Huckabee’s 2002 Gift List
A year-by-year rundown of the gubernatorial goodies
BY Sarah Laskow | December 11, 2007
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee accepted gifts valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars during his years as governor of Arkansas. Here are the gifts valued at more than $100 that Huckabee and his wife reported receiving in 2002:
Gift certificate to Mack’s Prairie Wings of Stuttgart, Arkansas ($2,050) Hunting clothes ($300) Quillow ($145)
Mack’s Prairie Wings describes itself as “America’s Premier Waterfowl Outfitter.”
The “quillow” — a quilt with a built-in pouch that allows it to be folded up and converted into a pillow — apparently has something of a backstory, judging from the note that Huckabee added to his financial disclosure statement: “According to the statement of Ms. [Detri] McGhee, the gift was brought to an event in Star City to show the Governor but it was not intended as a gift. The quillow was inadvertently placed on the vehicle and was taken to Little Rock. The quillow has been returned to Ms. McGhee. Although it is not necessary to disclose the gift herein, the disclosure is being made out of an abundance of caution to avoid another partisan attack by the [Arkansas] Ethics Commission.”
Huckabee filed similar gift lists for 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, when he was governor, and for 1993, 1994, and 1995, when he was lieutenant governor.