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FORD
12-05-2007, 02:51 AM
Huckabee could face hurdles from the past
Parole of rapist haunts campaign

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | October 14, 2007

WASHINGTON - To Mike Huckabee, Baptist minister, former governor, and GOP candidate for president, being a good Christian is about redemption and forgiveness and recognizing his own frailties so he can be more understanding of the shortcomings of others.

It's an attitude that drives much of Huckabee's political agenda, including the assertion - unusual for a conservative Republican - that prisons are full of people who would be better off in drug treatment than behind bars. But there is one man Huckabee believed deserved a second chance, convicted rapist Wayne Dumond, who continues to haunt Huckabee's burgeoning presidential campaign.

Huckabee, whose self-deprecating humor and easy candor have charmed many on the campaign trail, bristles when asked about the case, in which Dumond - now dead - was paroled from an Arkansas prison, with then- governor Huckabee's endorsement, only to sexually assault and kill a woman in Missouri.

"It was one of those things I just feel horrible about. You just ache all the way to the bone over what happened," the former Arkansas governor said in an interview. "But nobody could know that" Dumond would attack again, he said.

Dumond's case is notorious in Arkansas. In 1984, he raped a 17-year-old girl. While awaiting trial at his home, he was castrated by, he said, masked intruders. Later, after Dumond went to prison for life, some people in Arkansas saw the sentence as excessive, especially given his mutilation.

Huckabee was one, and, after becoming governor in 1996, he announced his desire to commute Dumond's sentence. Dumond's rape victim, Ashley Stevens, saw it differently.

Stevens, now 40 and living in the western United States, said she tried to persuade Huckabee not to shorten the sentence for Dumond.

"I told [Huckabee]: If you ever let him out, he's going to do it again," she said in an interview.

She was able to get a meeting with the governor - who, she said, had not spoken to her before announcing his intention to commute Dumond's sentence - but realized Huckabee had "made up his mind." So Stevens stood up, she said, walked over to Huckabee, who was seated on a sofa, squatted down and thrust her face inches from his.

"I said, 'This is how close I was to Dumond's face for an hour,' " Stevens recalled. " 'I'll never forget his face, and you'll never forget mine.' "

The parole board - following a closed meeting with Huckabee - decided to let Dumond go. The following year, Dumond committed the Missouri slaying. He died in prison in 2005.

If Huckabee, who is creeping upward in the polls, gains more momentum, the case is certain to become an issue. Stevens said she is prepared to campaign actively against him if he becomes a serious candidates for president or vice president.

Bloggers have already dubbed the matter "Huckabee's Willie Horton," referring to the case of a Massachusetts man who was paroled during Michael Dukakis's tenure as Massachusetts governor, and then raped a Maryland woman and terrorized her fiancé. The episode tainted the onetime Democratic presidential nominee's campaign even though Dukakis had not personally intervened on Horton's behalf.

And a surge in the Huckabee campaign - once seen as a quixotic mission by a man hoping to become the second governor from Hope, Ark., to make it to the White House - no longer seems unthinkable. Huckabee placed second in the GOP Iowa straw poll, in which Senator John McCain of Arizona and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani chose not to compete. Afterward, Huckabee pulled ahead of McCain there in a recent statewide poll, and he is edging up in other early primary states.

Huckabee wins over crowds by reciting his powerful personal story - he was the first male in his family to graduate from high school - and interjecting his signature humor. Dangerously overweight and diagnosed with Type II diabetes in 2003, Huckabee lost 110 pounds and used the experience to initiate state programs to counter childhood obesity and support preventive healthcare.

A guitarist who plays in a band called Capitol Offense, Huckabee last year pardoned Rolling Stones star Keith Richards for a 31-year-old driving violation. Asked by reporters if he'd do the same for the average citizen, Huckabee said no, but quipped, "If you can play guitar like Keith Richards, I'd do it for you."

Huckabee is also considered an attractive contender for vice president, because he is a Southerner and has strong credentials with Christian conservatives unhappy with the leading Republican candidates for president.

"Mine is the only campaign that hasn't had any backward motion," Huckabee said in the interview, scrolling down a message on his Blackberry that showed him inching up in polls in early primary states - even in Michigan, where Huckabee has yet to campaign.

On paper, Huckabee should be the darling of the religious conservatives. He serves as a Baptist minister and has not given up the title to run for office. He has a solid antiabortion record, approving several pieces of legislation in Arkansas to limit access to abortion, and supports a constitutional amendment banning abortion. He opposes using discarded embryos for stem cell research. He supports a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

But Christian conservatives have yet to rally around Huckabee, despite the fact that they have expressed public unhappiness with the leading contenders, Giuliani, McCain, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

Their reticence has little to do with Huckabee's record and everything to do with the former governor's perceived ability to raise money and compete in a general election, according to both Huckabee campaign staff and religious community leaders.

"When we started putting the game plan together we started meeting with leaders of the evangelical community," said Huckabee's campaign manager, Chip Saltsman. "They all said, 'Governor, we really like you. We think you're great. But you can't win.' "

Richard Land, an old friend of Huckabee's who is a senior official with the Southern Baptist Convention, called Huckabee a "skillful candidate" who suffers from a perception that he is a long-shot contender. "So far, I don't think Governor Huckabee has been able to convince enough voters that he can beat" the Democratic nominee, Land said.

Huckabee is different from many politically active evangelicals. Faith, Huckabee said, does not merely influence his public policy; it drives it. He rejects the fire-and-brimstone warnings delivered by some fellow religious conservatives and instead frequently talks about the need for forgiveness and diplomacy.

"When I see people who are very confrontational, you know what they're against. You're not sure what they're for," Huckabee said. "I believe that there's a place for judgment and for justice - don't get me wrong. But I think sometimes people mask their own personal anger in the form of righteous indignation."

"Being a Christian does not make me think I'm better than somebody," Huckabee added. " It makes me realize that I personally fall short of God's standards. . . . If I can see my own frailties, then I ought to be able to recognize that everyone else has them too."

Rick Caldwell, Huckabee's college roommate at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark., said Huckabee's faith "causes him to have strong convictions, but it also causes him to have a lot of grace with other people, a lot of tolerance and understanding." Evangelicals, Caldwell said, will throw their support behind his friend as Huckabee improves in the polls.

Trailing in national polls, Huckabee has yet to draw the excruciating national scrutiny given to several of the leading candidates, and if the former governor continues to rise, he is likely to be quizzed anew about several conflicts he has had in Arkansas. Huckabee tussled with local Arkansas media about renovations of the governor's mansion and the destruction of computer hard drives from Huckabee's office before he left as governor.

He also has had a running feud with the Club for Growth - which he calls "the Club for Greed" - which ran ads attacking him for raising taxes to improve schools.

And the Dumond case is likely to reemerge, dredging up not only the gruesome details of the attacks but the complicated political connections. Stevens, the rape victim, is a distant cousin of Bill Clinton. When he was Arkansas governor, Clinton refused requests to reduce Dumond's sentence. But while Clinton was off campaigning for president in 1992, his lieutenant governor, Jim Guy Tucker, commuted Dumond's sentence to 39 1/2 years, making Dumond eligible for parole.

© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Link (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/10/14/huckabee_could_face_hurdles_from_the_past)

FORD
12-05-2007, 02:54 AM
More on this case here (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/huckabee-rape)

hideyoursheep
12-05-2007, 03:23 AM
Originally posted by FORD
A guitarist who plays in a band called Capitol Offense, Huckabee last year pardoned Rolling Stones star Keith Richards for a 31-year-old driving violation. Asked by reporters if he'd do the same for the average citizen, Huckabee said no, but quipped, "If you can play guitar like Keith Richards, I'd do it for you."

If it would get me out of trouble, I'll

play "Happy" all night long!

ELVIS
12-05-2007, 03:33 AM
Hmmm...

I personally consider myself a better player than Keith Richards...

Huckabee 2008!

Seriously, why don't we hear more of this story ??

I suppose we will...


Maybe i'll support Duncan Hunter...

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:elvis:

FORD
12-05-2007, 04:39 AM
Pardoning Keith Richards for a minor offense that happened when Jimmy Carter was in the White House is one thing. Paroling a violent rapist (and murderer, as it turns out) because you don't like the victim's distant cousin is a totally different matter.

ELVIS
12-05-2007, 05:45 AM
I don't imagine that was his motive...

hideyoursheep
12-05-2007, 06:26 AM
Originally posted by FORD
Pardoning Keith Richards for a minor offense that happened when Jimmy Carter was in the White House is one thing. Paroling a violent rapist (and murderer, as it turns out) because you don't like the victim's distant cousin is a totally different matter.

Agreed.

If this story grows legs it will only be a matter of time before he gets

"Dukakis'd".

And ELVIS;

EVERYONE is better than Richards...

'Cept maybe Huckabee.:p

Nickdfresh
12-05-2007, 09:08 AM
Huckabee's going to face a lot of hurdles, the main one being that he has so far escaped any media scrutiny over some of his inconsistent ideas from the horribly regressive and unworkable "flat tax" to how his Baptist belief system will translate into governance...And he can't keep cracking jokes to avoid the issues for much longer.

FORD
12-05-2007, 02:00 PM
Originally posted by hideyoursheep
If it would get me out of trouble, I'll

play "Happy" all night long!

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ELVIS
12-05-2007, 09:16 PM
How come people don't call Jagger gay ??

Nickdfresh
12-05-2007, 09:26 PM
Uh- I think they've called him a switch hitter....

Wasn't he and Bowie supposedly caught dancing in the bed by Mick's ex-wife around the time they were doing "Dancing in the Streets?"

Thing about Mick though, the scoundrel knocked up some Brazilian model chick young enough to be his granddaughter. So I'm thinkin' he ain't gay...

FORD
12-05-2007, 10:39 PM
Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Uh- I think they've called him a switch hitter....

Wasn't he and Bowie supposedly caught dancing in the bed by Mick's ex-wife around the time they were doing "Dancing in the Streets?"

Thing about Mick though, the scoundrel knocked up some Brazilian model chick young enough to be his granddaughter. So I'm thinkin' he ain't gay...

Actually it was Bowie's ex wife who made the allegation.

Her name was Angie.

Bowie once said that he met Angie "when they were both laying the same bloke".

The Rolling Stones biggest hit record in 1973 was.....

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bbZcslc9M78&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bbZcslc9M78&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

Draw your own conclusions. ;)

Both Mick and Bowie claim to be completely straight these days though.

Nickdfresh
12-06-2007, 12:06 AM
LOL I guess they were flamin' in the streets...

In any case, I thought being bisexual got you twice as many dates, not the chance of meeting your lifemate while doing the same guy...

Jim Shetterlini
12-06-2007, 12:35 AM
Originally posted by Nickdfresh
LOL I guess they were flamin' in the streets...

In any case, I thought being bisexual got you twice as many dates, not the chance of meeting your lifemate while doing the same guy...

That's fucked up!

Nickdfresh
12-09-2007, 08:51 AM
December 9, 2007
Parole Case and ’90s AIDS View Trail Huckabee
By MICHAEL LUO

As new polls highlight Mike Huckabee’s ascent in the Republican presidential field, he is drawing new scrutiny of his record in Arkansas, particularly his actions in the release of a convicted rapist who went on to murder a woman and his response to a questionnaire in which he said people with AIDS should be quarantined.

Two former parole board members in Arkansas said yesterday that as governor, Mr. Huckabee met with the board in 1996 to lobby them to release the convicted rapist, Wayne DuMond, whose case was championed by evangelical Christians.

“He expressed his concerns about DuMond’s guilt,” said Deborah Suttlar, a former parole board member. “He felt he deserved to be released.”

Mr. DuMond went on to murder a Missouri woman after his parole. He died in prison of natural causes in 2005.

Mr. Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor, has denied that he had any involvement in Mr. DuMond’s release, pointing out that he had refused to commute the sentence and that the parole board freed him. But The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that three of the seven members of the parole board said Mr. Huckabee had pressured them, echoing earlier reporting by The Arkansas Times and other local news media.

A Newsweek survey released Friday showed for the first time that Mr. Huckabee had a clear lead over Mitt Romney among likely caucus-goers in Iowa, 39 percent to 17 percent, a rise from near the back of the Republican pack that has been fueled by evangelical Christians.

The surge in support in the highly fluid Republican field has drawn new attention to Mr. Huckabee’s time in Arkansas. On the campaign trail yesterday, Mr. Huckabee did not address questions about the case, but said he was expecting attacks from his rivals because of his newfound status as a legitimate contender.

“Over the next few weeks, I’m sure you’re going to see a whole lot of things,” he told about 400 people gathered in a restaurant in Columbia, S.C. “Already some of the other campaigns are getting desperate. They never imagined they’d have to contend with me.”

Highlighting the new scrutiny of Mr. Huckabee’s record, The Associated Press revealed yesterday that as a candidate for the United States Senate in 1992, Mr. Huckabee said in a response in a 229-question survey that he believed that AIDS patients should be isolated from the public and that homosexuality was an “aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle” that posed a “dangerous public risk.”

Fears of AIDS spreading widely in the United States were common in the mid-1980s, as doctors struggled to learn about how the virus that causes the disease was transmitted. But by the time Mr. Huckabee answered the A.P. survey, it was well established that the virus could not be spread through casual contact.

Mr. Huckabee said in a statement yesterday that there was still confusion at the time about transmission of the disease and that his “concern was safety first, political correctness last.” Mr. Huckabee has been popular among Christian conservatives, who appreciate his stands on social issues and his unabashed professions of faith on the trail.

Mr. Huckabee’s detractors, however, have sought to turn his pastoral background against him, saying his spirituality has made him too soft. As evidence, they point to the DuMond case and his push for a bill that would have made illegal immigrants eligible for college tuition breaks, a stance that has drawn considerable ire from hard-liners on immigration.

Mr. DuMond was convicted in the 1984 rape of a teenager who was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas. While he was out on bail awaiting trial, Mr. DuMond said men forced his way into his home and castrated him, but the authorities said they thought he might have castrated himself in a play for sympathy. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Mr. Clinton’s successor, Jim Guy Tucker, found the sentence excessive and cut it to 39 ½ years, making Mr. DuMond eligible for parole.

While Mr. DuMond was in prison, the Rev. Jay D. Cole, a Baptist pastor and friend of Mr. Huckabee’s, ministered to him, and the inmate later said he had found God.

Mr. Cole said yesterday that he asked Mr. Huckabee to look into the case. “I think Mike was very torn about the whole thing,” Mr. Cole said. “I feel he felt an innocent man was in prison, or if not, he had been in prison too long. But he didn’t come out and say that.”

Nevertheless, soon after taking office, Mr. Huckabee met in October 1996 with members of the parole board, all of whom had been appointed by his Democratic predecessors. Mr. DuMond’s case, with its twists and turns — including a $110,000 judgment against a sheriff who kept Mr. DuMond’s testicles in a jar on his desk — had become something of a celebrated cause among conservative activists, who charged that Mr. Clinton’s relation to the victim had led to Mr. DuMond’s being railroaded.

The parole board meetings are public, but after Mr. Huckabee arrived, the board chairman closed the meeting to everyone except board members. What happened next is in dispute.

A request for a pardon was being considered at that point by Mr. Huckabee, who came out in favor of it. That caused an outcry among some, including the rape victim, who went to his office to ask him to change his mind.

Mr. Huckabee later denied Mr. DuMond clemency, but wrote a letter to him. “Dear Wayne,” he wrote. “My desire is that you be released from prison. I feel that parole is the best way for your reintroduction to society to take place.”

When Mr. Huckabee met with the parole board, according to Ms. Suttlar and Charles Chastain, another board member, he said he wanted to talk to them about a specific case and raised the issue of Mr. DuMond unprompted.

“I’ve looked into this a good bit,” Mr. Chastain recalled Mr. Huckabee saying to them. “I feel he may just be a fellow from the wrong side of the tracks and gotten a raw deal.”

Ms. Suttlar yesterday accused Mr. Huckabee of compromising “the integrity of the parole board.” She was somewhat more lenient in an interview with The Associated Press in 2001, when she said the pressure from Mr. Huckabee “was not coercion, it was an implied thing.”

Olan W. Reeves, who served as Mr. Huckabee’s chief counsel and attended the meeting, said that it was meant only to introduce the new governor to the board and that Mr. DuMond’s case came up when a board member challenged him on his support for clemency.

“He didn’t go over there to talk to them about that,” Mr. Reeves said yesterday. “The governor in Arkansas has nothing to do with parole.”

The board voted 4 to 1 several months later to parole Mr. DuMond, with Mr. Chastain casting the lone dissenting vote, after having denied his freedom repeatedly in previous years. Two board members, including Ms. Suttlar, abstained. She said yesterday she chose not to vote because she was disgusted by what she described as behind-the-scenes lobbying by Mr. Huckabee to have Mr. DuMond released.

But she previously told The Associated Press that she did not vote because Mr. DuMond had accused her of racial bias. She is black, and Mr. DuMond is white.

Mr. Huckabee said at a news conference in Iowa last week that he regretted the entire incident, reiterating that he did not pressure the board to “do anything.”

“I can’t fix it,” he said of the episode. “I can only tell the truth and let the truth be my judge.”

Steve Barnes, Adam Nossiter and Katharine Q. Seelye contributed reporting.

Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/us/politics/09campaign.html?hp)

hideyoursheep
12-09-2007, 12:33 PM
Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Mr. DuMond was convicted in the 1984 rape of a teenager who was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas. While he was out on bail awaiting trial, Mr. DuMond said men forced his way into his home and castrated him, but the authorities said they thought he might have castrated himself in a play for sympathy. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Shit!! I find it hard to believe any rapist would castrate himself.

The Clintons are "with" someone.:eek:

diamondD
12-09-2007, 12:47 PM
Originally posted by FORD
Actually it was Bowie's ex wife who made the allegation.

Her name was Angie.

Bowie once said that he met Angie "when they were both laying the same bloke".

The Rolling Stones biggest hit record in 1973 was.....

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bbZcslc9M78&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bbZcslc9M78&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

Draw your own conclusions. ;)

Both Mick and Bowie claim to be completely straight these days though.

In a recent interview, they asked Mick who Angie was. He said "you'd have to ask Keith, it was mainly his song"

diamondD
12-09-2007, 12:51 PM
Believe me, Arkansans are not looking forward to the possibility of two former occupants of the governor's mansion being the 2 leading candidates and having all of this stuff come out again. But Huckabee is a Republican who got himself elected as governor in a state that doesn't do that very often, so don't count him out.

And I think it's likely that both sides have dirt on the other and will be pulling more out. It's gonna get ugly if they pair off.

Seshmeister
12-09-2007, 11:02 PM
This guy is a fucking idiot child. That's the real fucking dirt.

He's come out with the ludicrous myth that bees shouldn't be able to fly.

Great! Another superstitious nut job.

Where do you find these people?

Cheers!

:gulp:

LoungeMachine
12-10-2007, 12:40 AM
Originally posted by Seshmeister
Where do you find these people?

Cheers!

:gulp:


The Republican Party.

:gulp: