Huckabee Rips CPAC

Many observers were surprised after Republican Representative Ron Paul of Texas, an anti-war and anti-drug law libertarian, dominated the straw poll with a win over Mitt Romney at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference—but Fox host Mike Huckabee says he saw it coming. “CPAC has becoming increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years, one of the reasons I didn’t go this year,” the former governor of Arkansas said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday. He also took umbrage with the way the conference was financed through a wide range of sponsoring groups, saying that it "almost becomes a pay-for-play" in determining its agenda. “It’s kind of like, who will pay money to be able to be a sponsor and get time in the program. That’s one of the things that has hurt its credibility in the last couple of years," he said. Huckabee, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, was a notable absence from the conference, which is generally considered an important stop for GOP hopefuls, but not the only one: Sarah Palin sat it out as well.