Mike Huckabee announced his candidacy for the 2016 presidential election amid a crowded race for Republican nomination.
Mike Huckabee announced his candidacy for the 2016 president election on Tuesday morning. The former Arkansas Governor broke the news in a speech at the University of Arkansas Community College in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas.
Huckabee's speech was reflective of his own political efforts to appeal to grass-roots support. According to the candidate, the working class is his main audience.
"It was here where I became the first male in my entire family lineage to graduate from high school at the very same campus that stands today right down on main street. It was from here that I went on to college at Ouachita Baptist University. It was also from here that I first ran for elected office when I ran for student council at Hope Junior High School. So it seems fitting that it would be here that I announce that I am a candidate for president of the United States of America," he said.
Huckabee was the host of a radio show as well as for Fox News before he withdrew from those positions to run for president. "I have walked away from my own income to do this, so I am not asking you for some sacrifice that I am not willing to make. I don't have a global foundation or a taxpayer funded check to live off of. I don't come from a family dynasty but a working family. I grew up blue collar, not blue blood," he said.
The candidate appealed to the working class; he needs their support because he is not supported by the rich, he said.
"I never have been and I am not going to be the favorite candidate of those in the Washington-to-Wall Street corridor of power. I will be funded and fueled, not by the billionaires, but by the working people across America that will find out that $15 and 25-dollar-a-month contributions can take us from hope to higher ground."
His platform involved implementing a "fair tax" in which most federal taxes would be eliminated and replaced with a national sales tax. Huckabee pushed for this plan back in 2008, but critics said that its implementation would place greater burden on the middle class.
In addition to economic issues, Huckabee's platform weighed heavily on moral issues. As a Southern Baptist minister, Mike Huckabee stressed that social issues are just as important, if not more, than economic topics.
"We have lost our way morally. We witness the slaughter of over 55 million babies in the name of choice and we are now threatening the foundation of religious liberty by criminalizing Christianity in demanding that we abandon biblical principles of natural marriage," he said.
"Many of our politicians have surrendered to the false god of judicial supremacy, which will allow black-robed, unelected judges the power to make law "” as well as enforce it "” upending the equality of our three branches of government as well as the separation of powers so very central to the Constitution. The Supreme Court is not the supreme being and they cannot overturn the laws of nature or of nature's God."
Huckabee, 59, won the Iowa caucus back in 2008 when he ran for president. The candidate enters into competition with many conservative candidates who are also aiming for the Republican nomination. The list includes Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marc Rubio of Florida, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and retired Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
