abstract
| - Michael Dale Huckabee (born August 24, 1955) is a retired Confederate American politician who was the 27th President of the Confederate States from February 22, 2006 until February 22, 2012. Huckabee also served as the Governor of Arkansas from March of 1995 until he was term-limited out of office in January of 2004. He was the Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas from November 20, 1993 until the resignation of Jim Guy Tucker in 1995. Huckabee was the first Conservative Governor of Arkansas and founded the Council of Conservative Governors after the 1995 elections. He was the first member of the Conservative Party to be elected President and oversaw the rise of the Conservatives not only as the Confederate right's preeminent party but also, at least during his term, as the Confederacy's largest party on whole, with many former Progressives and Frontists switching parties in the early 2000s and during his administration. Huckabee is widely credited with being part of an intellectual renaissance on the Confederate right, although his impact on it is debated. He viewed the debate as being beyond race and attracted many black, Hispanic and immigrant voters with his "values" rhetoric, making him the first truly "post-Problems" President. His Presidency was marked with wide initial success, particularly in helping the recovery of the Gulf Coast after the 2005 hurricane season and instituting a variety of conservative reforms with control of all levers of government, though his plan for a national flat tax failed in late 2006. His term became increasingly geared towards stimulatory measures by 2008 thanks to the global market slowdown, however, and the Mark Sanford extramarital scandal cost his party control of the Senate and nearly cost them control of the House in the 2009 elections. The stock market double-dip crash of 2010 further damaged his party ahead of state and local elections, and Huckabee at one point was the most unpopular President in Confederate history. However, the economy recovered rapidly thanks to a fracking boom in west Texas in 2011, helping carry his successor, Rick Perry, to a narrow election win over Mary Landrieu that fall, and Huckabee left office in February of 2012.
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