New York Times
12-08-07
The Early Word: Tense Times for Huckabee and Romney
By Sarah Wheaton
When Kate Phillips wrote about the rapist who murdered a woman after he was
released on parole during Mike Huckabee’s tenure as govenror in Arkansas, she
said, “We can guarantee you that this will not go away.” It hasn’t. Today, The Los
Angeles Times’s Richard A. Serrano examines today whether “his deep Christian
faith — what on the stump he says ‘defines me’ — colored his view of Wayne
DuMond’s case.”
Mr. Huckabee maintains that ultimately, it was the parole board that released Mr.
DuMond, and that he had rejected the option of commuting the convicted rapist’s
sentence himself. More from Mr. Serrano’s report:
“It was a horrible situation, horrible. I feel awful about it in every way. I wish
there was some way I could go back and reverse the clock and put him back in
prison,” the candidate said at a news conference this week.
Though he acknowledged discussing the case with the state parole board,
Huckabee said that conversation was “simply part of a broader discussion”
initiated at the request of the board chairman. “I did not ask them to do anything,”
he said.
Three board members recalled it differently. They said Huckabee raised the
issue of DuMond’s release, asking to discuss the matter with them in a closed
session. They said his religious beliefs, and the influence of the evangelical
community from which he came, drove him.
“We felt pressured by him,” said board member Ermer Pondexter. “I felt
compelled to do it. . . . It was a favor for the governor.”
Mr. Huckabee released his plan for border and immigration enforcement
yesterday—a plan his rivals were quick to contrast with his record as governor.
One of them, Mitt Romney, has also been taking heat for a perceived lapse in
enforcement while he was governor of Massachusetts. Seema Mehta of The Los
Angeles Times reports that he “lashed out” Friday when asked (in fairness, for
like, the millionth time) about the landscaping crew he hired that employed illegal
immigrants:
“If I go to a restaurant, do I make sure all the waiters there are all legal? How
would I do that?” the former Massachusetts governor asked.
He stressed that he has never proposed that homeowners, after they hire a
contractor, should “then go out and inquire of the company’s employees whether
they happen to be legal or not.”
You can see the whole exchange for yourself, care of our own Ben Werschkul,
here.
Politico.com’s Jonathan Martin writes that, in Iowa, the G.O.P. race has come
down to “Mike Huckabee’s momentum and passion versus Mitt Romney’s
organization.”
On the Democrats’ side, the big news today is, of course, the beginning of Oprah
Winfrey’s campaign tour for Senator Barack Obama. The Des Moines Register
examines the significance of her endorsement. “Political insiders say celebrity
endorsements are usually worthless - or, to quote Iowa State University
professor Steffan Schmidt, ‘worth a pitcher of warm spit,’” reports Erin
Crawford, “but the consensus on Winfrey is different.”
The Washington Post rounds up what Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is doing to
try to counteract the Oprah effect, including bringing in her mother and daughter.
(Not to mention dispatching her spouse, the former president, to South Carolina.)
Peter S. Canellos of The Boston Globe writes that a different class of issues are
taking precedence on the trail:
Once expected to be a stark referendum on the Iraq war and national security,
the presidential campaign in both parties has been turning more toward domestic
concerns, from illegal immigration and taxes among Republicans, to healthcare
and Social Security among Democrats.
The shift, analysts say, has brought traditional issues and constituencies back
into play and helped candidates with perceived weaknesses in national security such as Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee - to rise in
many polls.