Huckabee decries 'eBay' presidency
Posted: Friday, December 07, 2007 3:21 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
CHARLOTTE, NC -- Although he didn't address the growing controversy over his involvement in the parole of Wayne Dumond, Huckabee did speak with the media this morning following a fundraiser here, weighing in on the president's plan to help sub-prime borrowers and his opponents' attempts to, as he claims, buy the presidency.
Huckabee first commended the president for not using any taxpayer money in his proposed solution to help out sub-prime borrowers saying, "I'm glad that the president did not use the tax payers' money to try to fix this because this is not a tax payers' obligation. People have to take responsibility for financial decisions they've made. You know, that's tough.
"What the president did was simply say this was a transaction between borrowers and lenders and let's see if they can create some reasonable ways to keep their transaction alive, but not at the expense of taxpayers. That was a good move on the president's part."
When asked about criticisms that despite a recent surge in the polls Huckabee hasn't seen enough of an increase in donors to compete nationally, the former governor and newly minted frontrunner dismissed the claim. He said that his campaign had between $2 million and $3 million in the bank, and that he has "raised more money in November than we have in the previous 11 months combined."
"Here we are at the top of the polls nationally," Huckabee continued, arguing that his success with such little money is actually indicative of the American people's distaste for money in politics. "Now how did we do that? Did we do it because we bought our way into it? No, we did it because there are a whole lot of American people who don't want to put the presidency up for sale. If they do they might as well put it on eBay."
Huckabee's campaign has spent just a fraction of the money spent by his competitors, and he now claims that finding success with so little money has taught him the fiscal discipline necessary to be president.
"I would suggest that the discipline that we've learned by not having a lot of money is exactly what a lot of Americans are wanting to see not just in a candidate," he said, "but in a president who would lead this country to a same kind of frugal budget management that they have to in their own homes. And when they see people running for president throwing money at everything and everybody they're saying, 'If they'll do that with a campaign what on earth would they do if they had the federal treasury to spend.'"
