Source: Associated Press
DALLAS — Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Thursday he doesn’t think the killing of Osama bin Laden makes it more difficult to run against President Barack Obama in 2012.
Huckabee, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and is mulling another try, said the death of the terrorist leader would make Obama more formidable “this week.” But he noted how former President George H.W. Bush had an approval rating above 90 percent after the first Gulf War.
“A year later, he went home as a one-term president,” Huckabee told The Associated Press. “You can never make a decision on what you’re going to do a year from now based on what’s happening in the moment, because politics changes every day.”
Obama’s approval rating has reached 60 percent, its highest point in two years, according to an AP-GfK poll taken after U.S. forces killed bin Laden on May 1.
Huckabee, now working as a commentator for the Fox News Channel, said he’s seriously considering a presidential run but has no date in mind for making up his mind. There’s no pressure from Fox, he said.
“I certainly know that I need to make the decision sooner rather than later, and that’s what I hope to do,” he said.
Huckabee said he’s determining whether there’s a “pathway to the finish line” and whether he has the financial and organizational support to get there.
Huckabee spoke with the AP after appearing at a luncheon in Dallas sponsored by the National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonprofit group that advocates for alternatives to government regulation.