Now that once-politician and current TV and radio show loudmouth Mike Huckabee has officially announced his entry into the Republican presidential clown car, it is time for everyone to dig up their worst-things-Mike-Huckabee-ever-said entries. I don't know why—it's not like he won't say something worse by next week, given his history—but I suppose it is worth looking back at what he was like back in
ye olden days of 1992.
[Huckabee] endorsed quarantining AIDS patients from the rest of society—a radical view even among conservatives at the time—while arguing that the severity of the epidemic had been exaggerated because gay people wielded so much political clout. The federal government should spend less money on AIDS, he insisted, and more on diseases that the afflicted had not brought on themselves, such as cancer.
"I realize a lot of people have received AIDS through blood transfusions, but AIDS is basically a lifestyle disease, and when the lifestyle is changed, the disease risk goes significantly down," Huckabee said in one interview.
A proponent of gay "therapy" and anti-sodomy laws, mere quarantine wasn't good enough for Huck.
No sir.
An Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article from 1992 highlighting his crime plan noted Huckabee called for the death penalty for those who knowingly transmitted the AIDS virus.
That guy has been full to the brim with Jesus for a
long time, hasn't he? He spent quite a bit of time on the stump that year advocating for an expansion of the death penalty for various offenses. Again, because Jesus.
There was a brief period in the middle of his career when Huckabee was considered a reasonable Republican. He managed that feat chiefly by shutting up, a skill lost when he left political office and returned to his roots as shock-jock radio preacher. It's not likely he'll be able to credibly regain those "reasonable" credentials, and it's pretty clear he doesn't want to; this time around, he's running in full Sodom and Gomorrah mode.
It will at least make the primaries more interesting, even if new-Huckabee has once again devolved into a writhing bag of skin and hate. Mike Huckabee will be the go-to candidate for Republicans who like Ted Cruz, but who are put off by Ted Cruz's intellectualism.