Huckabee touts experience against Clinton in Chester campaign stop

Mike Huckabee thinks the road to the White House runs through Chester County.

The former Arkansas governor stopped at the Waterside Pavilion on Saturday to speak to a few dozen voters ahead of South Carolina’s Feb. 20 GOP primary. His hope is that his socially conservative message that did so well in this state during his presidential bid eight years ago can turn around flagging poll numbers in this year’s race.

State Rep. Greg Delleney introduced Huckabee, saying he’s the first presidential candidate he has ever seen campaign in Chester County. Huckabee said Chester County was one of 46 stops he plans to make as he visits every South Carolina county ahead of primary day. He started the day on Pawley’s Island and planned to finish in Union.

Delleney said Huckabee is a man who “loves his state, loves his country, and stands up for traditional values.”

“He knows how to battle the Clintons,” Delleney said. “And he knows the Second Amendment is about more than hunting and sport shooting.”

Looking for something to set him apart in a crowded field of 12 candidates. Huckabee touted his experience battling “the Clinton machine” in Arkansas, where he followed Bill Clinton as governor in 1996, one of the few Republicans elected to statewide office in Arkansas since Reconstruction.

“Some of the others say they can’t wait to take on Hillary,” he said. “They obviously haven’t done it before.”

In a year where “outsider” candidates top the polls for the GOP nomination, Huckabee argued experience matters in a presidential campaign.

“It doesn’t make sense to elect someone who has never governed before,” he said.

Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner, has never held elected office, and the next two in the polls are Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, freshmen senators Huckabee compared to Barack Obama in 2008.

“Obama kept going around making speeches, and we said, ‘OK, we’ll let you be president,’” he said. “And it turns out he doesn’t know what he’s doing, because he’d never run anything before. He had not even run a hot dog stand.”

Huckabee has directed his pitch to evangelical voters – part of his stump speech was asking how God can bless America “until we put a stop to the savagery, the uncivilized action of destroying the next generation” through abortion – but also argued for the importance of protecting programs such as Social Security.

His “fair tax” plan – a national consumption tax that would replace most federal taxes on income – would bring trillions of dollars in offshore investment back to the U.S. and regenerate manufacturing jobs in this country, Huckabee said.

Huckabee discounted the relevance of polls, which place him between 1 and 2 percent.

“How many people in America have voted? Nobody,” he said. “Just a few people have been polled, and in some of the polls they don’t even have my name.”

He said he hopes to stage another come-from-behind win in Iowa like he did in 2008, and then “give South Carolina one more chance to get it right.”

This story was originally published January 16, 2016 at 9:03 PM with the headline "Huckabee touts experience against Clinton in Chester campaign stop."