Posted on 12/12/2007 11:32:48 PM PST by Tlaloc
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (Catholic Online) - The big news in the fast paced presidential race is the emergence of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee from the back of the pack, even to the lead, in many polls. The 2008 primary campaign has become a real horse race for Republican candidates.
The untold story is the apparent fear that such a turn of events is producing in his opponents, both Democrat and Republican.
The Democratic Party has put out its talking points, apparently intended to stem the growing Huckabee surge. These points found their way into every possible media outlet this past week. Using a sort of “reverse psychology” play, the Democrats seem to want to bait the Republicans to “bring him on”, implying that he will lose handily in a general election.
Apparently, the Republican establishment was well disposed to take the bait. They seem almost apoplectic that another former Governor from Arkansas, with a likeable manner and populist feel, is catching fire. But this time around he is in their primary race. They thought it was a forgone conclusion that their candidate, the one who supports an unencumbered abortion “right” (opposing the real right, the one to life) and advocates that homosexual paramours be given equivalency with married couples, was going to win on an “I’m tougher than you are” platform.
“Why”, they seem to have thought, “He had even won over some of the one time leaders of the so called ‘religious right’.” And, it does appear that some of these former leaders had become so discouraged they would have done anything to keep another Clinton out of the White House.
It appears that the establishment was wrong. Along comes another former Governor from Hope, Arkansas, with a message that cannot be pigeonholed, an appealing manner and style, and an ability to draw from diverse constituencies, to upset the playbook of both major parties.
His name is Mike Huckabee.
Now, the real strategy of opposition has begun. One of the efforts, a standard opposition research approach, is to plumb the candidate’s past and attempt to paint the future with a brush dipped in out of context quotes. I understand this approach. I have been involved in political campaigns and know that every campaign has an opposition research strategy. We can expect a careful reading of the formerly active Baptist ministers’ sermons for weeks to come.
Of course, many Americans can quickly discern what is happening. They know that this candidate was a Baptist preacher. They also know we are not electing him to be the Nations pastor but the Nations President. They have listened to him in the debates and they are beginning to pay attention to his public policy positions.
This approach has little staying power.
No, the real opposition strategy is the one that is only now winding up in the playbook. The effort consists in intentionally evoking fear in the electorate by insinuating that Governor Huckabee is an ‘intolerant fundamentalist’ kind of Christian who will seek to force his narrow faith upon the rest of the Nation. You see this strategy lurking behind so many of the stories and the statements coming from the establishment of both major parties.
The long and the short of this approach will be to paint Mike Huckabee as the candidate of “the Evangelicals”, a term which has sadly become a code word for “the fundamentalists.” It falls just short of accusing the former governor of being a closet Theocrat, a kind of “extremist” of the Christian variety.
Not only is the approach anti-Christian and bigoted, it also fails to see the growing ability that this candidate seems to have to reach into many diverse constituencies. His recent crowds have shown his increasing appeal. They have also shown some unexpected demographics, such as an uncanny capacity to speak to youth. Demographic analysis shows Mike Huckabee cutting across many of the categories.
The unexpected shocker that very few of the pundits and prognosticators expect is Mike Huckabees growing support among Catholics.
Catholics, at least those who heed the continuing direction from their Church leaders, are obligated to inform their conscience by the social teaching of their Church and vote accordingly. Among the ways that this teaching can be grouped is one that I have used for years. This approach is what I have called the “four pillars of participation”, life, family, freedom and solidarity.
The Social teaching maintains that there are some unchangeable truths, such as the dignity of every human person, and the right to life, from conception to natural death; the primacy of authentic marriage and the family founded upon it; and our obligation in solidarity to one another, and, most especially, to the poor and needy in our midst. The compass that is to guide us all as we seek to be both faithfulcitizens and faithful Catholic Christians is our commitment to the Common Good.
On many of these issues, this new Governor from Hope, Arkansas, running for President, seems to be quite consistent with this teaching. Oh, there are some other concerns which must be considered. However, there is also a hierarchy of values by which every candidate must be evaluated.
Ironically, some of the very issues where the candidate is being attacked are the areas where he is appealing to many Catholics.
For example, though most voters are concerned with illegal immigration, most Catholics are also concerned that our Nation recognizes the dignity of every human person. That includes illegal immigrants. Some Catholics, like me, worry that the rhetoric surrounding this hot button concern may lose the real issue and fail to recognize our obligations in solidarity.
So, when one of Huckabees opponents turned to the Governor in the “You Tube” debate, to scold his past support of equal treatment for the children of immigrants in access to public schools while he was Governor of Arkansas, the calm response of the candidate, saying “We are a better country than that” scored well.
In addition, an increasing number of Catholics (myself included), following the lead of their Church, oppose the use of Capital punishment in the West. Not because it is “intrinsically evil” (unlike abortion which is intrinsically evil), since it is presumably not the taking of innocent human life. Rather, because it is no longer justified to protect society and the common good and bloodless alternatives are readily available which allow mercy to trump justice. So, the Governors support of capital punishment is tempered for us when he shares with honesty his caution about its use as a Chief Executive.
The candidate also espouses a sincere concern for the poor. He has been criticized because he does not line up with the kind of “Cato Institute” approach to an unencumbered market economy. Once again, what some may consider a negative, for Catholics, shows that the candidate has a concern for the primacy of persons, the family and the common good over capital. In our tradition, though the market economy provides a superior opportunity for an exercise of human freedom, the market is made for man and not man for the market.
So, in what is now a hotly contested Republican Presidential primary, pundits and prognosticators should pay attention to a group of voters that has remained relatively unnoticed.
It appears that this new candidate from Hope, Arkansas does not just speak to evangelicals. His message - and his manner- are beginning to draw the interest of another very large group of Americans.
Catholics are starting to look seriously at this new former Governor from Hope. Many like what they see.
I support Duncan Hunter.
I care about his consistency in DOING what’s right.
I do not trust Huckabee.
save
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/11/16/voters-get-anti-romney-anti-mormon-calls/
Huckabee sounds like a Liberal.
Bingo - you win astute post of the day - If I was Hillary, I'd be afraid ... very afraid ...
What is it about these Baptist ex-govenors from Arkansas? And the other from Georgia was a real whacko!
I didn't vote for either of the other two and I'll not be voting for Huck.
Check through the full Mike Huckabee record - his full non-conservative Jimmy Carter-on-foreign-policy tax-and-spend nanny-state (for CO2 caps) soft-on-crime (gave violent felons commutations like he was Santa Claus) who wants to close Gitmo - who doesn’t have a fiscal conservative bone in his body and is getting lots of love from liberals over it - and then we can discuss just how God-awful Mike Huckabee that causes him to be place dead last after Ron Paul and the social liberal Guiliani.
I’m not placing Huckabee behind Guiliani to give Guiliani a pass, I’m trying to alert people to the real God-awfulness of Huckabee.
Or look at it this way: Guiliani is a social liberal, but Huckabee is a liberal on everything *but* social issues.
Guiliani - conservative on law-and-order & foreign policy, fiscal moderate/conservative, social liberal
Huckabee - liberal on law-and-order & foreign policy, fiscal liberal, social liberal
1. Soft-on-crime, paroled violent criminals like he was God ...
http://holycoast.blogspot.com/2007/12/huckabee-was-commutation-and-pardon.html
http://www.arkansasleader.com/frontstories/st_07_21_04/huckabee5.html
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Questions+remain+about+rapist-turned-murderer&articleId=8ca3c723-a927-4f5f-83ab-a5d2780e7911
Here’s more stuff the liberals have on him and will use at their convenience (and our inconvenience) - the pleas from the Dumond victims to please not release Dumond the rapist:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/10/new-documents-revealed-in_n_76186.html
Huckabee’s Willie Hortons:
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2007/12/huckabees-willie-hortons.html
2. Soft-on-illegals, giving in-state tuition for illegals was his “Jesus juice” ... HIS RECORD ON IMMIGRATION STINKS ...
Mike Huckabee disses Americans, Mexicans, promotes illegal immigration: http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/005609.html
While Gov. of Arkansas, Huckabee was AGAINST proving citizenship in order to register to vote. He called those who were in favor of this “racists”... http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050218/news_lz1e18perkins.html
Huckabee has personally attacks advocates for a bill he disagreed with as “unAmerican” and “unChristian”.
Huckabee fought hard to kill an Arkansas bill which would have cut off social services for illegal aliens. Huckabee called the bill, “anti-Christian” and “un-American”... http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/01/28/News/316347.html
“Even if benefits to people who are in the U.S illegally could be stopped, “I don’t understand how a practicing Christian can turn his back on a child from this or any other state,” Huckabee said.”
Huckabee supported in-state tuition for illegal aliens... http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/03/11/News/318458.html
Huckabee’s ‘drank different Jesus juice’ in opposition to the illegal aliens bill: http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/000718.html
“Huckabee, also a Republican and a Baptist minister, said Arkansans should be welcoming hard-working immigrants of all races. He singled out Holt, who often talks of his strong Christian beliefs, saying, “I drink a different kind of Jesus juice.”
Wallace interview on Fox, Huckster flipflops back to pro-amnesty:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316253,00.html
3. Huckster was and is a tax-and-spend-aholic:
According to the Democrat-Gazette, “the average Arkansan’s tax burden grew from $1,969 in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 1997, to $2,902 in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2005, including local taxes,” a whopping tax increase of 47% under Huckabee’s tenure. Tax legislation passed while Huckabee was governor totaled “a net tax increase of $505 million, a figure adjusted for inflation and economic growth,” according to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.
In February of 2004, Huckabee joined with two other Democratic governors in urging Congress to reject a bill that would make the Internet access tax moratorium permanent and embrace a temporary two-year extension of the ban instead.
Every two years, the Cato Institute grades the 50 governors on fiscal stewardship. Here’s last year’s assessment of Tax Hike Mike [emphasis added]:
Thanks to a final term grade of F, Huckabee earns an overall grade of D for his entire governorship. Like many Republicans, his grades dropped the longer he stayed in office. In his first few years, he fought hard for a sweeping $70 million tax cut package that was the first broad-based tax cut in the state in more than 20 years. He even signed a bill to cut the state’s 6 percent capital gains tax—a significant pro-growth accomplishment. But nine days after being reelected in 2002, he proposed a sales tax increase to cover a budget deficit caused partly by large spending increases that he proposed and approved, including an expansion in Medicare eligibility that Huckabee made a centerpiece of his 1997 agenda. He agreed to a 3 percent income tax “surcharge” and a 25-cent cigarette tax increase. In response to a court order to increase spending on education, Huckabee proposed another sales tax increase.
http://taxhikemike.org
Just because Huck talks a good talk doesn’t make this tax-and-spender a real conservative. Huckabee’s record is one of a tax-and-spend liberal.
“One of the governor’s biggest weaknesses is his record in Arkansas. While Huckabee did cut taxes during the early years of his tenure, the fact remains that he had a net tax increase under his watch, and the increase in Government size is terrifying. 21 tax increases went into effect, increasing tax revenue by almost $890 million under Governor Huckabee. These increases include the income tax, the sales tax, a cigarette tax, and a gas tax. Not only did he raise taxes, spending “more than doubled under Huckabee. “During Huckabee’s 10 years as governor, state spending more than doubled, from $6.6 billion to $16.1 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006.” There was an increase in state spending of over 65% during his tenure, and the size of the government increased by 20%. According to the Americans for Tax Reform, the states general obligation debt went up by “almost one billion dollars.” Arkansas state tax burden was at 9.8% when Bill Clinton left office in 1992. Under Huckabee, it was at 11.1%, reaching the rank of one of the top fifteen state tax burdens.”
Huck is simply NOT a fiscal conservative at all. His record on taxes is abysmal.
http://taxhikemike.org/
4. When challenged on points #1, #2 and #3, Mike Huckabee and campaign have lied and dissembled on his real record.
Example: He claimed falsely that the Ark supreme court forced a tax increase when they did not; his explanations about the Dumond case are contradicted by the evidence; he has played the ‘amnesty isn’t amnesty’ game on immigration.
5. IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE
“[Huckabee] has zero intellectual underpinnings in the conservative movement,” says Blant Hurt, a former part owner of, and columnist for, Arkansas Business magazine. “He’s hostile to free trade, hiked sales and grocery taxes, backed sales taxes on Internet purchases, and presided over state spending going up more than twice the inflation rate.”
Randy Minton, chairman of the Arkansas chapter of Phyllis Schlafly’s national Eagle Forum, said, “We called him a pro-life, pro-gun liberal, when I was in the state legislature and he was governor.” Phyllis Schlafly herself was even more direct.
President and Founder of Eagle Forum, Phyllis Schlafly, said this about Governor Huckabee: “He destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles.”
6. Lousy ethics.
http://therealmikehuckabee.blogspot.com/
Soliciting gifts from public: “Gov. Mike Huckabee and his wife, Janet, are registered for home furnishing gifts at Target and Dillard’s department stores as they prepare to leave the Governor’s Mansion in January and move into a house they recently purchased in North Little Rock. “
Even more on Huck’s hand-in-cookie-jar and using-public-money-for-private-purpose ethics issues here:
http://realmikehuckabee.blogspot.com/
http://realmikehuckabee.blogspot.com/2007/12/meet-huckster-san-diego-union-tribune.html
Over the years, Huckabee has:
-Used campaign funds to pay himself $14,000 for being his own media consultant.
-Used campaign funds to pay himself $43,000 for use of his private plane while attempting to hide what the payment was actually in return for.
-Used an account set up to cover operational costs of the governor’s mansion to pay such obviously personal expenses as fast-food and dry-cleaning bills.
-Set up a nonprofit organization that paid him $23,500 without disclosing the source of the money.
-Attempted to take $70,000 of furniture with him when moving out of the governor’s mansion.
-Took more than 130 gifts worth more than $300,000 – while suing to overturn a law that made him disclose the gifts. “
File this under: “Will be used by Hillary two weeks before the election”.
7. FLIPFLOPPER - flip-flopper on immigration and other issues ...
POWERS: “And another issue that’s come up is that you had previously been lobbying President Bush to lift the embargo on Cuba. And then in a recent debate said the opposite. What changed?”
HUCKABEE: “What changed was I’m running for president.”
Huckabee does a flipflop
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-huckabee11dec11,0,7354822.story?coll=la-tot-topstories&track=ntothtml
8. On foreign policy, he’s an ignorant boob.
Huck is completely ignorant on foreign policy, and when he gabs about it, he sounds like Jimmy Carter. He will be a disaster, and closing Gitmo and stopping waterboarding (which today’s report indicates actually worked and saved lives) is not the toughness we need:
“This is the kernel of Huckabee’s foreign policy. He wants to anthropomorphize international relations and bring a Christian commitment to the Golden Rule to our affairs with other nations. As he told the Des Moines Register the other day, “You treat others the way you’d like to be treated. That’s to me the fundamental issue that has to be re-established in our dealings with other countries.”
This is deeply naïve. Countries aren’t people, and the world is more dangerous than a Sunday church social. Threats, deception, and — as a last resort — violence must play a role in international relations. Differences cannot always be worked out through sweet persuasion. A U.S. president who doesn’t realize this will repeat the experience of President Jimmy Carter at his most ineffectual.”
9. HE WILL LOSE TO HILLARY. BADLY.
http://drudgereport.com/flashhu.htm
DEMS HOLD FIRE ON HUCKABEE; SEE ‘EASY KILL’ IN GENERAL ELECTION
Tue Dec 11 2007 10:27:53 ET
**Exclusive**
Democrat party officials are avoiding any and all criticism of Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee, insiders reveal.
The Democratic National Committee has told staffers to hold all fire, until he secures the party’s nomination.
The directive has come down from the highest levels within the party, according to a top source.
Within the DNC, Huckabee is known as the “glass jaw — and they’re just waiting to break it.”
In the last three weeks since Huckabee’s surge kicked in, the DNC hasn’t released a single press release criticizing his rising candidacy.
The last DNC press release critical of Huckabee appeared back on March 2nd.
[DNC Press Release Attack Summary:
Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) – 37% (99 press releases)
Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY) – 28% (74)
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) – 24% (64)
Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) – 8% (20)
Governor Mike Huckabee – 2% (4)]
In fact, as the story broke over the weekend that Huckabee said he wanted to isolate AIDS patients back in 1992, the DNC ignored the opportunity to slam the candidate from the left.
“He’ll easily be their McGovern, an easy kill,” mocked one senior Democrat operative Tuesday morning from Washington.
“His letting out murderers because they shout ‘Jesus’, his wanting to put 300,000 AIDS patients and Magic Johnson into isolation, ain’t even scratching the surface of what we’ve got on him.”
The discipline the Democrats have shown in not engaging Huckabee has earned the praise of one former Republican Party official:
“The Democrats are doing a much better job restraining themselves than the GOP did in 2003 when Howard Dean looked like he was on the brink of winning the nomination.”
Huckabee’s got all the warning signs of an electoral disaster waiting to happen.
Liberal Columnists Heap Praise on the Huckster (Conservatives Beware!)
http://realmikehuckabee.blogspot.com/
Bill Clinton + Jimmuh Carter + Pat Robertson + Barack Obama + Gomer Pyle = Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee links:
http://realmikehuckabee.blogspot.com/2007/12/meet-huckster-san-diego-union-tribune.html
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2007/nov/14/taking-stock-tax-hike-mike/
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2007/09/tax_hike_mike_1.php
Huckabee vetting files:
http://realmikehuckabee.blogspot.com/2007/12/meet-huckster-san-diego-union-tribune.html
http://www.taxhikemike.org/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2007/nov/14/taking-stock-tax-hike-mike/
http://www.redstate.com/blogs/rightsideredux/2007/dec/11/the_huckabee_most_wanted_list_location_unknown#comment-588732
http://redstate.com/blogs/perico/2007/nov/29/is_this_the_slow_and_painful_death_of_the_republican_party_as_we_know_it#comment-576559
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/10/new-documents-revealed-in_n_76186.html
http://www.nysun.com/article/67835
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2007/12/019245.php
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2007/12/019244.php
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2007/12/019208.php
“Even worse than Ron Paul...
That’s a hard one to call. They are both dangerous, but in different ways.”
Exactly my point, thanks for getting it.
Guiliani, Paul and Huckabee are dangerous in different ways, but the most dangerous of the three is Huckabee. Without economic/fiscal conservatism *or* foreign policy conservatism, you’ve got a pro-life big-Govt lose-GWOT liberal. That’s what Huckabee will be.
“I think it was Huckabee who was behind these phone calls only two or three weeks ago. The MSM has moved on from this story, but I still think it’s relevant.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/11/16/voters-get-anti-romney-anti-mormon-calls/";
It’s known now that a proHuckabee group out of Ohio did similar calls to Iowans a few weeks ago, so it wouldn’t surprise at all.
Do you believe in the Holy Trinity?
If you do, then Father, Son and The Holy Spirit are all God.
Do you deny that Mary was the mother of Jesus?
“Seriously, I think Governor Huckabee may have the communication skills to reunite the Reagan coalition.”
I doubt that. I haven’t heard anything to make me think he has Reagan’s magic touch when communicating. if anything, Huck sounds like he’s trying to skirt issues. He’s actually one of the few running who I couldn’t support in the general. That saddens me as it would be the first time my vote wouldn’t go to the GOP.
Oh - and I’m Catholic.
fix to link:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/11/16/voters-get-anti-romney-anti-mormon-calls/
This one either.
“I doubt that. I haven’t heard anything to make me think he has Reagan’s magic touch when communicating. if anything, Huck sounds like he’s trying to skirt issues. “
If he has a touch of anything, it’s a touch of Clinton. He’s slicker than a greased salmon. Much populist pandering but zero real conservativeness.
POWERS: “And another issue that’s come up is that you had previously been lobbying President Bush to lift the embargo on Cuba. And then in a recent debate said the opposite. What changed?”
HUCKABEE: “What changed was I’m running for president.”
Ick. He is VERY Clinton-esque.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who finds him slimy.
I wonder how many illegal immigrants live within the walls of Vatican City?
I am a conservative Catholic. I will not vote for Huckabee. (BTW, does Huckabee, as a Southern Baptist, believe that Catholics are Christians?)
I see from your profile that you are a “Loan Arranger”. I used to do 28 years ago, before our kids came along and I retired to a life of leisure. *snort*.
The two candidates I see as being ambiguous in their religiosity are Thompson (strikes me as a non-denominational X'ian, a la Reagan and Lincoln) and Giuliani (agnostic, with some holdover Catholic beliefs; comes from a state where public pronouncements on God are a no-no).
Well I enjoy what I do most of the time! And it pays well...most of the time.
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