Huckabee: I Have the ‘Real Pathway’ to the GOP Nomination

SCHIEFFER: “Let me just ask the obvious question, Governor. Are you going to run?”
HUCKABEE: “Well, Bob, a decision hasn’t been made. I have been saying it’s going to be this spring. We’re barely into it. It’s still snowing in Boston. So, give me a few more weeks. But I will make an announcement relatively soon.”
SCHIEFFER: “It’s clear that Ted Cruz is going after what you consider your base, and that is conservative Christians. Tell me why you can represent them better than he can.”
HUCKABEE: “Well, my base is really beyond just evangelicals. I think a lot of people perceive that. And certainly they’re an important part of the base that I enjoyed back in 2008. But I think the untold secret is that a lot of the support that I had and that I anticipate that I will have is from the working-class blue-collar people who grew up a lot like I did, not blue blood, but blue-collar. And there’s a real sense in the Republican Party that there’s no one speaking not only to them, but speaking for them. And if someone can capture both the blue-collar working-class Republicans, the conservatives, many of them even union members, as well as evangelicals, there’s real pathway to the nomination.”
SCHIEFFER: “What do you see as the main challenge for the next person who becomes president?”
HUCKABEE: “I think it’s got to restore hope in America again, bring this country back where we believe we’re going to be able to be at our best. People are discouraged. I meet people every day whose economy is not recovering, Bob. They’re not feeling the sense of recovery that people in Washington are boasting about. Their economy is not recovering, the folks out there working hard. And I believe that if we don’t once again give people a sense of hope and optimism, first about their own economic situation, and then about the world that is on fire, it’s going to be hard to get America back on track. And I believe most Americans — and the polls reflect this — believe that we’re on the wrong track right now.”
SCHIEFFER: “You got good reviews when you were governor of Arkansas for the most part. But do you consider yourself qualified to handle foreign policy? You have just heard what we have been talking about this morning. I can’t remember when the world was more tangled up than it is right now. What can you bring to that? And what will you tell people when they ask you that question?”
HUCKABEE: “Well, a lot of people don’t know my first trip to the Middle East was in 1973, 42 years ago, when I was all of 17. I have been to the Middle East several dozen times. Just got back from Israel last month, was there three times just last year. I have been to virtually every country that we talk about, whether it’s Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Saudi — Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, Turkey, Pakistan, India. This is a part of the world with which I am familiar firsthand. And as a governor, I also met with many world leaders, as well as CEO’s of multinational corporations. And, frankly, most governors do. I think it’s sometimes perceived that governors don’t have much of a world view. I would tend to take issue that that is not always the case.”
SCHIEFFER: “Do you think this is going to be a contest to determine who is the most conservative Republican candidate or who is the most electable Republican candidate?”
HUCKABEE: “I know that there is going to be a big brouhaha over who is the most conservative. But if you look at all the Republicans who are thinking about running, there really isn’t an outright liberal in the whole bunch. There may be degrees of more conservative on one policy or another. But I think that compared to the current administration, all of us are conservative. But I’m convinced, Bob, that the average American voter, at least the ones that are going to decide the election, they don’t think horizontally. It’s not for them left, right, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican. I’m convinced that a lot of Americans are asking the question about the vertical perspective. Who is going to take us up and who is going to take us down? And they are a heck of a lot more concerned about somebody getting this country, this economy, and our world in upward direction than just to say that horizontally we have moved further to the right or we have moved further to the left.”