In other words, Huckabee would like to outlaw free speech.  During an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition Huckabee responded to accusations of push-polling in South Carolina by saying that he’s not associated with the pollsters and that he doesn’t like what they’re doing in his name.  He also claims that there’s nothing he can do to stop them.

Now that comes off as true enough.  Huckabee obviously can’t control every group that’s out there, but it’s also a little disingenuous as Huck hasn’t exactly done much to condemn the activity either.  He’s responded to it when asked, but he hasn’t been pro-active in going after these dirty tricksters which leaves me inclined to believe that Huckabee is fine with benefiting from their dirty tricks even if he doesn’t want to associate himself with them personally.

Plus, Huckabee goes a step too far in actually calling for an end to all political speech from independent political groups.  Which probably isn’t surprising given the barrage of criticism Huckabee has taken from such groups of the fiscally conservative persuasion.

Here’s the audio from the interview (I apologize for the crappy quality, I can’t figure out why NPR can take my tax dollars but I can’t download a bit of their audio if I want to):

“I personally wish that all of this was outlawed. I think that every candidates should speak for themselves, and that every thing that involves the candidate’s name or another candidate’s name should be authorized and approved by that candidate, otherwise it shouldn’t be spoken.... The point is that candidates can’t force these special interest 527 groups to stop. I wish we could.”

Now, to be fair, what Huck clearly wants outlawed here is independent groups doing things in a candidate’s name.  Such as push polling.  But when pressed on the issue, he goes too far and calls for an end to free political speech from independent groups in general.

That, clearly, is a problem.