While many observers think former Arkansas governor and Fox News host Mike Huckabee is a longshot to even win the Republican nomination for president, his old campaign adviser Dick Morris thinks he can actually go all the way to the White House if he plays his cards right.
Morris worked for Huckabee's successful race for Arkansas lieutenant governor in 1993 and considers him a friend, Morris said Tuesday on
Newsmax TV's "The Steve Malzberg Show."
Morris is also a former operative for former President Bill Clinton, and says Huckabee has the ability to go up against the powerful Clinton Machine.
"When he first ran for statewide office, they worked like crazy to beat him," Morris told Malzberg. "Spent millions of dollars to bring him down, and he's used to handling that."
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Huckabee himself mastered the Clinton technique of rapid response to criticism while also attacking the attacker, Morris
wrote in a column on The Hill website on Tuesday, the same day Huckabee
officially announced his run.
But Huckabee must fight the media narrative that he is another Pat Robertson – a former preacher running for president, Morris told Newsmax TV. "He's a lot more like Scott Walker than he is like Pat Robertson, a governor with a record," Morris said.
He advised Huckabee to expand his reach beyond the evangelical base that will help him win Iowa and South Carolina, but won't help so much in New Hampshire, Michigan and other northern states.
Otherwise, Huckabee "ghettoizes himself to a point where nobody will listen to him unless they're in that evangelical ghetto with him, which is about 15 percent of the Republican Party," Morris said.
Huckabee should talk about secular issues such as income inequality and run against "Wall Street Republicans" and stake out ground as the populist, small business, independent Republican that he really is, Morris said.
Turning to his old boss, Bill Clinton, Morris praised the venue at which he answered tough questions about the family foundation from NBC News recently. Clinton mounted his defense to NBC's Cynthia McFadden at an event in Nairobi, Kenya where the Clinton Foundation is helping poor children.
"The background photo op of all of those kids and healing and all their enthusiasm and stuff was a perfect photo op," Morris said. "I mean you couldn't ask for better optics than that and it was brilliant of him to do that. On the other hand, I found his answers very unconvincing."
Clinton also appeared weak and "falling all over his words," he noted. "That's not the guy I used to work with."
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