Page last updated at 02:19 GMT, Thursday, 4 September 2008 03:19 UK

Full text: Mike Huckabee

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who challenged John McCain for the Republican presidential nomination earlier this year, has addressed the Republican National Convention in St Paul, Minnesota.

Below is the text of his speech:

As much as I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight, I'll be honest with you, I really was originally hoping for the slot on Thursday called the acceptance speech.

Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee praised John McCain's character and capabilities

But I am delighted to speak on behalf of my second choice for the Republican nomination for president, John McCain - a man with the character and stubborn kind of integrity that we need in a president.


So, I say with sincerity not as a Republican, but as an American that I have great respect for Senator Obama's historic achievement to become his party's nominee - not because of his colour, but with indifference to it. Party or politics aside, we celebrate this milestone because it elevates our country.



When gasoline costs $4 a gallon, it makes it tough if you're a single mom trying to get to work each day in the used car you drive. You want something to change.

Mike Huckabee


If you're a young couple losing your house, your credit rating, and your piece of the American dream, you want something to change.

John McCain offers specific ideas to respond to this need for change. But there are some things we never want to change - freedom, security, and the opportunity to prosper.


But let me hasten to say that it's not what he took there that concerns me. It's what he brought back. Lots of ideas from Europe he'd like to see imported here.

Centralized governments may care for you from cradle to grave, but they also control you. Most Americans don't want MORE government - they want a lot less.

It was the founder of our party Abraham Lincoln reminded us that a government that can do everything FOR us can also take everything FROM us.

I get a little tired of hearing how the Democrats care about the working guy as if all Republicans grew up with silk stockings and silver spoons. In my little hometown of Hope, Arkansas, the three sacred heroes were Jesus, Elvis, and FDR, not necessarily in that order.

My own father held down two jobs, barely affording the little rented house I grew up in. My Dad was one of those guys like so many of your dads, worked hard, lifted heavy things, and got his hands dirty. The only soap we had at my house was Lava.

Let me explain that. I was in college before I found out it wasn't supposed to hurt to take a shower.


John McCain doesn't want the kind of change that allows the government to reach even deeper into your pay cheque and pick your doctor, your child's school, or even the kind of car you drive or how much you inflate the tires.





John McCain is by far the most prepared, experienced, and tested presidential candidate. Thoroughly tested.



He could have eased his own pain and even cut short his imprisonment just by uttering a few simple words renouncing his country. But then as now he loved his country and knew that to return with honour later was better than to return without it now.


Let me to tell you about someone who understands this type of sacrifice better than anyone.

On the first day of school in 2005, Martha Cothren, a teacher at Joe T Robinson High School in Little Rock, was determined that her students would not take their education or their privilege as Americans for granted.

With the principal's permission, she removed all the desks from her classroom on the first day of school, 2005. The students entered the empty room and asked, "Mrs Cothren, where are our desks?" "You get a desk in my classroom when you tell me how you earn it," she replied.

"Making good grades?" asked one student.


"I guess we get a desk when we have to behave," offered another.


No-one in first period guessed right. Same for second period.

By lunch, the buzz was all over campus... Mrs Cothren had flipped out... wouldn't let her students have a desk. Kids had used their cell phones and called their parents.

By early afternoon, all four of the local network TV affiliates had camera crews at the school to report on the teacher who wouldn't let her students have a desk unless they could tell her how to earned it. By the final period, no-one had guessed correctly.

As the students filed in, Martha Cothren said, "Well, I didn't think you would figure it out, so I'm going to tell you."







It's my honour to do what I can to help him have a desk that he has earned - one in the Oval Office.

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