Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says GOP primary voters have a bit of "new girl in school" syndrome, saying his opponents are exciting and new to voters but lack his executive experience.
"I've learned a lot from having done this before, and I told people the advantage that I have had is that I have done this before," Huckabee told a crowd at the Palladian View Forum in South Carolina this week.
"The disadvantage is that I have done this before. I think one of things that I'll have to go against is there is a certain element of what I call the 'the new girl in school syndrome," Huckabee said, comparing the current crop of GOP presidential contenders to a new girl showing up at a middle school and every boy wanting to be her friend.
"When I was in junior high, if we had a new girl that came to our school — and maybe it was like this at your school — every boy in the seventh grade immediately wanted to be her friend," he said. "Now, a year later we might not think she looked any better than the girls we already had, but when she showed up, she was the best looking girl in the school. And I do think now that there is a sense at which right now, in the early stages a lot of the people running are the new girl in school."
Several of Huckabee's younger primary opponents, such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky have no executive experience, which Huckabee pointed to as one of his strengths. He compared his past experience to flying through a storm with a veteran airline pilot:
"But here is what I suggest: If you get on an airplane and you're about to fly through thunderstorms and bad weather and you look into the cockpit and sitting in the left seat there's a guy who turns around who say, with lots of gray hair, 'I've been flying 20,000 hours through hundreds of thunderstorms, don't worry we are going to be fine,' you go, 'okay.' If you look up there and see some very young person half your age and he turns around and he says, 'Hot dog, this is my first real flight, and it's going to be fun!' You tell me how comfortable you are."
The former Arkansas governor concluded by saying "we need someone in the left seat who has flown through a few before."
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