Mike Huckabee said Monday he resents the implication being made in the wake of the Charleston church shooting that South Carolina residents as a whole are racist.
“There was one racist lunatic out of a population of 4.8 million people who did an absolutely dastardly thing in murdering in cold blood nine people in a shameless attack on them,” the Republican presidential candidate said during a conference call with reporters. “To suggest that the whole state is teaming with racism flies in the face of what I have come to know about the people of South Carolina in my many, many visits there.”
Asked whether lawmakers should remove the confederate flag from display on the state capitol grounds, Huckabee said: “It’s not an issue that a person running for president should necessarily weigh in on because it’s an issue for South Carolina. And I respect what they do. I don’t personally display the confederate battle flag anywhere. And I have no intention of doing it.”
Huckabee referenced how in recent years, the state has elected minority Republicans, like Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott.
“The implication of the question itself is that South Carolina is a racist state because of the presence of the flag,” Huckabee added. “And what I would point out…this is a state where mostly white people elected a female governor of Indian descent. They’ve elected the first ever African American United States senator from the South. They’re more diverse in their statewide officeholders than New York, Massachusetts or Connecticut.”
During the call, Huckabee’s campaign team also discussed poll numbers showing the former Arkansas governor placing in the top tier in national and statewide surveys.
Huckabee pollster Bob Wickers specifically referenced a weekend Wall Street Journal poll showing 65 percent of Republican voters saying they could see themselves voting for Huckabee. That puts him in third place behind Floridians Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
“We like where we are,” Huckabee said of his polling numbers. “We like the trajectory of where things are headed.”
Huckabee also discussed the expected Supreme Court rulings on President Obama’s health care law and on state bans on same sex marriage. “The impact of both of these decisions will be monumental,” he said.
“It will create utter havoc in the health care business and health insurance business,” Huckabee said of the Obamacare case.
Huckabee also warned of implications for believers of traditional marriage if the Supreme Court rules against same sex marriage bans.
“This is not just about equality of marriage,” he said. “This is a redefinition.”
Huckabee expressed concern that the ruling could lead to people like florists, caterers and photographers “fined, ultimately put out of business because their views happen to reflect a Biblical world view, a view that is traditional with 5 thousand years of history.”
Added Huckabee: “If they’re told they can’t believe that anymore — without civil or criminal penalty — then this question that’s been out there, ‘what difference does it make to heterosexual couples, if there’s a same sex marriage?’ — people are going to begin to find out it makes a lot of difference.”