Transcript: Mike Huckabee on 'FOX News Sunday'

Mr. Huckabee--are you a conservative or not:

WALLACE: You are talking somewhat less about faith here in New Hampshire and more about economic populism, looking out for the little guy. In a sense, are you trying to rebuild the Republican Party?

HUCKABEE: I think the Republican Party needs some repair. The Republican Party needs to remember that its strength was being the champion for small business. Eighty percent of all jobs in this country come from small business.

If we become the party that forgets that, if we become the party that does not empower the individual who wants to struggle from his place at the lower end of the economic spectrum up the ladder, then we're going to lose a lot of the base that gave us great strength, that helped us to become the majority party, that built the Reagan coalition, that also helped elect both George Bush 41 and George Bush 43.

WALLACE: As some of your critics, conservative critics, say, this sounds like Democratic class warfare.

Doesn't sound like it:

HUCKABEE: Not at all. It is not class warfare. Look, I'm not about wanting to make rich people poor. I just would like to see that poor people have a chance to get rich.

And if we have an economic system that ignores the fact that $3- a-gallon gasoline really does hurt a working class family, health care costs going up double digits, really affects people's lifestyle — and we've got people who, when asked how's the economy doing — they just look around and they say, "It's just doing terrific," okay.

The macro economy is doing great. You can take a look at the stock market, take a look at how certain portfolios are performing and it looks great.

But translate that down to the factory worker who loses his job, take that down to the single parent for whom every day is a struggle to keep food on the table, and our party had better be talking to those people, because there's a whole lot of them.

Huckabee is a bigger liar than Romney, whom he accuses of being dishonest:

WALLACE: In last night's debate, you said that you supported President Bush's troop surge when he announced it in January of last year. But let's take a look at what you actually did say in January, and this is when Mitt Romney had already said that he approved the surge.

You said, "Well, I'm not sure that I support the troop surge, if that surge has to come from our Guard and Reserve troops, which have already been overly stretched."

Governor, you were not the supporter of the troop surge that you represented yourself as last night.

HUCKABEE: Well, I supported the surge. I questioned the use of our Guard and Reserve in repeated deployments because as a governor, I'd seen what that had done to our own Guard troop.

About 90 percent of our Guard have been deployed now to Iraq, and some repeated deployments, long periods of time, three out of five years. These are citizen soldiers. These are people who certainly are willing to go. I've never heard any of them complain.

But it's a real incredible, I think, challenge for not only the soldier but, more importantly, for their families, their employers and their communities.

And what we've done with Guard and Reserve forces has got to be changed. It's one of the things that I would do as a president.

And my point was and remains that if we're going to have the kind of war we're going to have, we've got to have more troops at the beginning.

WALLACE: Governor, I'm not saying you're right or wrong. I'm simply saying that you misrepresented yourself last night when you said you approved the troop surge. In fact, days later you said you weren't sure you supported the troop surge.

The fact is the Guard and the Reserve have been part of the troop surge.

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