WASHINGTON — For two months, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee rode his second-place finish in the Iowa Straw Poll to a wave of positive reviews. For the most part, newspapers and broadcasters treated him gently, dwelling on his famous weight loss, the role of faith in his politics and his quip for every occasion.
Only lately have they begun to ask questions about the judgments Huckabee made 1 during his 10/2 years as Arkansas' governor, about his relative inexperience in foreign affairs and about his role in the parole of Wayne DuMond. In recent days, articles in The Boston Globe, in The American Spectator magazine and on U.S. News & World Report's political blog have been sharply negative.
This week, as befits a second-tier candidate trying to chin up to the next level, Huckabee is in Washington to take on the first tier of television's talking heads. From Tuesday through Thursday, he will appear on a dozen shows, taking questions from thelikes of George Stephanopoulos, Wolf Blitzer, Neal Cavuto, Bill O'Reilly and Charlie Rose.
The media blitz comes as Huckabee's fundraising is showing signs of life. He expects to raise $1 million during October, nearly matching the $1,034,486 in contributions during the three previous months combined.
Much as he'd like to just talk about that, he knows he'll get some zingers this week. He says he isn't worried.
"It's a real form of flattery now to have the rather significant level of criticism and attack, most of which has been hashed and rehashed," he told about 20 print reporters, whom he invited to lunch Tuesday at The Monocle, a Capitol Hill restaurant famous as a hangout for senators and lobbyists.
Huckabee brought up Du-Mond himself.
DuMond was convicted in 1984 of raping Ashley Stevens, 17, another Forrest City resident and a distant cousin of former Gov. Bill Clinton. He was sentenced to life plus 20 years.
In 1992, Lt. Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, while acting as governor, reduced DuMond's sentence, making him eligible for parole.
When he became governor in 1996, Huckabee met with the Parole Board and discussed the case. However, he said Tuesday, he did not try to persuade the board members, all appointees of former Democratic Govs. Clinton and Tucker, to commute DuMond's sentence.
"I didn't try to push anybody's buttons on it," he told his luncheon guests.
Huckabee has noted that other rapists did not receive sentences as long as DuMond's. In January 1997, he wrote Du-Mond: "My desire is that you be released from prison."
People are making too much of that, Huckabee said Tuesday.
"The charge will be that I got him out of prison. The truth is that my only action inthe case was that I denied his commutation [although] I did consider, and frankly, originally announced, intentions I would grant" commuting DuMond's sentence to time served.
"If I'm that persuasive that I can walk in, a new Republican governor, and persuade Clinton and Tucker appointees to do something they didn't want to do, folks, I deserve to be president. I'm dang good. ... Any reasonable person would have to assume that's nonsense."
The Parole Board voted to parole DuMond in January 1997. DuMond eventually relocated to Missouri, where, in 2000, he sexually abused and suffocated Carol Shields in a Kansas City apartment. Sentenced to life in prison, DuMond died in 2005.
Former Parole Board member Railey Steele, who was appointed to a $68,000-a-year state job by Huckabee days before he voted to parole DuMond, has denied that Huckabee exerted any pressure on him. Two other former Parole Board members, Charles Chastain and Deborah Springer Suttlar, have said Huckabee called the 1996 meeting and pressured them on the vote.
Huckabee said Tuesday that no, the meeting was at the board's request. Moreover, the idea that it took members of the board several years to "gather up their consciences" in the heat of a gubernatorial race was "hard to swallow."
Actually, Chastain and Suttlar made their charges in July 2001, more than a year before the election.
Huckabee is also sure to be challenged on his lack of foreign-policy experience.
He has insisted that governors interact with foreign leaders more than they are given credit for.
On Tuesday, responding to questions, he described his foreign-policy views, which he contrasted with the Bush administration's policy of intervention.
"I don't think the U.S. government is essentially a missionary organization designed to convert every nation on Earth to democracy," Huckabee said.
Huckabee said he is beingadvised by active and retired "generals and colonels," as well as former ambassadors and foreign-policy experts from the Bush and Reagan administrations. He declined to name them.
"I'm always hesitant to give their names, because I don't want to, you know, out them," Huckabee said.
On the campaign trail, Huckabee has distanced himself from the free-trade policies of the Bush administration, saying he is in favor of "fair trade." On Tuesday, he declined to say whether he would seek tradepromotion authority, which prohibits Congress from altering the administration's trade treaties before voting on them.
Asked how his negotiating stance with trading partners would differ from the Bush administration's, he responded: "I don't know if I could drill into the details of it. ... I would hope there would be a good working relationship with Congress to get their support." Information for this article was contributed by Seth Blomeley of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1, 3 on 10/31/2007