Sarah Palin’s Nightline Interview with Charlie Gibson

I have had a chance to watch the interview a few times now, and I would like to comment on it. I had high hopes that the interview would get past some of the petty things that the media has been focusing on over the last two weeks, and in some cases it did. However, the air of incredulity that Gibson took when asking many of the questions really aggravated me.

The questions that I felt were the most ridiculous were the ones where Gibson kept pushing Palin on the idea of “a holy war” because of some comments that she made at a church service. When viewed in context, it is obvious that she was not inferring that America is engaged in a holy war. However, that is not what really bothered me, it is the incredible hostility that the media has leveled against her for her Christian faith.

I was watching the news this morning and Newt Gingrich was talking about how FDR prayed on the radio for seven minutes on D-Day and how JFK also made many blatantly religious comments. These heroes of American liberalism, in times of national difficulty, called on God and called on Americans to do the same. Today, when conservatives talks about God and praying that America is in the will of God they are labled as a religious nut who would lead America down a path mirroring the Crusades.

When did the elite become so frightened of anything resembling the traditional values that this country was founded on? One thing has become incredibly clear in this election, and specifically with the pick of Sarah Palin as McCain’s VP, and that is that the media and the liberal elite absolutely despise traditional conservative Christians. With Obama the media flips out any time the conversation gets off of the issues directly pertaining to this election. With Sarah Palin her family and her religion are fair game.

If there is one thing the media is suceeding in doing this election cycle, it is proving how out of touch they are with Main Street America. I am willing to bet that if you went out on the streets and started talking to every day Americans, Republican or Democrat, most would be happy that we are at place in this country where we can have an African American and a woman both running for two of the most important political offices in the world. While I disagree vehemently with nearly all of Obama’s platform, you will not hear me ever attack his family or his faith. The media needs to practice what they preach and keep this election focused on the issues and not on trying to come up with tabloidesque headlines about Sarah Palin having an illigetimate child or desiring to send America out on a Holy War Crusade.

Back in Action

I have mourned the exit of Governor Mike Huckabee from presidential politics for nearly two months now. While I wouldn’t say I have moved on, as I am still following Huckabee closely, waiting for any hints at future run for office; I have decided that it is time to start working towards getting/keeping conservatives in Washington.

I personally have decided to support John McCain for President, unless a worthy third party candidate arises. My decision is based on a few main points: he does not aspire to universal health care, he wants to keep the Bush tax cuts permanent (if the democrats let these expire they will effectively be raising taxes on everyone in America, not just the rich), he believes in a very strong military and will support the military, he is a strong proponent of cutting government spending.

Whether or not he will hold to those views if elected remains to be seen, but right now he is a far better option than either of Democrats. He is far from my first choice for office, but he can do the job better than the current competition.

I have also recently been contacted by the Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe campaign. They asked me if I wanted to blog for him, I agreed. I have had the privilege of meeting and eating lunch with Sen. Inhofe and I believe that the man has his head on straight. He is a good representative of Oklahoma’s conservative values, so I hope that by blogging against liberals and for conservatives, I will be a small help to his campaign.

So, the battle for the votes of those living on Main Street America continues. The question is, will Americans support big government liberals and Republicans who spend like “John Edwards in a beauty salon?” (Mike Huckabee) Or will we elect people with true conservative values (which does not necessarily mean they are Republican)?

Huckabee Concedes, Gracefully

This was a tough day for me. I knew when I woke up this morning that Huckabee’s chances were slim, but I held out hope for a miracle. Unfortunately, the miracle did not happen. Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, conceded the race to John McCain a few moments ago.

I listened to his concession speech and I was again struck with the humility the man has. Mike Huckabee understood that it was not the support of the Republican establishment, gobs of money, and the backing of the talking heads that got him to March 4, 2008. His speech was basically a long thank you to his supporters and family. The speech was the most graceful and heartfelt concession speech I have ever heard and he deserves credit for the way he conducted himself.

I must confess that as I watched the speech I could not help but feel some anger at the Republican establishment. They decided that John McCain would be the nominee and then pushed him upon the American people as the only choice. McCain is guilty of accepting that support and refusing to acknowledge that Americans did have a choice in his refusal to debate Huckabee. Sure, it might have been a smart political move for McCain not to debate, but it was not the right choice. The Republican establishment decided long ago that Huckabee would never be the nominee and they succeeded in shutting him out.

Personally, I am very grateful for Mike Huckabee. I had never before contributed to a political campaign. I had never before attended political rallies. Mike Huckabee motivated me to be more involved in this election than I ever have before. He was pro-life and pro-family. He supported my 2nd Amendment rights. He had an immigration plan that made sense. He supported strengthening and building up the military. He supported a complete overhaul of the tax system through the FairTax. He had the freshest ideas and the best approach to the Presidency of any of the candidates.

Today the American people decided that John McCain was the best man for the job. I strongly disagree.

Where does this leave me? I will probably mope around for a few days. I guarantee I will be a lot more apathetic about this election because of John McCain’s liberal tendencies. It leaves me right back where I was after the election in ‘06: wishing for a third party that was not so steeped in the political system that it actually cared about doing what is best for the people of America and not just doing what is best for the Republican establishment.

The moping will now commence.

Romney Endorses McCain

This is disappointing but not surprising. I had held out hope that Romney would endorse Huckabee. Huckabee’s platform aligns more closely to Romney than Romney’s does to McCain. I had hoped that it would not be “politics as usual.” A Romney endorsement would have really helped Huckabee going into the next few primaries, but while this hurts, it is not over yet.

The news and the talking heads continue to push for Huckabee to get out of the race because they say it is impossible for him to overtake McCain. Huckabee realizes this, but overtaking McCain in delegates is not his goal. He wants to stay in the race until the convention by preventing McCain from getting the majority of delegates. If Huckabee is successful in doing this, he will force a brokered convention where all the delegates will be released after the first round of voting to support another candidate should they so choose.  Huckabee is hoping that a knock-out speech at the convention will pull enough votes away from McCain that he will ultimately win the nomination.

It is a long-shot but, it is not impossible. The next few races are absolutely critical for Huckabee. He HAS to win Texas, ideally by 51% so that he can secure all of the delegates. A win in Texas would be huge and give him the momentum to finish out the race and make it to the convention.

So, while the Romney endorsement hurts, Huckabee supporters should not give up hope. This is the homestretch where the supporters and the candidates see what they are really made of. Lets prove the media and the elites wrong one more time.

For the Future: Huckabee 2008

by Adam Graham (The Conservative Voice)

February 08, 2008 01:00 PM EST

A candidate has won primary elections in twelve states, and only gotten 50% of the vote in three of them, and the majority of voters in his home state which knows him best chose someone else to be their candidate. And we are told at this hour that the Republicans party must unite behind him, even though he has not yet won the requisite number of delegates. We are told we must unite and start the general election campaign, when the Democratic campaign should last at least until May.

John McCain has got to be the overwhelming favorite at this point, but it is not over. There are other choices and I’m ready to make an endorsement with some reservations.

I have issues with Governor Mike Huckabee and the way his campaign has run and his record, particularly on immigration. Those who’ve read my columns and blogs know that. Yet, I should note that Huckabee has mended his ways on immigration and has convinced Jim Gilchrist and Duncan Hunter of his sincerity, while McCain has convinced no one.

Mike Huckabee is more reliably pro-life, and yes federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is a pro-life issue (for those who insist on claiming John McCain is 100% pro-life.)

Huckabee is also for the Fair Tax, which would eliminate the IRS and give us control of our own money.

Huckabee is not without faults. His campaign has often come off as using class warfare rhetoric. But behind that rhetoric is a great truth: Republicans must appeal to people at all income levels because conservative ideas are powerful. They help the poor, the rich, and the middle class if consistently practiced. The Republican Party needs to be the party of the everyman because freedom is ultimately good for everyone.

Mike Huckabee is as true of an outsider as there is in this campaign, which brings me to one of my key reason for endorsing him. The Establishment of the Republican Party has gotten us where we are today. They gave us the Rudy McRomney trilemma and now they’re pushing consolidation behind John McCain. The establishment are State Party bosses, puppet pundits, and their money men.

This establishment, for whom nothing but the next election matters, is the enemy of true conservatism. The establishment will pander, promise, but in the end will do what it takes to win. They are short-sighted and as long as this bunch rules our party, they will be shortchanged.

There is hope, and it comes from Camp Huckabee. The hope is not so much Huck himself, but rather his dedicated volunteers, many of whom are homeschooled kids in their first campaigns. I would even venture to guess that many of his core supporters are to the right of Huck on many key issues. And these young supporters are the key to our nation’s future.

John McCain may win the day, but his day will pass. The future lies in Huckabee’s grassroots Army, and until Delegate 1191 is won, I’ll remain in that Army.

*From Laura*

Huckabee supporters: these are the undecided voters we have to reach. This proves it can be done. Let’s give Mac a run for his money!

A Critical Debate

The CNN debate this evening is critical for the Huckabee campaign. The audience has the potential to be the largest of any debate yet. With Super Tuesday looming, people from all across the country will be tuning in to help them make a final decision about who to vote for.

Huckabee comes into this debate in much the same way he came into the first debates, with his candidacy dismissed. The media has written off his campaign and the conservative talking heads have turned their firepower against McCain because they no longer perceive Huckabee to be a threat. Huckabee has the potential to come out of this debate looking very good because expectation are so low.

The debate this evening could possibly be the largest audience that Huckabee has ever reached at any one time. There will be people watching this debate who have never heard any more from Huckabee than the soundbites in the media. A strong debate performance tonight (if CNN gives him enough air time) will allow him to get the word out about his radical tax reform plan (Fair Tax), strong anti-illegal immigration stance, and innovative economic ideas.

Huckabee supporters all across the country are holding their breath as each hour brings us closer to the debate, and what could be one of the defining moments of the Huckabee candidacy.

Duncan Hunter Endorses Mike Huckabee

Duncan Hunter announced today that he was going to endorse Mike Huckabee for President of the United States. The endorsement comes at a critical time for the Huckabee campaign as they tighten the purse strings and batten down the hatches for the rapidly approaching Super Tuesday primaries.

The endorsement has/will undoubtedly cause a stir among the conservative talking heads who have been quick to criticize Huckabee on everything from his tax record to his supposed lack of foreign policy experience. Hunter was one of the most conservative candidates in the field when he was running. Two of the things that he touted while campaigning were his tough stance on illegal immigration and his foreign policy credentials from his experiences on House Armed Services Committee. His decision to endorse Huckabee will allow the governor to shore up his platform in those two areas that have often been perceived as two of his weaknesses.

Huckabee has had a relatively quiet week as the focus has shifted from him to Rudy, Romney, and McCain and the race in Florida. The endorsement from Hunter and the debate tomorrow night give Huckabee the opportunity to turn the negative momentum of the last couple of weeks into positive momentum that can carry him into Super Tuesday.

After the disappointing finish in South Carolina, many felt that Huckabee was finished. Indeed, the polls after the SC primary showed him losing votes. There was a sense of dismay among many supporters. However, as soon as this endorsement was announced, the mood immediately changed. It appears that Huckabee supporters are once again ready to do battle to carry their candidate to victory.

Following is the announcement of the endorsement from CNN:

January 23, 2008

Hunter endorses Huckabee

Posted: 03:15 PM ET

The conservative congressman is backing Huckabee.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — California Rep. Duncan Hunter, a former presidential candidate, announced Wednesday he is endorsing Mike Huckabee’s White House bid.

“I got to know Governor Huckabee well on the campaign trail,” Huckabee said in a statement. “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,” he added. “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.”

 

Standing Athwart Huckabee, Yelling Stop

By George Neumayr
Published 1/9/2008

Against an immutable standard of conservatism, Mike Huckabee is hardly impeccable. I find some of what he says silly and unpersuasive (for example, his support for Global Warming theory). But the explosion of snide remarks directed at him from many in the conservative movement strikes me as churlish and baldly hypocritical. How is it that the bar of conservative entry for a presidential nominee lowers for the Romneys and McCains, then rises for the Huckabees?

Okay, he is a heterodox Republican on some issues. So what? Who isn’t amongst the leading contenders in this primary race? A few years back I recall these anti-Huckabee purists lecturing California conservatives on the need to support Arnold Schwarzenegger over Tom McClintock. Now that McCain has won in New Hampshire, we will soon see this very flexible definition of GOP conservatism resurface and be told that electability trumps all.

Much of the contempt for Huckabee is confusing, alternating between descriptions of him as a socialist pansy and social reactionary. Which is it? Is he too liberal for the GOP or too conservative?

I suspect that the essential problem for some in the conservative movement (as it was for establishment conservatives pitted against Pat Buchanan in his race with Bob Dole in 1996) isn’t that Huckabee takes this or that heterodox position on issues of economics/trade/foreign policy; it is that he’s a transparent Christian conservative. That they just can’t abide, even as some of these pundits tell conservatives to ignore religion with respect to Mormonism.

Romney attended Planned Parenthood events, used to support state financing of abortion and elements of the homosexual agenda; McCain has derided in the past the Religious Right and taken any number of fashionable liberal stances. But all of this can be quickly excused. Woe to the Christian Republican, however, who talks about the culture war, or — brace yourself — rejects Darwinism.

Whatever one thinks of that highly technical debate, that the Wall Street Journal and GOP consultants like Mike Murphy set up adherence to Darwinism as a litmus test for an “acceptable” Republican nominee exposes the degree to which political correctness has crept into the conservative movement. I don’t blame rank-and-file conservatives for increasingly ignoring the snobbish sniffings of the George Wills.

Who cares what they think? How conservative are they? What new liberal social innovation won’t they soft-pedal? A “conservatism” that involves a lot of pretentious throat-clearing and maybe the recitation of a classical tag or two before coming to some PC conclusion (that feminism is a net-gain for society, that Darwin had it right, that gay civil unions aren’t such a big deal, take your pick) isn’t worth much.

Run for the hills, Huckabee talked about Christ during Christmas! Well, good for him. One of the reasons for our flailing in the global war against the jihadists is that we have become de-Christianized cowards. Does America need not one but two wholly secularized parties?

HUCKABEE IS A Christian socialist, some say. Really? If he is a Christian socialist, he is surely the first one to call for the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service. Again, it is not at all clear why rank-and-file conservatives are supposed to nod vigorously whenever a McCain or Romney supporter calls Huckabee an “economic liberal.” At least he talks about eliminating income taxes and capital gains taxes. Do they?

Romney’s support for semi-socialized health care in Massachusetts (which is almost indistinguishable from Obama’s scheme for the entire nation) is scarier to me than anything Huckabee uncorked in Arkansas. And then there is John McCain’s opposition to Bush’s tax cuts. Does that make him an unacceptable economic liberal?

But Huckabee doesn’t talk about Wall Street enough, some warn. Good; Wall Street already sups at the government trough. If he cuts off corporate welfare, I would be happy. It is about time somebody talks about getting the ravenous, regulatory Leviathan state off the backs of small businessmen, gun owners, and homeschooling families, rather than waste time on Wall Street talking to fat cats who vote for the Dems anyways.

But won’t Huckabee shatter the conservative coalition? That would be a little more persuasive if those saying this hadn’t shattered it themselves. The relative success of Ron Paul and Huckabee is not a cause of the coalition’s collapse but a reflection of it. An excessively Wilsonian foreign policy has divided defense conservatives; years of big spending has divided economic conservatives; and a tepid, stalling social conservatism has alienated moral ones.

Perhaps Huckabee can’t rebuild this coalition. But he isn’t likely to weaken it any more than have his critics, and he may even bring some long-disenchanted middle Americans into it.

George Neumayr is editor of Catholic World Report and press critic for California Political Review.

Note from Laura: This guy doesn’t even agree with Huckabee, and it’s perhaps the most fair and honest analysis of his campaign that I’ve seen. If this doesn’t energize you again, I don’t know what will!

Huckabee on Hannity and Colmes

I happened to catch H&C this evening by chance. I have almost stopped watching any televised news because I have been so disgusted with all the major news outlets of late.

They announced that Governor Huckabee would be on the show so I decided to listen to what Huckabee had to say this evening.

Here is what I noticed:

1. Why is it that many of the big name conservatives seem more content to attack Huckabee for things from many years ago that to talk about the issues of today? He has already answered the questions multiple times. It would be nice if they would give Huckabee more time to talk about his vision for America. The people of America want to get to know Huckabee, but a lot of conservative personalities are content to talk only about the few quibbles they have with his record. He has been criticized for lack of foreign policy experience, why not ask about that? He has released a nine point immigration plan, why not ask about that?

2. So far, and this may change, more liberals have given him the chance to actually talk about his policies. Huckabee has a lot to offer America but a lot of the message gets drowned out by people in his own party trying to kill his campaign.

3. Newt Gingrich said that Huckabee needs to come up with short sound bites to answer the criticisms that continue to pop up. I agree. Perhaps if he gives the same answer, the exact same way, over and over, it will start to sink in.

Huckabee is really facing a make or break portion of his campaign. If he can overcome the barrage of attacks that have been leveled at him, he has a good shot at the nomination. He will have to do that by going on the offensive by answering the criticisms quickly and forcefully, and by injecting comments about his policies and vision for American into otherwise negative interviews. I believe that people want to hear what the governor has to say, this is why he has done so well in debates. His message is resonating with the people and it seems that some in the media are afraid of its continued spread.

Hopefully, as he continues to answers the latest criticisms, Huckabee will be able to push his message through the smoke screen the media is trying to set up around him. If he can do that, I believe is momentum in the polls will continue and we may have a new national front runner on our hands within the next few weeks.

Huckabee Rising in Blue New Hampshire

The latest Ramussen poll (link) puts Huckabee at his highest point yet in the heavily democratic state of New Hampshire. He is currently polling at 14% in a virtual tie for second with Rudy and McCain. Romney still maintains a comfortable lead there (34%), but the fact that Huckabee is rising shows that he can compete in states that may be more moderate.

One of the criticisms of Huckabee is that he only appeals to uber-conservative evangelical voters. The polls tell a different story. His rising numbers in red states as well as blue states prove that he can appeal to the more moderate voters in the Republican party, and also to independents who tend to be more moderate as well.

People had all but dismissed Huckabee in New Hampshire. It now appears that Huckabee could at least come in a strong second and that would be a resounding victory for him in a strongly democratic state.