Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee all but threw his hat into the ring Sunday on a 2016 presidential bid, calling it “pretty evident” that he was preparing another White House run.
While the 2008 Republican primary runner-up said he won’t formally decide until the spring, he has put out a book about conservative principles and quit his hosting gig at Fox News Channel — a move he said would make him “the dumbest man alive” if he didn’t run for president.
Amid such clear signs he’s likely to run in 2016, he appeared on one of Sunday’s top political talk shows and also made the kind of issue statements potential candidates make, shoring up his opposition to Common Core education standards and walking a fine line on immigration as the GOP primary season heat up.
“It’s pretty evident that I’m moving in that direction,” Mr. Huckabee told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I’ve never hidden that. But I’ve always said that my timetable is sometime later in the spring and that still is the timetable today.”
The former governor said Common Core started out as a set of sensible proposals forged by Republican governors, only to be co-opted by the federal government.
“The whole idea was let the states decide the standards but have high standards,” he said, saying he no long supports the guidelines.
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On immigration, he criticized President Obama for granting unilateral amnesty to illegal immigrants, but signaled he would not take a hard line on people who were sneaked into the country unwittingly as minors and have worked hard since to achieve their dreams.
“I want to make sure that we have a better handle on immigration. It’s totally out of control,” he told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “But I don’t know that we’ve ever been a nation that said if you’re in the backseat of your car when your dad is speeding, we’re going to charge you in the backseat for what your dad did up in the front seat.”
Nevertheless, Mr. Huckabee said he would roll back Mr. Obama’s 2012 amnesty for these illegal immigrants, the so-called “Dreamers,” because he said the president overstepped his authority and such changes should be made according to the rule of law.
“There’s a process,” he said. “We have a thing called a Constitution. And the Constitution doesn’t allow the chief executive just to make up law. “
He also pushed back at the Supreme Court’s decision to weigh in on same-sex marriage. The states, and not the courts, should take that on, he said.
“By gosh I’m convinced a lot of people don’t even know what the constitution says when it comes to making law,” he said. “But judges can’t make law. That’s judicial supremacy and that is not constitutional.”
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• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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