Reply #9: There was also a story about some missing Arkansas GOP money [View All]

[starroute]

I never did find out what the upshot was, but there was a story floating around in 2003 where Huckabee didn't come off well. The original link is no longer active, but it can be found at the Internet Archive.

http://replay.web.archive.org/20050222040240/http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2003/11/25/News/67588.html

The taking of money by a staff members and the promise of money that never arrived from the Republican National Committee were among problems that led to financial disaster at the state party, one of its four district chairman said in an exclusive interview Saturday.

Jebb Young, chairman of the Second District Republican Committee and a member of the executive steering committee, said former finance director Heather Rackley took money from Republican Party of Arkansas coffers. He said the party's executive committee was kept in the dark about financial problems until it was too late to fix them. He said, as a result, the party lived beyond its means. . . .

Young said it's not clear how much money Rackley took from the party. He said she resigned in August, soon after she was confronted with the discrepancy. Young said a group of party insiders, including then-finance committee chairman Richard Bearden, then-party chairman Ryall and Republican National Committee field representative Kevin Shuvalov decided to keep the incident from the party's other leaders. They asked Gov. Mike Huckabee for money to replace the taken money, Young said. Huckabee controls a fund of donations for the governor's inauguration. That fund provided about $10,000, Young said. . . .

"Young seems determined to completely undermine the Republican Party of Arkansas with misinformation and misdirected anger," Huckabee said Monday. "His allegations are potentially libelous. We won't engage him in conversation through the newspaper without him first having communicated directly with the principals involved."