Huckabee addresses '16 race

In governors series, he reflects on record, current affairs

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND  --10/26/14--  Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee speaks with Deborah Robinson during a taping of "Conversations with Arkansas Governors" in the Ron Robinson Theater in the Little Rock River Market Sunday. The series includes past Arkansas governors sharing stories of their experience in the position.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/RICK MCFARLAND --10/26/14-- Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee speaks with Deborah Robinson during a taping of "Conversations with Arkansas Governors" in the Ron Robinson Theater in the Little Rock River Market Sunday. The series includes past Arkansas governors sharing stories of their experience in the position.

Talk of running in the 2016 presidential election was sprinkled throughout an hour-long interview with former Gov. Mike Huckabee on Sunday, the first in a series titled "Conversations with Arkansas Governors."

Huckabee, who was governor from 1996 to 2007, said he will decide in spring 2015 whether to put in a bid. The ex-governor was a candidate in the 2008 presidential election, in which he won the Iowa Republican caucuses but withdrew soon before John McCain received enough delegates to win the nomination.

"It would be disingenuous to say I'm not entertaining the notion and considering it," Huckabee told an approximately 100-person crowd at Ron Robinson Theater. "There are three levels of consideration, and one is political. Do I have the people and network of supporters? Secondly, are there enough people who would be willing to financially get behind an effort? That was one of the limitations I had back when I ran in 2008."

Huckabee, a Baptist pastor for 12 years before running a failed race for U.S. Senate in 1992, said spirituality would also play into the decision.

"I have to look deep inside and decide if this is what I want to do with my life, knowing all that comes with it," he said. "It's a brutal experience. It's like sticking your face in the blades of a fast-moving fan. You have to have some tolerance for the sight of your own blood."

Huckabee also talked Sunday about his actions during his tenure as governor.

In answering a question from Little Rock resident Gary Brown about prison overcrowding in the state, Huckabee addressed the more than 1,000 commutations and pardons he issued during the 11 years he was in office -- specifically the commutation of Maurice Clemmons in 2000.

Clemmons, who was 17 when convicted of aggravated robbery in 1989, was paroled when Huckabee commuted his 95-year prison sentence. When Clemmons was shot and killed by police in 2009 after being found responsible for the deaths of four police officers in Washington, Huckabee's actions garnered national attention.

"A 17-year-old went to prison for riding in a car he didn't steal, and I gave him a pardon when he was 27 to let him have a life, go to barber school -- something he couldn't do with a criminal record," Huckabee said. "God help you if you're the governor of this state and you determine that some people don't need to be in prison permanently. If you run for office, you'll get the snot beat out of you from people who say you're too soft on crime."

Since his 2008 presidential bid, Huckabee started his own weekly show on Fox News, during which he offers commentary on current events.

Interviewer Deborah Robinson said Sunday that Huckabee is outspokenly "harsh" toward President Barack Obama on the show.

"I pray for him every day," Huckabee said, going on to say that Obama has been "the most partisan, the most divisive president."

During Sunday's interview, Huckabee repeatedly called for more bipartisanship, saying Obama did not have a "sit-down" with Republicans when creating the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"None of us will get everything we want," Huckabee said later on in the interview, when Buddy Fisher, who is running for the state House of Representatives, asked him for advice. "We all have to go to the table and talk to each other. It requires people who understand that they have to be grown-ups when they're elected."

The series of interviews was organized by entertainment media management company emmc LLC, Robinson & Robinson, and the Central Arkansas Library System with the goal of having former governors share stories about their contributions to the state. Former governors Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, Bill Clinton and Jim Guy Tucker, as well as current Gov. Mike Beebe and the next governor, will also participate.

Metro on 10/27/2014

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