Huckabee: Worried about GOP in 2014

Intraparty attacks on pals raise his ire

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee said Friday that he worries that conservative groups, which are recruiting primary challengers for Republican congressmen, will weaken the party, increasing the chances that Democrats will reclaim the House in 2014.

He said he hopes that “mainstream Republicans” will fight back against conservative groups such as Club for Growth, Freedom Works and Heritage Action.

“I think one of the most destructive things that has happened is that right now within my own party, the Republican Party, I see more energy and money thrown at getting rid of the other Republicans than I do in winning the big battles,” Huckabee told about 120 people attending a breakfast meeting of the Political Animals Club in Little Rock.

He was the state’s governor from 1996-2007 and made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

Huckabee, who now lives in Florida, hosts a talk show on the Fox News channel and a national radio show.

He later told reporters that he’s considering running for his party’s nomination for president in 2016, but he has no timetable for making a decision.

Republican efforts to win control of the U.S. Senate may also be sabotaged if the intraparty battles continue, Huckabee warned.

He lamented that the Club for Growth is trying to get a Republican opponent for his friend, U.S. Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, whom he described as “a hard-core conservative,” who is chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “When I heard that I thought, ‘You got to be kidding me. Why?’ And apparently maybe he wasn’t mean enough or harsh enough,” Huckabee said.

He said another friend, Republican U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger of North Carolina, has a perfect rating with Heritage Action - “another of the let’s go-get the Republicans organizations” - and “they’ve just announced they are going to try to get a primary opponent.”

Pittenger is under fire because he voted for legislation reopening the federal government and raising the debt ceiling.

“That’s ridiculous, and we have a lot of Republicans throwing grenades in the tent. We are fighting the wrong team here,” he said. “I know there’s a lot of Democrats in the room. Look, our battle is to beat you guys. We are not going to do that if we beat up each other so much that we are all wounded and absolutely mangled and we can’t even go into the battle.

“We got all these millions of dollars getting thrown at Republicans. That makes no sense to me. It just infuriates me. If we don’t see some change and people stand up to that, [U.S. Democratic leader] Nancy Pelosi will be the speaker again. [U.S. Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid will still be in the Senate, and a Democrat will be [elected] president in 2016,” Huckabee said.

“If we can get our act together, I think we’ll take the Senate next year. I think we’ll add to our members in the House, and there will be a Republican in the White House in 2017,” he said.

Afterward, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Club for Growth said Huckabee should attend an anger-management seminar.

Huckabee “simply can’t get beyond his outrage that the Club for Growth PAC opposed his presidential candidacy because of his record of raising taxes and increasing spending as governor of Arkansas,” said Barney Keller, the group’s spokesman.

“The truth is, one need not look any further than Arkansas to see that the Club’s PAC is in the vanguard of helping Republican Tom Cotton defeat a Democrat, Mark Pryor, in a critical U.S. Senate election,” Keller said.

A spokesman for Heritage Action said the nonprofit group doesn’t focus on primary elections.

Huckabee told reporters that he backs Cotton, a U.S. representative from the 4th District, but he is not taking sides in the Republican primary for governor between former U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson of Rogers, state Rep. Debra Hobbs of Rogers, and Little Rock businessman Curtis Coleman.

Coleman managed Huckabee’s unsuccessful bid to oust Democratic U.S. Senate Dale Bumpers in 1992.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/26/2013

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