Huckabee: Conservative Party Asked Me Not to Get Involved in NY-23 (Video)

Here’s another nugget from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s appearance today in Washington. Huckabee caught some heat from the right, particularly from RedState’s Erick Erickson, for withholding his endorsement for NY-23 Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman until Republican Dede Scozzafava had dropped out of the race.

In the video clip after the jump, Huckabee continues his verbal assault on Scozzafava and explains why he waited so long to endorse Hoffman.

My issue with that race and personal involvement was first of all I was never gonna support Dede. I made that clear, I said that on national television repeatedly. Her position on life alone was reason enough. That for me a non-negotiable. It’s not a political issue for me, it’s a moral issue. I’m not gonna vote for somebody who is not to the sancuaty of life. Just simple. I’m not gonna do it. They can be a Republican. I’ll share the convention with them. I’ll share the party with them. But I’m not gonna vote for ‘em. I’ll give them money.

So that issue plus the fact that she was an ACORN-sponsored, union-backed, left-of-center, cap-and-trade supporting,  other than those things, plus same-sex marriage and a dozen others, I mean, she was fine.

But there were two issues for me, one of which was I felt like that, as bad as the party’s process was, it was the party process in that district. Secondly, I had a personal issue because I had been invited over a year ago by the Conservative Party to go to Syracuse and speak at an awards banquet, which was last week or two weeks ago. And they had specifically asked me to not get involved in their race because they felt that if I came and made it a campaign event or injected myself into the race, it would be distracting from what they have been planning a year to do, which was honor five of their local Conservative Party heroes.

So it was part because I needed to fulfill my commitment to them and honor their request that I not get involved. They specifically asked me not to get involved.

Huckabee goes on to say that once Scozzafava dropped out, his decision to endorse Hoffman over Democrat Bill Owens was an easy one.