Weigel

Floriday Diary: Mike Huckabee Is Not For Sale!

For a few days, a rumor had been going around Florida GOP circles about Mike Huckabee. As the story went, he’d rallied support for GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill McCollum only after floating the endorsement for cash. It was a perfect story, fitting right in with the anger supporters of health care executive Rick Scott feel about how the McCollum campaign has been bailed out by establishment Republicans, and on Sunday blogger Nick Egoroff posted a version of it without sourcing.

I have spoken with a reliable source telling me that a little over aweek ago, Mike Huckabee approached the Rick Scott campaign and madeovertures that his endorsement could be had for $250,000 dollars.

Aheated exchange occurred between Rick Scott and his campaign staffwhether to pay-for-play for Huckabee’s endorsement. Scott made thefinal call saying that, ‘we’re not going to have that kind of acampaign.’

Exciting! Horrifying! So exciting and so horrifying that Mike Huckabee felt the need to rebut this post by a blogger which had generated all of two comments on Facebook . From Huck PAC Executive Director Hogan Gidley, her sentiment passed on by McCollum’s campaign:

Just two days before the Florida Republican Gubernatorial primary, a political blogger in Florida falsely accused Governor Mike Huckabee of approaching theRick Scott campaign and making “overtures that his endorsement could behad for $250,000 dollars.”

The blogger went on to say that his “source is inside the Scott campaign and cannot be disclosed.”

Let me be perfectly clear, Governor Mike Huckabee has never had aconversation with Rick Scott or anyone on his staff about such matters.In fact, at the time the Scott campaign claims this was beingdiscussed, Governor Huckabee had already early voted for Bill McCollum.

Governor Huckabee only endorses who he believes will be the bestperson for the position – and in this case, that’s Floridagubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum. This lie from a mysterioussource within the Rick Scott campaign shows how dishonest and desperatehis campaign is.

If Rick Scott made this claim, he needs to publically (sic) andimmediately admit this is total lie – and if he didn’t say it, he needsto fire whichever member of his campaign staff said it.

 That’s pretty much what this campaign is like every minute.