positive territory at 40/37, but Gingrich's is negative at 38/44, and Palin's is even worse at 42/53."
PPP surveyed 892 Texas voters from January 14th to 16th. The survey’s margin of error is +/-3.3%.
* Mike Huckabee 24% * Sarah Palin 14% * Mitt Romney 14% * Newt Gingrich 11% * Tim Pawlenty 8% * Ron Paul 7% * Mitch Daniels 4% * John Thune 1%
PPP surveyed 515 usual national Republican primary voters from January 14th to 16th. The survey’s margin of error is +/-4.3%.
I found these two key paragraphs in the data to be of particular interest:
In November, Huckabee was back at 16% behind Palin’s 21%, Gingrich’s 19%, and Romney’s 18%,and Pawlenty was tied with Paul at 5%, followed by Thune’s 3% and Daniels’ 2%. The movement for Pawlenty is within the margin of error, but he is usually in the low single digits in any national or state-level polls, interchangeable with Thune and Daniels.
In the last two months, Huckabee has leapt from 14% to 25% with the three-quarters of Republicans who call themselves conservative. Gingrich has done the reverse, declining from 23% to 11% with them, while Palin has fallen back to 16% from 24%, and Romney holds steady at 14%. But Romney, who usually makes up for weakness among conservatives with strength among moderates, has gone from a 25-20 lead over Huckabee with centrists to second place at 18% behind Huckabee’s consistent 20%.
Will Huckabee use this data and make a quick decision to embark on a presidential run? Not so fast, as Huckabee indicated in his interview with Fox News host Martha Maccallum :
"Polls are nothing more than a snapshot in time...I would rather be polled at the top than the bottom..and it's very complimentary but it does not necessarily equate into a mandate to run or foretelling of an election."
That being said, the polls that have come out this week, NBC/WSJ, WP/ABC and PPP, clearly show that Huckabee has the best chance of becoming the Republican nominee.
Mike Huckabee sits down with Fox News host Martha Maccallum and she asks him how and when he will make his presidential decision. Mike Huckabee tells her it will be this summer. States that people get sick of us if we are out there too long-over exposure in campaign mode-makes it difficult to make your message fresh.
Will Mike Huckabee base his decision on whether or not Sarah Palin runs?
No, he will not make his decision based on who else is in but "just based on whether I feel that I have a shot to take it to the finish line and I believe I offer the best alternative to President Obama."
While Mike Huckabee sits down with Megyn Kelly and discusses repealing the Health Care bill, Megyn slips in the question: Would you really take on President Obama in 2012 when so many people are predicting that whoever the GOP puts up in that year will be the sacrificial lamb?
* Health Care Repeal-force a vote in the senate
* Bill is fundamentally flawed
* Good leaders don't make decisions based on what the current poll is because polls are so very fluid and they can change dramatically in the course of a day or two.
* Constitutional question about the Health Care bill
* Long term fiscal impact at the federal and at the state level * Talks about running against the incumbent President Obama
* Huckabee's book shelf in his Christmas ad * Congressman Cohen's Nazi remarks * Alaska Freedom Cruise in June 2011
Three Iowa polls have come out since the start of the New Year. All three have Mike Huckabee leading amongst potential presidential candidates. Looks like they are saying, I Like Mike!
Voters who lean Republican: I’m going to read a list of possible candidates for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. After you hear the list, please tell me, if the 2012 Republican presidential primary or caucus in your state were being held today, for whom would you vote? Which candidate would you lean toward?
Let me read you a list of people who might seek the 2012 Republican nomination for president. If you were voting today in the 2012 Republican primary for president, which one of the following candidates would you favor?
