Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee announced Tuesday that he is going to run for the Republican presidential nomination again, eight years after his first failed attempt. He joins an already packed crowd and is the third to announce plans to run this week.
During his announcement speech in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas, Huckabee said that he wants to take the U.S. “from hope to higher ground,” reports USA Today. He made a point of recalling his work with Democrats while governor of the state.
“I learned how to govern and I learned how to lead,” he said.
Also during his speech, he said he wanted to replace federal taxes with a sales tax, slammed international trade agreements and defended Social Security. Still, even he admitted that raising funds for his campaign could be an issue.
“I'm not going to be the favorite candidate of those in the Washington to Wall Street corridor of power,” Huckabee, 59, said.
He is clearly hoping that his Arkansas experience will help Republican voters see him as better competition against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is running for the Democratic nomination. As The New York Times notes, Huckabee said he was already successful against the “Clinton machine” at the state level. He even told Clinton, whose husband President Bill Clinton was also an Arkansas governor, on Twitter, “Your announcement makes me nostalgic for our days doing political battle in Arkansas.”
Huckabee last ran for president in 2008, when he surprisingly won the Iowa caucuses and eight other states. However, he lost the nomination to Sen. John McCain and didn’t run in 2012.
Huckabee’s competition already includes Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul; former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina; and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry are also expected to run.
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