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Posted on 11/30/2007 7:15:16 AM PST by Reaganesque
Mike Huckabee has always been the most vocal about Romney 'buying' his support. At Ames, he accused Romney of buying his support, at CPAC, the same thing. Now apparently Huckabee has taken up the practice of buying support himself and he is now trying to hide it.
On Monday the website Too Conservitive had a post by a Vincent Harris, who is officially "coordinating Governor Huckabee’s petition drive in NOVA," promising to pay those who would work for Huckabee to obtain signatures 50 cents per signature. Just hours later however as the word spread, the language promising to pay money for the signatures was deleted. Luckily, Mitt Report saved a copy of the orginial text. The language earlier in the day looked like this:
"I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.
I am in the state for a couple weeks coordinating Governor Huckabee's petition drive in NOVA. If anyone wants to help (50 cents a signature!) please shoot me an e-mail to vincent.harris@explorehuckabee.com"
The language now looks like this:
"I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.
I am in the state for a couple weeks coordinating Governor Huckabee's petition drive in NOVA. If anyone wants to help please shoot me an e-mail to vincent dot harris @explorehuckabee.com"
It appears that Huckabee is buying his signatures and now is trying to cover it up.
For someone who is always boasting about his 'grassroots' support that does not need to be bought, Huckabee appears to be struggling with just that in Virginia. With minimal support of volunteers, Huck is resorting to purchasing each signature. While it may not be unorthodox to pay people to gather signatures, it is notable for two reasons: (1) Given Huckabee's vocal accusations of Romney buying his support, he appears hypocritical; and (2) it signals Huckabee's weak grassroots support and organization.
This is going to be a continual struggle within the Huckabee campaign. The only place he is currently a viable candidate is in Iowa. Due to low funds and low polling elsewhere, he is forced to invest all his limited resources there. His grassroots support and overall organization is mediocre at best in other states and is unlikely to grow much between now and January 3rd which may mean more antics like this in the future.
With the deadline to file the requisite number of signatures to get on the Virginia ballot being December the 15th, and with most of the major candidates filing early this week, it appears that Huck has a real issue on his hands. If he can't find the grassroots support from volunteers, he may just have to offer more than 50 cents per signature if he is going get on the ballot.
The only thing Mr. Huckabee guilty of here is to insist that when Mitt Romney does something similar, Romney is guilty of some crime or ethical lapse. Huckabee is trying to have it both ways here and it just isn't going to work. As I have said before, Romney is outworking the field by leaps and bounds and this is further evidence. Mr. Huckabee's actions and words here are about him playing catch up to the frontrunner, Mitt Romney. The former Gov. of Arkansas is not well served by these kinds of sophomoric and hypocritical rants.
All the candidates do this.
Romney has been spending money like a drunken sailor all year long. Huckabee will never see the money Romney spends in one week. Despite all of that money in Iowa, Romney is now running scared as he should. He knows if he loses Iowa, it’s over.
Huck may not make the Virginia ballot? Interesting.
This headline is misleading. Huckabee is not paying anyone for their signature. He’s paying for people to collect signatures. Instead of doing it by paying so much per hour, he’s paying so much per signature collected. He’s not buying signatures, he’s buying labor from the people doing the work required to collect the signatures.
I have no idea if that’s the same thing he was accusing Romney of doing. Just wanted to clarify what is happening here. The headline makes it look like Huckabee is offering people money for their signature.
RINO catfight.
Personally I don’t like the practice but it is common so I won’t complain about a single candidate doing it.
Huckabee has been in the campaign for how long now and he’s just now getting around to collecting signatures? Nice campaign organization.
Must be they know this is a contest, and they want to win.
What a concept!
As a signature collector for Fred I can attest, and swear via affadavit in Federal court if you so prefer, that I was never offerd money for my time or the number of signatures I collected.
Huckabee has been in this campaign thos long with no money and no organization, but here he is challenging Romney in Iowa. You might want to check out the editorial in the WSJ today. It’s all about Fred.
Read it, disagreed with it, and I find it disturbing that an old retired Army guy would support a presidential candidate with no foriegn affairs or military experience during war time.
Huckabee’s surge is media inspired and could end up biting him the bum if he doesn’t get a ground game in other primary states post-haste.
I don't think the issue is Mitt doing "something similar." Getting on the ballot is an absolute requirement to have a viable campaign. But Mitt has "bought his way" into situations where it was not necessary to do so. For example: bussing people in to the CPAC convention and paying their registration so he could win the straw poll there. Ditto for Ames.
He also used his organization to ask his supporters to pay a buck to join the Family Research Center so they could participate in the Values Voters online poll and create the appearance that he won that vote. In reality Huck was the clear winner.
I can understand why this stuff upsets Huck. I can also understand why Huck has to offer $$ in Virginia; he has little time and it is among the states that requires the most number of signatures to get on the ballot. In addition a certain number of signatures have to be from each Congressional district.
Huck drives me up the wall with his nanny statism, and I have my pro and con list on Mitt. That said, I will vote for either one to stop Hillary.
Hopefully, Mitt Romney would be ashamed at your disgusting, gutter politics. Oh my Gosh, the scandal! The horror! Huckabee is paying campaign staffers who are helping him collect signatures!
Reaganesque, my ass! Reagan would be revolted.
And this is coming from someone who vastly prefers Romney to Huckabee.
That's what I'm talking about!! Let's lower ourselves to their standard, don't worry about what sort of person the 'party' nominates, just as long as they look winnable. I'm sure we could go to prison and find a couple good men that would clean up real nice and be able to parrot the right words the faithful want to hear.
The difference between Republicans and Democrats used to be Republicans would investigate their own because they're at a higher standard. But you apparently want to drop that and give the most 'electable' a pass.
So basically drop all the attacks on St. Rudy of 9/11 or Tax-em-all Huckabee eh? Whatever could the 'faithful' do to satiate their appetites....Hmmmm I know!! Attack the man that's been married to the same woman for 50 years, never voted to raise taxes, and is an advocate of the Constitution. Yeah that works....
I didn’t say I was supporting him. I was just citing some of the facts. Actually, the only candidate out there that I really support is Duncan Hunter and he probably doesn’t have a chance. I can’t seem to get excited about any of the others (Especially that phoney Romney) which makes me worry that Obama or Hillary could win.
My apologies for misunderstanding your support. Hunter is a good guy. I only wish he had the support to win.
This is not unusual. It is a non story for any candidate to pay signature gathers.
Great minds think alike. Dak To, Pak Pek, Kontum, Oasis, LZ Mile High, LZ Penny, Plei Trap Valley, Camp Enari. Sound Familiar?
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