Most have probably seen by now one of the top watched YouTube commercials with GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and me. It was fun to film.

In between our tongue-n-cheek entertainment, however, is a very serious message: Mike is robust and resilient enough even to stand up for our Second Amendment rights to bear arms, close the borders to illegals, and put the IRS out of business. Now that's Texas tough!

With his strength and success it isn't a surprise to me that the Washington Post reported last week that Mike has "surged past three of his better-known presidential rivals and is now challenging former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for the lead in the Iowa Republican caucuses." Even the Rasmussen Reports charted a new national poll with Huckabee tied for second place with Romney and Thompson.

Why the increased popularity? The Associated Press explains, "Huckabee's down-home style has proven effective, as has a record that many see as untainted by nuances and switches."

Tax-hike Mike?

Of course with new-found recognition comes advanced assaults. Even with Mike's tenured track record serving Arkansas for the last 14 straight years as governor and lieutenant governor, critics are digging out political minutiae in desperation to discover a personal mine. They love creating and using quips, jibes and Huckabee hecklings like "tax-hike Mike" in hope of prompting fear in the populace against his election.

The truth is as Huckabee states on his website and in many other venues that, "As governor of Arkansas, I cut taxes and fees almost 100 times, saving the taxpayers almost $380 million. I left a surplus of nearly $850 million, which I urged should go back to the people."

Despite roughly 94 times of decreasing taxes, groups like Club for Growth still spew at him for participating five times in increasing taxes on such items as cigarettes, beer and gas. The two most jeered taxations are those most easily misunderstood: the 11th-hour adjustment for a 2002 Arkansas balanced budget and a "bed tax" as opponents have labeled it.

The first attack was exacerbated by the left-wing posting of a one-minute, out-of-context, selective slice of a speech Mike gave as governor in May 2003 to a largely Democratic Arkansas legislature. What the tape doesn't tell, however, is that they were collectively working under the pressure of a constitutional mandate to find immediate remedies to balance the closing 2002 budget (fiscally ending one month later in June). In addition, the Arkansas Supreme Court gave a state edict by Jan. 1, 2004, to increase public school funding. (Huckabee incidentally brought in a balanced budget all 11 years of his governorship! Isn't that what we nationally need for fiscal leadership?)

Secondly, regarding the so-called "bed tax," Mike did approve a 2001 bill to increase Medicaid funding via the requirement of a "quality assurance fee" for nursing homes, which amounted to $5.25 fee per bed. Liberal media and legislators quickly called it a "bed tax," but that label is still open to conjecture and used unfairly. The fact is the industry (not just the government) completely supported the measure.

Mike has been honest in explaining he had little choice or executive control in the face of court-ordered or rising federal entitlement spending increases. And he has defended well his tax positions from groups like Club for Growth. Of course never criticized by them are those roughly 94 times Mike decreased taxes while governor of Arkansas.

Even the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette credited Mike for leading "one of the largest tax cuts in Arkansas history," which totaled $90.6 million in one year alone. So financially successful was his term that another watchdog organization concluded tax accusations of Mike by saying, "It's worth noting, too, that Huckabee, despite facing a $200 million shortfall in 2002, ended his term with a surplus of $844.5 million. A billion dollar turnaround is, we think, a noteworthy accomplishment."

I ask again, are those not the type of figures we want to see at the bottom lines of the future fiscal leadership of America?

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'Going out of business sale' for the IRS

To prove Mike Huckabee position on taxes, all one needs to do is consider his advocacy for a completely new tax system. More than just tax decreases and revisions, Mike proposes a total abandonment of the Internal Revenue Service.

Who would deny that the Internal Revenue Service is an overly bureaucratic, corrupt, outdated monopoly and taxation system? Who would dare defend its perpetuity? It can't be overhauled or even reformed. That is why Mike believes we must scrap the tax code and implement a FairTax for everyone, so that Americans are more in charge of their monies and taxation administration.

The Fair Tax is "a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax, a prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar federal revenue neutrality, and, through companion legislation, the repeal of the 16th Amendment."

That's where Mike Huckabee stands on taxes – and I support him for it. One more reason why he's my choice for president, and I believe we should all join his team, spread word about him, and support him financially.

Opposition from mediocre minds

There's nothing new under sun here with Mike's critics. As I said before, Huckabee is tough enough to handle anything that comes his way. So let the pundits pontificate and the bloggers bloat. Because, in the end, the strong will survive. They are Mike Huckabee and the great citizens of grass-roots America.

And what of Mike's critics? Benjamin Franklin said long ago, "Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do." Albert Einstein cranked it up a notch by summarizing, "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

But I believe our 26th president, Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909), addressed their minutiae-munching mentalities best when he said

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.