Huckabee won't be 'baited' into Confederate flag debate, says it's not a ‘presidential’ issue

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said on Sunday he wouldn’t be “baited” into the politically charged Confederate flag debate in South Carolina, joining a group of fellow GOP White House contenders that says the state must decide.
“Everyone's being baited with this question as if somehow that has anything to do whatsoever with running for president," Huckabee, a 2008 presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "My position is it most certainly does not."
Fellow GOP candidate and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum took a similar position.
“We should let the people of South Carolina go through the process of making this decision," he said on ABC's "This Week."
Their remarks came a day after GOP presidential hopeful Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker also said South Carolina should decide whether to allow the Confederate battle flag to fly above the capital grounds.
Walker also said he would honor a request by Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, to reserve comment on whether the flag is a symbol of racism.
He said he would wait until after the funerals for the nine black people fatally shot Wednesday by a white man in a historic African-American church in Charleston, S.C. -- the incident that re-ignited the flag controversy.
South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott, one of only two black U.S. senators, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he also would wait until after the funerals to comment.
Flag supporters say it is a symbol of Confederate and southern heritage while critics argued it is a relic of white supremacy.
In 2000, civil right activists got the flag removed from inside the South Carolina statehouse and from atop the capitol dome. However, the flag still flies on the capital grounds in Columbia, S.C.
The controversy has since become an issue in presidential campaign politics, in large part because South Carolina is one of three early-voting states in which defeat or even a poor showing can end a White House bid.
“I don't think you could say that the presence of one lunatic racist, who everybody in this country feels contempt for, and no one is defending, is somehow evidence of the people of South Carolina," Huckabee also said Sunday, regarding the church tragedy and alleged shooter Dylann Roof. "I don't personally display it anywhere, that's the issue for the people of South Carolina."
He also said that voters don't want the presidential candidates to "weigh in on every little issue in all 50 states that might be an important issue to the people of those states, but it's not on the desk of the president."
On Saturday, GOP presidential candidate and senior GOP South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said the flag is “part of who we are,” while acknowledging it might be “time to revisit” the decision to allow it to fly over the state capitol grounds.
The same day, another Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, touted what his state did in 2001 about the flag, a year after the South Carolina decision.
“In Florida, we acted, moving the flag from the state grounds to a museum where it belonged,” he said in a statement. “I’m confident [South Carolina] will do the right thing.”
Also this weekend, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney called for the flag to be removed from the state capitol grounds.