Arkansas Blog

Remember Mike Huckabee's Hope for America PAC? This was the soft money PAC he set up in Virginia to do a little traveling to explore a race for presidency before he discovered that our counsel was correct -- you can't use such PACs to explore presidential candidacies. He shortly set up a legit presidential committee. It recently reported about $500,000 in contributions, a modest start.

But, there's still a bit to report in the first quarter report on Huck's old Hope for America PAC. Like a $9,000 contribution from the Nucor Steel PAC and $2,000 from Little Rock lawyer Mark Allison of Dover, Dixon, who also turned up on the Huck's recent presidential campaign reporting.

He reported some expenses -- on travel, phones and stuff -- all in January. I note that he spent more than $110,000 for about six weeks of work by Dick Dresner and Kirsten Fedewa, political consultants who still counsel him, along with the LR accounting firm that files his expense reports. Are their rates that steep, you think?

Even with all that spending, he has more than $112,000 left on hand. He's vowed for months to use that money in support of other Republican candidates, but, funny thing, almost none of the hundreds of thousands raised has gone for that purpose.