Huckabee: "The beauty of this country: someone who disrupts a meeting won't be taken out & shot"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was in San Francisco on Thursday, where he brushed aside suggestions that he should get out of the GOP presidential race. "I'm staying in the race because I still think I can win," Huckabee told about 200 people who showed up at the Fairmont Hotel for his speech to the Commonwealth Club. "You'll have to beat me, because you're not going to discourage me."

While Huckabee, a former pastor, admitted that he's likely to do better in Super Tuesday states like Arkansas, Oklahoma, Georgia and Missouri, where evangelical Christians make up a large part of the voting public, he didn't discount his chances of grabbing a few delegates in California.

"It's not about winning states, it's about winning delegates, and only 8 percent of the delegates have been selected so far," said Huckabee, who has been running a distant third in most Republican presidential polls.

Huckabee's talk was briefly disrupted by two demonstrators from the anti-war group Code Pink, who were removed from the hall after they tried to unfurl banners calling for an end to the Iraq war. "The beauty of this country is that someone who makes a statement and disrupts a public meeting won't be taken out and shot," Huckabee said.



An Iraq war protester is quickly escorted out of the room on Carlos LaRoche's shoulder while presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee addressed the Commonwealth Club at the Fairmount Hotel in San Francisco on Thursday. Chronicle photo by Frederic Larson

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/01/MN7QUQ680.DTL&type=politics

[saltpoint]

1. On one hand, I'll give Huckabee credit for even showing up in the Bay Area.

I don't personally feel it's a part of the country he's likely to do well in on Feb. 5th.

On the other, his snide remark is one more example of his temperament, which is divisive, dismissive, and shallow, and more than enough reason someone with such a temperament should never occupy the Oval Office.

[lapfog_1]

2. Coded subtext... "but that is what they deserve!" - n/t

[george_maniakes]

3. he had so many classy remarks he could have chosen from...

and funny ones too...he might as well have mentioned stoning or something while he was at it.

[Bitwit1234]

4. No but what they do is lock them up if they disrupt a republican one.

[Greenwood]

5. Code Pink only hurts us!!!!

Could these people PLEASE calm down!

[IDemo]

9. Please calm down yourself

:eyes:

[pdxmom]

6. No, usually they'll leave 'em right there and taze 'em. N/T

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. A comment that should not have been made in the first place. Why do these asshats always

bring up crap like this? What do they want? For us too get down on our knees and thank them for what little freedoms we have left, that they have gotten around to stripping us of?


Fuck that and Fuck them!

[ecstatic]

8. No, but they could be tasered!

}( Just ask Andrew Meyer.

[Straight Shooter]

10. No, Huckster, the beauty of this country is the majority of people recognize you're an idiot. n/t

[robbedvoter]

11. USA! USA! USA! Yeat us! tasering rulez!

[moriah]

13. I actually thought the line after that one was ....

"We'll just tase you, bro."

That might have been a different speech than the OP was quoting, but I was listening to POTUS 08 at the tail end of a Huckabee speech in South Carolina, and if I recall the way it went.... he said something about having his share of hecklers, then being happy that they had the right because in other countries they would get taken back out and shot, then said "No, here we'll just tase you, bro." To some very half-hearted laughter.

I looked for that speech so I could find the exact occasion and quote it from a transcript. But yes, I heard those words come out of his mouth. I wanted to cry. It was bad enough having him as governor.

[robbedvoter]

15. Interesting. It was of course, subliminaly implied here as well

I hope you enjoy seeing him having his ass kicked in the race. I a,m havin fun with our ex- mayor, Rudy.

[Ellen Forradalom]

12. They might get the shit kicked out of them, though

:-/

[sinkingfeeling]

14. He should have added, "but, of course, I wouldn't listen to them for a moment either, because

I'm special and only what I interpret as God's direction matters."