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CARROLL — The wife of Iowa poll-topping Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says her husband has “limitations” on foreign policy that can be overcome with solid staffing.
“What you do is know your limitations and if you have them, you surround yourself with people who excel and can serve you in the areas of your limitations and I think that’s what it’s really all about,” Janet Huckabee said in Carroll this weekend. “Ronald Reagan didn’t have any foreign policy experience. Bill Clinton, they said, the only experience he had in foreign policy was going to IHOP, the International Pancake House.”
What’s more, Janet Huckabee said in an interview with Iowa Independent and the Carroll Daily Times Herald that although pro-life, she didn’t want to see the day when policymakers set penalties for women who have abortions. “I hope we never get to that point,” she said.
In a wide-ranging interview, Mrs. Huckabee admitted she was “defensive” when responding to a reporter’s suggestion that Ambassador Alan Keyes had more foreign policy bona fides than Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor. Additionally, when pressed on one of her husband’s jokes about gays, Mrs. Huckabee, said, “I think that he’s very to open the lifestyle of the gay community. That’s not the issue. The issue is changing the definition of marriage.”
While her husband is a Baptist minister, Janet Huckabee also said it is “immaterial” whether people believe in Evolution or Creationism.
With only days before the Iowa caucuses Mrs. Huckabee’s appearance at the most prominent venue in Carroll, Iowa — the Carrollton Centre — drew a handful of people. A nearly full plate of chocolate-chip cookies remained as she, and former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, left after spending far more than an hour with us. In conservative western Iowa, in a Catholic community where anti-abortion messages sell like umbrellas in Seattle, it was indeed surreal to see this potential future First Lady talking to an empty room — particularly as the event came less than 48 hours before Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, packed another restaurant down the road.
In the meet-and-greet moments following a visit with about a dozen western Iowans — including two members of the media and one state legislator — Janet Huckabee, the woman Iowans may vault into the national limelight in four days, spent about 10 minutes debating a lone, liberal Democratic voter, one on one, about abortion and other topics. Only two people asked Janet Huckabee a question in the session.
During a speech, Mrs. Huckabee hit campaign talking points. “What you see on TV is what you’re going to get at home,” she said of her husband. “He’s a man that doesn’t have many faces.”
She talked of advocating childhood immunizations and said she has been a strong proponent of motorist prepardness for inclement weather. Mrs. Huckabee wanted to make sure the people listening to her in Carroll had flashlights and blankets in their cars in the event they are stranded due to weather. “Do you carry those things with you?” the would-be future First Lady a room of mostly hardy Iowans.
Referencing the efforts people will go to find lost kids Mrs. Huckabee said, “The life in the womb is just as important as the life in the woods.”
Following her event, Mrs. Huckabee sat down for an interview with Douglas Burns of the Carroll Daily Times Herald and Iowa Independent.
Here is that exchange:
Iowa Independent: With all due respect, Governor Romney has been in our community twice. He’s fielded questions from hundreds of people. Why should people in our county even consider your husband considering the fact that he hasn’t been here. Other candidates have. They’ve been coming here for months. There is a respect factor and your husband for whatever reason hasn’t shown us enough respect to show up in the county in person.
Mrs. Huckabee: Well, I don’t think it’s a lack of respect for the county. I don’t think that’s it at all. One, Mitt Romney, whom you spoke of, he’s been running for 2-1/2 years. Mike didn’t get into the race until just this year. We’ve tried to cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. I think he’s done it very well. We’ve been to Iowa numerous times. Whether the planning got us here or not, I don’t think it is anything to disrespect the county. Iowa is much like Arkansas. We’re very rural. There’s a lot of small communities out there. I think we’ve been to every pizza ranch in all of Iowa. It’s a one on one. We’ve tried to do the best we can to cover the state. That’s why I’m here today is to hit some of the places he hasn’t hit.
Iowa Independent: In your remarks you said that life in the womb is as important as life the woods. You were referencing a situation if a kid was lost in the woods and something may have happened. If a kid were murdered in the woods in certain states such as your’s the death penalty would be a possibility. If your view on abortion prevails and abortion in fact does become illegal, what should the penalty be for a woman who has an abortion or a doctor who performs the procedure?
Mrs. Huckabee: I can’t answer that. I’m not the policymaker, first of all. Second of all, I don’t like to do hypotheticals. It’s hard to decide and know what a nation would do. Would it go back to the states or would it be national? It’s hard to know. I can’t answer that. I hope we never get to that point.
Iowa Independent: But if those lives have equal value then wouldn’t the person who performs the abortion be just as bad as the person who murders the kid in the woods?
Mrs. Huckabee: I can only answer from a personal standpoint and it would seem to me that if you take a life of anybody it’s a serious situation.
Iowa Independent: You ran for secretary of state in Arkansas. Was your husband supportive of that?
Mrs. Huckabee: He was supportive of that but he was also at the same time running for governor. It was a very, very, very difficult situation. I had the party people come and ask me if I’d consider it. We didn’t have anybody. The choices were very slim. I thought that I should be open to it. We thought about it. We prayed about it. We discussed it. He was supportive in it. The big downside of it was I didn’t have his undivided attention, not did he have my undivided attention because he was running for governor at the same time I was running for secretary of state.
Iowa Independent: Would there be any concern with having two constitutional officers at the highest level who were married, that there might be some conflicts of interest there?
Mrs. Huckabee: I mean we have brothers that serve in our legislature and we have fathers and sons.
Iowa Independent: But they aren’t constitutional officers.
Mrs. Huckabee: Yeah, but they don’t interact. They don’t interact.
Iowa Independent: As the assassination in Pakistan showed, foreign policy is extremely important. On the Democratic side we have had three candidates here just in the last 48 hours and there have been questions, that are legitimate, that have been raised about Barack Obama’s foreign policy experience and he’s on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Your husband has really no foreign policy experience. In these times can we afford to trust a governor with absolutely no foreign policy experience?
Mrs. Huckabee: What is foreign policy experience?
Iowa Independent: I’ll let you define what it is.
Mrs. Huckabee: You’re asking the question.
Iowa Independent: I would define it as someone who has had experience in some official capacity representing the United States before foreign entitities.
Mrs. Huckabee: So you’re saying only a person who has been in Congress?
Iowa Independent: It could be somebody in the State Department. I would say Ambassador Alan Keyes has more foreign policy experience than your husband. Wouldn’t you say that’s fair?
Mrs. Huckabee: I don’t know what kind of policy experience he’s had. You know, my husband’s traveled to countries extensively. He’s dealt with people.
Iowa Independent: Has he negotiated a treaty with another country?
Mrs. Huckabee: Not treaties. I don’t know anybody who has negotiated a treaty. He’s dealt with people in business dealings, trying to get people to come and do business in Arkansas. He’s spoken with heads of state. He’s done a lot of things. I don’t think any one person is going to be your perfect candidate in all areas of life. There’s just not a perfect man — or woman. What you do is know your limitations and if you have them, you surround yourself with people who excel and can serve you in teh areas of your limitations and I think that’s what it’s really all about. Ronald Reagan didn’t have any foreign policy experience. Bill Clinton, they said, the only experience he had in foreign policy was going to IHOP, the International Pancake House. So how do you really judge a person for his lack or participation in dealing with treaties. I don’t think that’s how you eliminate someone. I think Mike has more executive experience than anybody else on either side running for president. So do you eliminate everybody else because they don’t have executive experience? Yes, foreign policy is very, very important, but I think it’s something you can do. You can surround yourself with smart people, people who do excel in that area, recoginzing that you do have limitations and you can make up for them by bringing in the right people from those positions, those jobs. He’s a smart man. I think he can lead us well, not just in our country, but our country to get along with the rest of the world in other countries. I probably get a little defensive when people say he doesn’t have any foreign policy because I think he does have more than they think. It just to me is not your only qualification.
Iowa Independent: Your husband was quoted as saying when he was asked about gay marriage that “until Moses comes down with two tablets from Brokeback Mountain and says he’s changed the rules” that your husband would maintain his opposition to it. Now, most people would recoginize that it’s respectful discourse if somebody would just say I’m opposed to marriage in situations that don’t involve a man and a woman. Is this the kind of rhetoric that brings people together? Does he need to say things like that or is this just hostile toward a certain segment of the population?
Mrs. Huckabee: Mike is very humorous in a lot of different ways.
Iowa Independent: But that’s humorous at the expense of homosexuals.
Mrs. Huckabee: People don’t always understand his humor. I’m not going to say his choice of words is always the right choice of words. I’ve been married to him 33-1/2 years but we don’t agree on everything. But I think that he’s very to open the lifestyle of the gay community. That’s not the issue. The issue is changing the definition of marriage. The definition of marriage to Mike is to between one man and one woman and we can’t change that. The Koran says that. The Bible says that. Was that a mistake? I don’t know. Did it hurt someone’s feelings? It could have. I don’t think he did it intentionally. I truly think his leadership is a leadership to all the people and not just some of the people — not just the Baptists or, you know, a certain segment of the population. He wants to be the people’s president.
Iowa Independent: I was watching the GOP debate in New Hampshire and your husband said, “If anybody wants to believe they are descendants of a primate they are welcome to do so.” Apparently he doesn’t think that. How do you fall on that?
Mrs. Huckabee: I wasn’t there when God created man. I really have no idea. He could have done it that way. I don’t know and I think that’s what he’s saying. If you want to believe that God created you through the steps of Evolution so be it. The difference is really not how we believe it happened and how we believe God did it. I think he important part is that we believe there was a creator and that were created by that creator. How he did it is immaterial.
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