Rich linked a couple stories yesterday, which pointed out that Huckabee is now using the Confederate Battle Flag to rev up South Carolinians: ”South Carolina people know true conservatism when they see it. You don’t like people outside the state telling you how you ought to raise your kids, you don’t like people from outside the state telling you what to do with the flag,” Huckabee said during a rally at a Myrtle Beach airport hangar. “In fact, if somebody came down to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d tell’em where to put the pole.”
The pro-flag group Americans for the Preservation of American Culture is running radio ads touting Huckabee and attacking McCain and Romney.
The irony is that anyone who observed him as governor knows that he never used language (or embraced issues) that could be slightly construed as racially divisive. In fact, one of Huckabee’s redeeming qualities is that he was a racial conciliator in a state with a checkered past with respect to racial issues. Kane Webb, a fellow Arkansan, wrote in National Review in December about Huckabee’s speech at the 40th anniversary of Central High’s desegregation crisis in which he spoke in sharp terms against the sin of racism.
Huckabee is always full of surprises.