Mike Huckabee, on a wing and a prayer

What do you say in response? What do you say in response when Thompson says you are one of the highest-taxing governors in America?

Well, he is as wrong about that as he is in thinking the Soviet Union is still around. He is as wrong about that as he is in thinking that abortion and marriage are state issues, that morality differs between one state and another. It's obvious that he is grasping at something to attack me on. But goodness, that's just not where the record really is. If you look at all the states, take a look at where their revenues were, and our state is not only not far off of others, but I'll tell you what's more important. Each state have different ways in which they conduct their budget. Different states have different powers that a governor has in certain levels of spending. And what you really need to look at is how much of this is federal pass-through, Medicaid, other federal monies. How much of it is driven by the courts on prisons? Because if you have, as I did, 7,900 inmates when I went into office, ten and a half years later, nearly 14,000 -- guess what? That costs more money. So, I'm not surprised that there would be some issues that come up like that. But the record I have is one that is very, not only responsible, but very defensible.

Let me ask you about the marriage issue. You spoke with the Concord Monitor many months ago. And according to the transcript of that you said, you would tend to leave it to the states if they wanted to have some sort of civil unions law that gave gay couples the rights of marriage without calling it marriage. Is that accurate?

I have never supported civil unions, and I don't. I don't think it is something that is a good thing. I think in fact it's something that in fact just leads us to the ultimate idea of same-sex marriage, which I don't support. I went back and tried to read that transcript, and I can't argue with what they said, because I don't have anything. I don't have another transcript to say, well we recorded it differently. I'll just assume that was correct. I either misspoke or misunderstood. The only thing I can reconstruct it is that I may have implied that I would prefer to see -- because I have always supported -- a marriage amendment at the federal level, and a life amendment. I may have acquiesced that if that can't happen, I understand that states may pass on their own. But I don't support the idea that there would be civil unions, every state would have their own set of rules on that.

So just to clarify, you would oppose a state like New Hampshire choosing to pass a civil union bill that gave gay couples similar rights to couples that are heterosexual.

Yeah. Because once you give it in one state, then what keeps that couple from having it in New Hampshire and then moving to Arkansas and saying, "Hey, you have to accept what the other state did." That's why it is better cleared up by a marriage amendment that just says marriage is what it always has been. We are not redefining it. It's not that you are opposing something. You are actually affirming something. That's the way I really do feel. It's important to communicate it. My position is that it's the advocates for gay marriage that are opposing traditional marriage by wanting to change the definition and the rules. Those of us who are traditional-marriage people would say, We are not against same-sex marriage as much as it is we are for keeping the traditional understanding of marriage intact.

Let me ask about the life amendment. Right now something like 1.6 million abortions happen every year in the United States. If it was illegal federally because of a constitutional amendment, presumably some percentage of that 1.6 million would still be happening. How would you deal with essentially an underground abortion system that would rise up in the wake of a life amendment?

The key thing is: Your focus is not to go prosecute people. Your focus is to save the lives of the innocent. And I think you would do everything that you could to create alternatives for abortion. If you say we are not going to have legalized abortion, you have got to be willing to potentially accept the responsibility of covering the cost of the natural birth, the cost of adoption, the cost of the alternatives. And I think that would be a better price to pay than the price of the death of 1.6 million innocent people every year.

Would the morning-after pill and the abortion pill both count in your mind as abortions?

Anything that ends the life after it has been fertilized to me is problematic, because it is a life at that point. At that particular stage, some people say, "When does it become a life?" The very people who hammer me all the time about saying I am unscientific, I would say, well, the science is that it is a life. There is only one kind of life. It's a human life. It may not be as developed as it would be two or three or four months from then. But that's what it is.

So are we going to arrive at this perfect solution tomorrow? No. But it took us a long time to come to the conviction that slavery was fundamentally wrong, and it was not a political issue, but a moral issue.

And that's why when Senator Thompson made his comments the other day, and I know he was very unhappy that I questioned him. But here's the issue: One has to decide, is this a political or a moral issue? If it is a political issue, then you can argue that each state could have its own political solution to it. If you believe it's a moral issue, then you really have to believe that morality does not change at the state line. That idea that morality is different in Massachusetts than it is in Texas is the rationale of the Civil War.

Do we want the federal government imposing morality? You are comfortable with the federal government playing that role?

Well, let's remember that all law establishes morality. That's what law does. The law of speeding is saying that it's immoral to go at 85 miles an hour. The morality is that we have established a 65-mile-an-hour limit. So that's what all law does: It establishes that it is wrong for me to murder you. We've determined that that's not a good idea. I'm sure you are happy to hear that. So if I go over that law and murder you anyway, then society is going to punish me because I have violated a moral code, which we have all agreed to. So that's what law does. When people say you can't legislate morality, I am thinking, actually that is exactly what you do every time you pass a law. Now you don't legislate behavior. That's true. You can't legislate people's behavior. But all legislation legislates morality by its very nature. It defines the right and the wrong of the people.

You have declined in a couple of interviews to say whether or not you feel the Mormon religion is a legitimate type of Christianity, or a type of Christianity. I have spoken with a number of evangelicals, and one of them was talking about her concern [regarding Mitt Romney] of having a president who might not be praying to the God she believes in. The other concern I have heard is having a president who would lead people not to be saved in other Christian faiths by promoting another very evangelical religion. Do you share any of those concerns?

You know, I just don't think that's an appropriate issue for me to get into, the nuances of the Mormon faith. And it is not the sole criteria by which I think a person should be judged fit or unfit for the presidency, any more than I think people ought to necessarily make it the defining issue for me. I am very comfortable answering questions about my faith. I am probably the only candidate that has been subjected to this sort of detailed questioning about faith. I don't think Romney has even been. And my faith is a pretty mainstream view of the world and of the Bible. But I accept that as part of the whole process. I just think all of us should be prepared to answer questions regardless of what our views are, and let people sort that out. But that's why I don't feel comfortable in saying, "Let me tell you what this guy believes." You know what? I don't know what he believes. Even if I knew what his church believes, I don't know that I can say what he believes until he expresses it.

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