Washington (CNSNews.com) – Mike Huckabee, a GOP presidential contender in 2008 and possible candidate in 2012, called for “competent conservatism” at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday. He says if the Republicans are to regain power, then social and fiscal conservatives must unite.
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, also criticized the $700-billion financial services bailout, and particularly the support it received from former President George W. Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee.
“The party of Ronald Reagan became the party of chicken little,” said Huckabee at the annual conference, held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.
“They pulled the TARP over our eyes,” he said in reference to the $700-billion Troubled Assets Relief Program.
Further, Huckabee invented a new acronym for the Obama administration’s $787-billion economic stimulus package. In addition to calling it “confessions of a shopoholic,” he said the proper name should be the Congressional Recovery Action Plan, or CRAP.
“It’s pure Congressional Recovery Action Plan and smells like a Congressional Recovery Action Plan,” he said to a standing ovation.
The crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) greeted Huckabee’s remarks enthusiastically.
The winner of the 2008 Iowa Caucus and several southern states, Huckabee said nothing about plans for another campaign. But he did talk about what Republicans need to do to win again.
He also brought up his signature campaign issue, a national sales tax or fair tax.
“We should shut down the IRS and pass a fair tax, then we will no longer have a tax cheat running the IRS,” Huckabee said to long applause, referencing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s tax troubles.
Huckabee recalled that some conservatives ridiculed him during the 2008 primary after he said “the Wall Street-Washington axis is out of control.” He thinks recent events have vindicated his analysis. He also said the situation undermined the free market.
“I don’t have a problem with bonuses, I have a problem with taxpayers paying bonuses, especially to the people who flew their companies into the ground instead of making them successful,” Huckabee said.
“When the free market is allowed to function without (Massachusetts Rep.) Barney Frank’s hand on the scale, people won’t buy homes they can’t afford because they won’t get loans they can’t pay. When the free market is allowed to function without (Michigan Rep.) John Dingell, companies won’t make cars nobody wants to buy.”
He called on Republicans to reject notions that the party lost in November for being pro-life, and added that “Ronald Reagan did not throw social conservatives under the bus.”
He said that without strong families and values, there will be more crime and poverty and welfare. Thus, said Huckabee, social and fiscal conservatism cannot be separated.
“The fortunes of fiscal and social conservatives are interrelated,” he said. “Let’s not have a divorce, but have reconciliation. Both wings are needed to fly.”
Known during the 2008 presidential campaign for numerous one-liners, Huckabee accused Democrats of trying to create a “United Socialist States of America,” and added, “even Obamaweek, formerly Newsweek, says so.”