Huckabee announces candidacy

Associated Press

HOPE, Ark.

Mike Huckabee declared his presidential candidacy Tuesday, counting on his brand of conservative populism to make his second White House bid more successful than his first. In 2008, he captivated evangelical Republicans but couldn’t build wide enough support to win the Republican nomination.

The former Arkansas governor announced his 2016 bid in the hometown he shares with former President Bill Clinton, becoming the sixth notable Republican to enter the campaign, with more to come.

“Power, money and political influence have left a lot of Americans behind,” Huckabee told supporters in a speech railing against “big-government bailouts” and pledging elimination of the IRS, “the biggest bully in America.”

A populist but no Democrat, he did not endorse a minimum-wage increase, instead calling for policies encouraging a “maximum wage” for workers. But he did align himself with labor interests in criticizing “unbalanced trade deals” and describing President Barack Obama’s immigration policy as a way to “import low-wage labor, undercut American workers and drive wages lower than the Dead Sea.”

The ordained minister speaks the language of faith, and he played up the cultural conservatism learned in this small town where many of his relatives — and a few Clinton relatives — still live.