Posted on 01/25/2008 6:33:29 AM PST by xzins
The Huckabee Surge
Proud "Freeper" at Home with the Religious Right
When Huckabee is speaking before a Religious Right audience, he likes to remind them that he appears “not as one who comes to you but as one who comes from you.” And that’s not just a politician’s rhetorical flourish. Huckabee is an ordained minister with degrees from Ouachita Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
One of his first jobs was staff assistant for televangelist James Robison, a fiery orator and early advocate of conservative Christian involvement in politics. Huckabee served as pastor of several Baptist congregations during the 1980s and headed up a religious television station. And he became the youngest president ever of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, the largest denomination in Arkansas.
As a Republican Governor from a Democratic state, not to mention one with the right religious associations, Huckabee was a frequent and popular speaker at Religious Right events such as the Christian Coalition’s annual Road to Victory Conference, returning to speak several times over the years. At the 1996 conference, he and the late Sen. Strom Thurmond were featured guests at private receptions for big donors. He joined then-presidential candidates Sen. Phil Gramm, Pat Buchanan and Alan Keyes as a featured speaker at the 1995 Eagle Forum leadership conference.
Huckabee’s band has performed twice at inaugural events sponsored by FreeRepublic.com, a right-wing forum known for its extreme views. After 2001’s “Count the White House Silverware Party,” Huckabee posted a message on the forum calling himself a “confirmed and proud Freeper.”
Huckabee has proved himself on the issues that Religious Right leaders use to measure other candidates’ suitability for office. On abortion rights, gay rights, and church-state issues, he’s not only said the right things, but actively promoted Religious Right’s agenda. Also as governor, he successfully led a push for “covenant marriage,” which makes it harder for couples to divorce. On marriage equality for gays, Huckabee offers the usual red meat rhetoric: “Until Moses comes down with two stone tablets from Brokeback Mountain saying he’s changed the rules, let’s keep it like it is.”
Huckabee sees no apparent division between religion and politics. His recent television ad, which was also aired on the CNN/YouTube debate, proclaims in large letters that he is a “Christian Leader” and shows the candidate saying “Faith doesn’t just influence me – it defines me.”
At the 1995 Road to Victory Conference, he said, "Once Gideons would give bibles to 5th graders. Now school nurses are handing out condoms to 7th graders.” At that same conference, he railed against the “culture of abortion” saying, “Now we have people who believe it’s a parent’s fundamental right to lay down the lives of their children for their own selfishness, and that is wrong.”
In 2001, as governor, Huckabee proclaimed October “student Religious Liberty Month” and sent a letter urging school districts to allow students to pray and providing information about recent Supreme Court decisions on religion in the classroom.
In 2004, at a Republican Governors Association dinner, he pretended to take a phone call from God, jokingly but undeniably implying divine endorsement for the reelection of President George W. Bush.
As Governor, Huckabee encouraged the teaching of creationism in public school science classrooms. He has said he does not believe in evolution, and when pushed on whether he accepts the young-earth creationist believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, he defers, saying that “we don’t know.”
Huckabee’s surge in the polls has been driven by Religious Right voters and growing support from individuals who have their own influences or audiences but are not the movement’s big names. Values Voter Debate sponsors Janet Folger and Rick Scarborough are now enthusiastically talking him up in Religious Right media outlets. In late November, Huckabee’s campaign announced a Faith and Family Values Coalition co-chaired by Folger and featuring several former Southern Baptist officials. Among team members is Star Parker, a favorite speaker at Religious Right conferences known for Coulteresque rhetorical excess.
Scarborough recently wrote an open letter explaining his support for Huckabee. He rebutted many of the most widely heard criticisms of the candidate and ended by saying, “I suggest that God may be sending us a lifeline. Who better to lead a nation nearing moral collapse and perhaps World War III than a president who is also a pastor with 10 years of senior executive experience as a governor?”
Don Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, the group behind many of the boycotts of television advertisers and Disney theme parks said he was backing the former minister. Wildmon may be the campaign’s biggest Religious Right catch to date, as the AFA has a significant national network.
Actor and fighting machine Chuck Norris announced his support and borrowed Folger’s comparison of Huckabee to King David. Huckabee’s first TV ad in Iowa was a goofball celebration of Norris’s hyper-masculinity as a sign of the candidate’s toughness on terrorists. Also on the macho entertainer front, professional wrestler Ric Flair joined the team.
An indication that Huckabee’s support was growing among Religious Right grassroots activists was Huckabee’s runaway victory among those who voted at the Values Voter Summit sponsored by the Family Research Council in Washington in October. FRC officials declared Romney the victor in the poll by counting votes cast since August over the Internet (where Romney’s campaign had urged supporters to make small contributions to FRC Action to be eligible to vote) even though those who voted on site favored Huckabee by far over any other candidate.
Among the most electorally significant Huckabee backers may be former South Carolina Gov. Beasley, who is actively campaigning in that state, which follows close on the heels of the New Hampshire primary, and where Religious Right voters helped stop John McCain’s presidential bid in 2000.
Huckabee has proved himself on the issues that Religious Right leaders use to measure other candidates’ suitability for office. On abortion rights, gay rights, and church-state issues, he’s not only said the right things, but actively promoted Religious Right’s agenda. Also as governor, he successfully led a push for “covenant marriage,” which makes it harder for couples to divorce. On marriage equality for gays, Huckabee offers the usual red meat rhetoric: “Until Moses comes down with two stone tablets from Brokeback Mountain saying he’s changed the rules, let’s keep it like it is.”
Duncan Hunter Endorses Mike Huckabee
National Review Online ^ | 1-23-08 | Byron York
Posted on 01/23/2008 3:29:02 PM EST by TitansAFC
This was a surprise. From the Hunter statement:
“I got to know Governor Huckabee well on the campaign trail,” said Hunter. “Of the remaining candidates I feel that he is strongly committed to strengthening national defense, constructing the border fence and meeting the challenge of China’s emergence as a military superpower that is taking large portions of America‚s industrial base.”
“Along with these issues of national security, border enforcement and protecting the U.S. industrial base, I see another quality of Mike Huckabee’s candidacy that compels my endorsement. Mike Huckabee is a man of outstanding character and integrity. I saw that character over the last year of campaigning and was greatly impressed. The other Republican candidates have many strengths and I wish them all well. My personal choice is Mike Huckabee,” Hunter concluded.
Interesting!
This man is the clear pro-life, anti-gay agenda, pro-gun, pro-family, candidate.
The above hit piece by left wing PFAW proves that these have been Huck’s positions for decades.
He’s not a recent convert.
Mike Huckabee is a big government socialist
We could do a lot worse than Huckabee as the nominee, though I don’t think he’s the best person for the job. My biggest problem with him is that he’s an ordained minister...What’s he doing in politics?
see #2
I have to agree there. He is not my first choice, Fred was.
Romney is a Mormon Bishop.
“What’s the difference?” is what I asked myself. And, honestly, I couldn’t come up with a fair answer other than, “there is no difference.”
Both are EX-governors and EX-church leaders.
I’ve never questioned Huckabee’s commitment to social conservatism, my problem is his positions on fiscal matters and illegal aliens.
He is no socialist. The social liberals are Romney & Rudy, both of whom have supported the liberal social agenda for years.
The truth is, though, that the remaining candidates with historic conservative credentials are:
Ron Paul
Huckabee - social conservative
Romney - fiscal conservative
Giuliani - liberal across the board except for War on Terrorism.
Mike Huckabee is a big government socialist
___________________________________________
I don’t think so. I think people should take his statements more seriously; he was Governor of a state with one of the worst schools systems in the country, a court mandated spending, he spent, and balanced the budget, and the schools did improve. We’ve got McCain saying he’s changed on immigration (I learned my lesson); Romney saying he’s changed on all the homosexual and abortion stuff; and Huckabee saying that the portrayal of him as a big government spender is a false one since he faced a court ordered mandate and a crumbling infrastructure and poor school system. Why do we allow Romney to backtrack and flip-flop while discounting Huckabee’s statements? Similarly McCain. Face it — no straightline conservative on all issues, without questions about their past actions in that regard is in the race. We all wish there was but their isn’t.
We get to trust Duncan Hunter’s endorsement of Huck or his lack of endorsement for Romney.
Huck’s been life-long pro-life. Romney’s been historically pro-death.
The most important concern in any election is LIFE.
Fiscal concerns are 3rd most important behind LIFE and Defense.
as are all three of the other front runners. But the snake oil salesman hasn't been towing abortion and the gay agenda for decades like Rudy and Mitt, nor did he help author McCain/Feingold. Faint praise.
Go no clear front runner!
Go brokered convention!
Let's get a candidate with no negatives.
Romney was (snd still is) much higher in the Mormon Church than Huckabee was in the Baptist Church.
Huckabee was a pastor of a single church. Romney remains a High Priest in the Mormon Church. Romney must answer to the Mormon leadership in order to remain a "worthy" Mormon. Huckabee has no such requrement to remain a Baptist.
BTW I predict that someday Romney will be the Presdident of the LDS Church. The road to the white house is just a stepping stone on the road to "Prophet Seer and Revelator".
My denomination considers gambling a family killer...along with prostitution and drug dealing.
And I am in a liberal denomination.
The guy is a gymnast and a complete fake.
Well, I don’t. My family has not been killed by this type of entertainment. Not all people are irresponsible, so you can’t make blank statements such as that.
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