Mitt Romney: Tough on Meth
Thomas Sumter
in Huckabee, Romney
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Mitt’s new attack add targeting Huckabee also claims that Huckabee was soft on crime related to methamphetamines while Governor of Arkansas. Mitt claims in the ad that penalties for methamphetamine manufacturing decreased while Huckabee was governor of Arkansas.
I was watching Huckabee on Larry King last night, and Huckabee addressed this accusation by pointing out some interesting facts. Here’s what he had to say:
“Maybe he needs to go back and check Massachusetts, because the meth penalties in Arkansas are actually twice what they are in Massachusetts. So if you get caught for methamphetamine as a dealer in Massachusetts, the maximum penalty is five years. In Arkansas, it's 10. For him to say that we've made it easy on the meth dealers is really a mistake or an outright just distortion of the truth.”
Huckabee also discussed some of the rationale behind some of his pardons and commutations:
“I was a governor a long time -- 10 1/2 years. I took that job so seriously that when those commutations came across my desk, I looked at every single one of them. And I looked at it not with how would this be for my political future, because I'll tell you, if I had looked at it that way, I would have never have given a one of them, ever. There's never, never an up side to it.
But if you do your job, you will find that there was a 17-year old girl who wrote a hot check and now she's 35, and that hot check, put on her record so that now -- because of the background checks that are required for someone working in a nursing home -- she can't get a job emptying a bedpan. So let me ask you, do you think we ought to keep her out of the workforce for the rest of her life?”
Huckabee has taken a lot of fire the past few weeks. I have to say that, when given an opportunity to explain his thinking and correct the record, I think he’s done a good job and has handled himself very well. I think we’re at the point where the volume of attacks (most notably from Romney) are starting to make his opponents look desperate, like they are grasping at straws. And remember, Iowans don’t like this negativity.
In the spirit of the season, I’ll close this post with a quote from Huckabee’s response to this latest attack ad. After explaining how Arkansas’ meth penalties are still more harsh than Massachusetts’, the response states:
“Nevertheless, on behalf of the Mike Huckabee for President campaign, we want to wish Governor Romney, his family and his staff, a very merry Christmas.”
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