Mike Huckabee

 Today's Washington Times has a story by Ralph Hallow about NY-23. One of the things Ralph discussed was Newt Gingrich's struggles with the race. He quotes Newt:

He said Mr. Hoffman's "rise is a result of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, the Club for Growth, Gov. [Sarah] Palin and [Minnesota Gov. Tim] Pawlenty and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and virtually the entire national conservative movement joining with Mike Long, whose Conservative Party, a very established organization, which won its first big race 39 years ago."

It is striking to me that Tim Pawlenty is the only presumptive 2012 candidate in that list, unless Sarah Palin really gets in, but there are no indications that she is. After a Presidential primary in which Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee fought out for the conservative mantle (to a stalemate, I might add), they both were absent from this battle.

You see, NY-23 is the first big fight of the 21st century for the conservative movement. It is important to remember that this movement is about moving the to the right by moving its governing coalition to the right. That means, by definition, the Republican Party because it is the vehicle of the center-right coalition in American politics. There can be no doubt that, whatever the result on Tuesday or afterwards, that the leadership of the GOP has been chastened. Marc Ambinder's analyzes the race and concludes that Scozzafava's social liberalism was necessary to create the conditions on the ground for the Conservative Party to reach out to national groups. However, ultimately, the Club for Growth, responding to her positions on card-check, the stimulus, etc., funded Hoffman and really made this happen. In other words, the two key components of the conservative movement came together in perfect complimentarity.

So we have the definitional fight for the conservative movement, post-Bush. And only Pawlenty shows up at the fight? But for the movement, the question is as much "are you with us on the fight" as it is "are you with us on issues". Let's consider how this impacts Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, both of whom declined being in the fight over the last several weeks.

Let's take Huckabee first. Mike Huckabee not only didn't endorse Doug Hoffman, Huckabee took $20,000 away from Hoffman's GOTV effort (which tells me that he isn't running, but ...):

Huckabee, who according to Upstate Committee sources is receiving a five-figure fee in excess of $20,000 for his appearance, has refused to personally endorse Hoffman, who is pro-life and signed the "no-tax" pledge in August before his announced candidacy, and has informed Hoffman that HuckPAC will not support him either. Some Conservative Party officials believe Huckabee's fee is intended for his PAC. Ironically, the dinner is held to honor conservatives who exemplify conservative principles.

This offers a(nother) critique of Huckabee from the movement perspective. Huckabee is particularly vulnerable here. In 2008, no electorally significant critique damaged Huckabee within his base of evangelical voters. Why? I think that Ramesh Ponnuru nailed it in a discussion of Romney's campaign:

Romney’s problem was not that he is a Mormon. It was that he is not an evangelical. A strong plurality of evangelicals “would have backed Huckabee against anybody — Mormon, Buddhist, or Catholic,” says another former Romney adviser. “They were voting for one of their own.” To attribute Romney’s loss in Iowa to anti-Mormon prejudice from evangelicals, he says, is like attributing Romney’s victories in Utah and Nevada to Mormons’ hostility to people from all other faiths. But this adviser reaches the same conclusion as his colleagues who blamed anti-Mormonism: Romney should not spend as much time and resources on Iowa next time. 

In other words, the options for Huckabee voters were to go to Romney. Not going to happen. But guess what? Tim Pawlenty is an evangelical. Indeed, during the VP speculation in 2008, the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody argued, "Pawlenty may be the one guy to help McCain with working class moderates AND socially conservative Evangelicals." So he can genuinely compete with Huckabee or someone similar to his right.

Ramesh notes that Romney ran as the candidate of the conservative movement (and I would point out that Fred Thompson's candidacy was about the fundamental mismatch of Romney the man and Romney the candidate of the movement):

All these advisers may, however, be looking at Romney’s options too narrowly. Romney’s strategy in the last campaign was not to run as the social conservatives’ candidate. It was to run as the movement-conservative candidate. Throughout the primary he claimed that he best represented what he called “the three legs of the stool” holding up conservatism, with the legs representing conservative positions on social issues, economics, and foreign policy. The attempt to rally his party’s right made a certain strategic sense. Giuliani and John McCain started the primary season with higher profiles than Romney and, in different ways, represented the party’s left wing. Running to the right thus presented Romney with an opportunity.

Romney, in not playing in NY-23 has, in some important sense, laid the groundwork for a(nother) criticism of him as the candidate of the conservative movement. How can he be the candidate of the movement but duck out on the first major fight of the movement. (2nd, if you count healthcare, which doesn't cut nicely for Mitt...) Can he really run from the same location that he had earlier? No. This suggests that he is taking the route that Ramesh almost recommends by moving to the left end of the party and/or the establishment. (I distinguish between these)

This time Romney could follow a different path. There are no prospective McCains or Giulianis, no heavyweights from the left or even the center of the party. Instead of running as the movement conservative in the race, Romney could run as a party-establishment candidate who is acceptable to the Right. That strategy wouldn’t require him to move left on the issues. But it would entail, among other things, taking fewer jabs at the other candidates for not being conservative enough (jabbing them for having bad ideas would still be in season). It would entail advertising Romney’s conservatism less. The policies could still be conservative — but he would promote them as good ideas more than as conservative ones. 

 I don't know how this plays out. Romney running from establishment/left of the party, and Pawlenty running to the right? Perhaps. There's another angle that Ramesh notes:

To be a strong candidate, finally, Romney has to address one weakness that has not gotten much attention: his lack of appeal to middle-income and low-income voters. The exit polls from the primaries tell a consistent story. In Iowa and Florida, he won pluralities only among those voters who made more than $100,000 a year. In New Hampshire, voters had to make more than $150,000 before they started favoring him. Michigan, where Romney’s father was governor, was the great exception: Romney won among every income group above $30,000 a year. If Romney can’t find an economic message and a way of making it that appeals to middle-class voters, he may as well save his money and not bother running.

Again, we have Pawlenty's strong suit: reaching out to the middle class and working class.

The field is set. A working-to-middle class Midwestern candidate with strong evangelical roots running against a white-shoe Northeast wealthy candidate with strong western roots. This will be an interesting battle.

My name is Brian Donegan.  I am a 26-year old Conservative from Lawrenceville, GA.  I am very new to grassroots activism but I have always been interested in politics.  I decided to get off the sidelines and was an active volunteer for Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign.  I have been legally blind since birth and have been “blessed” with other handicaps.

As I was watching the “Reboot” of the Republican party over the past several months I read and heard a lot about reaching out to certain groups.  While I think it is definitely something we must do there was one group of people not even discussed, the handicapped.  That is why I decided to establish the “Can-Do Conservatives of America.”  Our principles are as follows:

We are looking for a hand up, not a hand out. We are in favor of liberty and freedom to pursue the American dream like anyone else.

We resolve that we cannot have the freedom to pursue the “American Dream” under socialism.

We are in favor of less but competent government that allows us to retain our dignity while getting the help and assistance we need.

We are in favor of an economic system that allows us the freedom to move up the economic ladder through hard work and determination, most especially getting the FairTax enacted.

We are in favor of reforming Health Care by focusing on preventative care that will lower the cost and burden on the individual.

We are in favor of passing a Veteran’s bill of rights. they are our heroes and deserve all the thanks and help we can give them after serving and fighting to protect our freedom.

We are in favor of reforming education to allow the freedom to choose how our children our educated to increase competition in order to improve the system so everyone wins.

If you are a “Can-Do Conservative” like I am, or support our movement, please join our Facebook group and our group on Rebuild The Party.  It is my hope that in the coming weeks, months, and years that the “Can-Do Conservatives of America” will grow to having an active website and a chapter in each state of the country. In time we aim to join the ranks of the Christian Coalition, The Young Republicans, the College Republicans, and the Federation of Republican Women as a major conservative group.

Thanks & God bless!

Brian Donegan

-Founder, Can-Do Conservatives of America

This is a bit different than my usual post focusing on economics or political tactics. It's that time of the year to take stock of who we are, why we're here, and how do we live our lives.

Now it's easy to be depressed--we've lost an election, we've all lost tons of money the way the economy has been, and there are plenty of misguided socialists and defeatists just chomping at digging an even bigger hole for our society.  But we all have been given the gift of life, and no doubt, whatever fortune has taken away from us, we all still have many gifts most of the world would be envious of.

I've gotten this unusually philosophical after watching two TV programs last night: former CT Governor John Rowland on FNC's Huckabee  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckabee and the perennial Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life

Seeing Rowland was poignant---I had been deeply involved in his U.S. House campaigns in the 1980's and his first unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 1990. And we were sorta kindred spirits--brash young Reagan conservatives out to make a mark on the body politic.

Mike (who is an excellent host by the way) calmly asked Rowland to explain why he caused his political career to implode in ethical disgrace   http://ctlocalpolitics.net/2008/12/13/rowland-on-huckabee/ . John explained how he failed to be "grounded" and how his "vessel" had been empty and easily filled up by arrogance which was reinforced by a circle of yes men.

I will attest to the accuracy of John's account. The longer he stayed in politics the further he got from his geographic and ideological roots.  Instead of being in a circle of folks who had been with him through thick and thin, his inner circle evolved into people drawn from the permanent government of a state capitol. I'm sure John is not the first --nor the last--conservative Republican who stopped dancing with the folks who brought him to the dance.

And who might have had sufficient gumption to tell him the stuff he was doing--even if other politicians had gotten away with it--was going to make him look like a horse's ass even if the authorities didn;t come down on him.

But my kinda folks were mostly gone.   See, we're just not hip enough.  Gotta "play the game".  Rowland started his career at a pizza & beer joint; his major domo at the end used to own a French restaurant. 'Nuff said.  

Rowland now realizes belatedly that public service ought to be its own reward. Now, he is left suggesting to Governor Blago its time to stop the bleeding and step down.  Based on the Rowland experience, Rod would be well advised to follow this advice. It is going to end badly, so why extend the pain?

Rod Blagojevich evidently became Governor not to serve his state, but to serve himself. I can at least point to the reconstruction of UCONN as a positive, nonpartisan Rowland accomplishment. I fear all Blago has left in his wake is collateral damage to the people who put their trust in him. The difference may be that in Chicago politics, there's no period of disillusionment---the politicians on the way up are already arrogant self-dealers before attaining high office.

After seeing the Rowland interview, I saw It's a Wonderful Life on NBC.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_a_Wonderful_Life.  Our political leaders might do well to emulate George Bailey---not John Rowland or Rod Blagojevich.

George Bailey is confronted on Christmas eve with a sudden ruinous financial disaster. We see how throughout his life George Bailey had the opportunity to seek fame, fortune and glamour, yet at every instance chose the path of responsibilty and duty. Now, having made the self-sacrifice to his family and community, he sees himself on the brink of personal ruin.

Thanks to the angel Clarence, George Bailey sees that whatever he has given up personally, his choices--based on a vision of personal integrity--have greatly enriched his friends and neighbors and prevented them from being exploited by the powerful and unethical. At the end he realizes his sacrifices have not been for naught, and he did have a "Wonderful Life".

My Christmas wish is that our political leaders of both parties and all ideological persuasions think about what is really a "Wonderful Life". It's not about how much cash you can cram into your pockets, how much power you can wield over others, or how much glamour and acclaim one can get from the media.

Now I'm not advocating being a chump, a do-gooder or a pushover (that's not Ironman, now is it?) but a "Wonderful Life" is doing the right thing whether it directly rewards you or not. Don't go along . get along. Take a stand and deal with the consequences.  Lose an election before you lose your conscience. Don't sell out your friends. Look at the long term and the big picture, not what is going to get you the fleeting applause of people who like you as long as you are popular. Cause you're not going to be popular forever.

And for politicians, in a crass sense, don't do the same crap you'd barbecue your opponent for doing. 

John Rowland came to this realization too late. Rod Blagojevich isn't there yet . And the rest of the political class in America better figure it out before we find white collar prisons are the nation's biggest growth industry.      

How could an Evangelical Christian Pro-Lifer hope to get elected President?  This question dogs supporters of Mike Huckabee more than anything else.

He explains his view in Chapter 9 of Do the Right Thing, “Let’s Get Vertical.” Huckabee’s argument is that while people who are party activists care about where a candidate’s positions land on a Horizontal (Left-Right) scale, most voters are more concerned about problems being solved and the country or state moving Vertically (up instead of down.)

The theory is perhaps the greatest answer to how a conservative politician or any politician succeeds. People will let a party have its way if the Economy is going well, the budget is being properly managed, education is improving, etc. It’s quite similar to what a newly minted Democratic Governor Howard Dean told Vermont Democrats in the early 1990s.

The one big myth that’s developed is the that of “The Centrist Idealogue.” You know the person who votes for the candidate who seems closest to the center. The model seemed out of touch with reality given wins by people on both extremes of the spectrum. Huckabee’s vertical theory holds more water and explanatory power towards politics than strict ideological view of voting.

Huckabee tells of several everyday people who came up to express support for him, even though they were Democrats or Independents such as a Taxi Driver in Des Moines, a skycap in O’Hare, and the flight attendants on a Los Angeles to Boston flight.

Huckabee does talk about Fred Thompson’s campaign and cites it as an example of a campaign that was focused on being most horizontal of the GOP campaigns. Thompson went after Huckabee as a liberal for receiving the endorsements of “Union of Mechanists and Aerospace Workers”  as well as the “Painters Union” which Thompson used to go after Huckabee as a liberal.

Huckabee wrote, “What Fred failed to grasp (among the many things Fred failed to grasp about running for president) was that the endorsements did not reflect the unions’ total agreement with all my politics or policies. In fact, both unions had to deal with some heartburn about some of the positions I took that stood in direct conflict with their own official union positions. But I was the only GOP candidate who actually went and listened to them and gave them straight answers to their questions.”

Huckabee is clear that vertical politics means that conservative credentials don’t matter but “ideological purity without the capacity to deliver a more effective and efficient way of governing was no longer justifiable.”

He writes of life on the road and flying commerical during most of the ‘07-’08 Presidential Campaign, which while helping him connect with ordinary Americans who were suffering through a “Flinstones” Air Traffic Control system in the midst of a “Jetsons” Aerospace era. The downside for Huckabee is that he had to spend much more time in flight than other candidates who had charters, as direct trips from Little Rock to Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina were simply not available and required multiple connections.

The book also includes a look inside the making of the Huckabee-Chuck Norris ad which also produced a memorable blooper reel:

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Chapter 8 of “Do the Right Thing” actually comes from a line Huckabee wishes he’d shouted out in a debate in response to Mitt Romney’s suggestion that buying High Yield stocks was an economic solution.

Huckabee argues that Republicans have become economically out of touch. “We had people leading us who knew the country club, but not Sam’s Club.”

Of charges of populism, Huckabee writes, “What I was actually doing was pretty simple: acknowledging there would be a war if people continued to work their rears off for a declining standard of living. I’d rather be a populist than a pompous patrician who had no idea how hard the struggle was for many Americans and how much fear lived in the hearts of folks who wondered if Friday would be the day the boss got a multimillion-dollar buyout and they got the pink slips and they lost their payouts and pensions. These weren’t phony fears and I was shocked that a stage full of people wanting to be president seemed generally clueless about them.”

Huckabee repeats his “Club for Growth=Club for Greed” message. Huckabee explains this came because of The Club’s “willingness to take money from donors and then target candidates’ political agenda, not necessarily letting an honest assessment of the candidate’s record get in their way.” Of course, Huckabee never explains what he means by this, but the blogger Nuke Gingrich did some thorough research tying the CFG attacks to Steve Stephens, an ultra-rich Arkansas businessman who crossed swords with Huckabee. It’d be nice if Huckabee had tried to explain this, but I don’t think he wanted to spend two pages connecting CFG and Steve Stephens and explaining the whole rivalry.

On CEO pay, Huckabee is clear (I believe he makes the statement about three times)  that he doesn’t want the government to control CEO Salaries, but that he wants to see leadership from within the corporate boardroom. One egregious practice Huckabee criticizes is the lack of independence in compensation decisions. He points to a $400 million retirement package received by the Chairman of Exxon Mobile. Huckabee writes, “In ExxonMobil case, the Chairman and CEO served on Chase Manhattan’s board of directors when it awarded Chase’s CEO a generous retirement package. In an enormous conflict of interest, Chase’s CEO was on ExxonMobil’s board and returned the favor when the $400 million package was awarded. We must have truly independent compensation systems to protect shareholders and the general public, who ultimately pay for these exorbitant packages in the form of higher prices.”

Huckabee also calls for pension reform beginning with “reversing legislation that has allowed companies to move assets out of their pension plans to artificially inflate both the company’s perceived performance and its stock price.”

On trade, Huckabee acknowledges that Protectionism is not the answer and that globalization has generally been a blessing for Americans. He argues for some basic actions to help those Americans hurt by the process by a list of solutions that “could be loved only by a real government wonk.” They are: “unifying the Unemployment Insurance Program and the Trade Adjustment Assistance to better aid with wage insurance, retraining, portable health insurance, and relocation assistance; providing block grants to the states to come up with their own flexible and creative programs, since they know best the challenges faced by their workers, businesses, and communities; expanding the current limited deductibility of education and training expenses; providing business tax credits for the increase of costs when they expand their education and training facilities beyond their own workers, such as to high school students fulfilling their personalized learning plans or those in community colleges; expanding efforts to help our businesses under international standards, including lean management and quality assurance techniques; re-establishing a workable Safeguard Mechanism within the World Trade Organization.”

He also says that it’s time for America to take actions against Chinese violations of trade rules. China engages in currency manipulation so that its goods are less expensive. Huckabee calls for using countervailing duties to offset China’s actions and against all other nations that break trade rules that the U.S. follows.

Some people may opt to call Huckabee’s proposal socialism or economic liberalism, but with most Americans, it will sound like common sense to not let companies raid pension funds, or to refuse to let countries get away with unfair trade practices that hurt American companies.

If there’s one criticism of this chapter I’d offer (other than that massive sentence I quoted earlier should have been broken up), it is that Huckabee’s writing about education policy was sparse. Huckabee spent a whole two paragraphs discussing the issue. He laid out a very innovative idea of individualized education programs, but did not explain how he would bring this about, particularly given his explanation in a previous chapter, that the President is not in charge of setting eighth grade curriculum.  I’d like much more information than was laid out in this book.

This gem of idiocy was burried over the holidays what with terrorism and turkey on the menu, but it really is worth addressing.

One Curly Haugland, GOP chair of North Dakota is throwing his hat in the ring for RNC chair and fired a warning shot across the bow at other non RNC challengers and at Michael Steele in particular.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/27/steele-meeting-resistance-in-bid-for-rnc-post/

The above article in the Times includes such quackery as:

"In my estimation, 168 committed members of the Republican National Committee are a powerful army of qualified advocates for Republican principles; certainly much more threatening to the Democrats than one celebrity spokesman," Mr. Haugland said.
 

And:

"Your chosen path to leadership of the Republican National Committee exemplifies the problem we should immediately seek to resolve, that being the practice of allowing nonmembers to exert undue influence in the process of selecting our leaders" Mr. Haugland wrote Mr. Steele. "Getting the Republican Party back on the right 'track' is a job rightfully left to the Republicans who have been elected to run this railroad."
 

I found it very intersting to note that Curly's objections extend to others who HAVE been part of the RNC though not currently holding office.

Mr. Haugland said his objection to nonmembers seeking the RNC chairmanship applied also to Chip Saltsman, former Tennessee Republican Party chairman and campaign manager for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's presidential bid.

Meanwhile South Carolina GOP chair Katon Dawson (who also worked closely with Mike Huckabee on the election campaign of Glen McColl and on the front lines for SC's first black state legislator Tim Scott ) is under fire for of all things being a 'closet racist' in his country club membership???

Now call me stupid.. but I'm figuring that anybody with a brain in their head knows that dogging Steele in public right now, is about as benificial to your carreer in conservative politics, as dogging Palin during and after the election.

Curly has NO base in that RNC group, or support from influential voices in the movement outside it. He has no chance of winning that chairmanship. Which to me, begs the question, who stands to benfit the most from this 'insiders only' policy?

And wouldn't you know.. If Newt, Steele and Saltsman were out of the way.. one Saul Anuzis, GOP Chair for Michigan, (and a supporter and surrogate for Mitt Romney during the primaries) moves straight to the front of the line, becomming an almost shoe in for the spot.

He's been making the rounds gladhanding all the good ole boys, and has used his hard earned money to roll out with a splashy almost presidential campaign style website for his candidacy.

Now I won't go so far as to say that this is a Machievellian move by Mitt's surrogates to get his guy into the top spot, (Any more than I would say Huckabee is pulling the strings on Saltsman's candidacy, or that Newt may play kingmaker for Steele in exchange for his support in the future) These guys all have legitimate experience and resumes to challenge for the spot..but only the politically naieve don't see that every move fits into a bigger puzzle.

This IS politics people... and Curly is falling on his sword for somebody.. Because NOBODY is going to back him up on this ridiculous suggestion that 'more of the same' is going to lead the GOP out of the wilderness. He's officially dead to most conservatives. Which means somebody pretty important to someone must stand to reap the benifits of his political death.

Or he could just really be that dumb.

It will be very interesting to see how this power struggle plays out.

My money's still on Newt/Steele although my heart is definately with Huck/Saltsman

Continuing to blog "Do the Right Thing"

Chapter 5 has one of the best titles in the book, “Welcome to Washington, DC: The Roach Motel.”

Hucikabee’s indictment of Washington and the federal government for overspending and fiscal responsibility is pretty stunning. He quotes New Dealer Henry Hopkins whose mantra was, “Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.”

He write:

Yes, what might be called the Hopkins plan worked—worked, at least, to enlarge the federal government. But as they say, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Somebody has to pick up the check. And that somebody is the ordinary American taxpayer, who is easy to forget amid all the frenzied excitement of a New Frontier, or a Great Society, or a “Yes, we can.”

Huckabee defines his spending philosophy as follows, “I often said that we need to be able to look an elderly widowed lady in the eye and say, ‘Here’s how and why we just spent your money.’ If we can do that with a good conscience, it’s probably a good expenditure. If not, it needs rethinking.”

Huckabee goes after taxes and regulations with a vengeance, praising Reagan’s supply side economics as well as “regulatory creep.” Huckabee points out that environment regulations that cost big corporations around $700 per employee, could cost a small business more than $3,500 per employee. Huckabee suggests that in some cases, this is by design of big businesses that use Federal Regulation to shut down the competition. Huckabee attacks Washington, DC as a city full of “Eddie Haskels.”

Piggybacking on the ideas of Robert Fulgram in “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” Huckabee lays out four principles of good governance he learned growing up:

Huckabee’s first suggestion, “Principled Compromise” is good in theory, but in practice doesn’t always work out so well. Huckabee cites as an example of principled compromise, the 1983 Greenspan Commission which produced a Social Security Reform bill that’s passed the problem on to the next generation.

The idea needed a better example and it needed a better illustration. The key question left out is: At what point, do principles end and compromise begin?

Second, Huckabee says we should debate Whose ideas are better, not whose wallet is better. He promises more expansion in Chapter 6.

Third, he suggests that everybody in politics: the media, the candidates, the President, and the Congress need to work to regain the trust of the American people. Huckabee wrote that while he was out running, the press would always be there. One day, Huckabee realized that they weren’t there to get photos of him running, but of him slipping and falling, a picture Huckabee was sure to deny the press.

Finally, Huckabee cites a need to commit to City on the Hill principles as laid out by Winthrop and Reagan rather than the predatory and corrupt practices of Washington, DC.

In this chapter, Huckabee does discuss Mitt Romney twice, albeit briefly. Huckabee talks more about the Romney Campaign’s disrespect particularly Romney’s statement that he was the only Republican candidate still married to his first wife. Huckabee pointed to his own marriage and rather than apologizing, Romney said, “Well, of the major candidates.”

Nice dis on not only Huckabee, but also Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, and Tom Tancredo. Huckabee

Of Romney, Huckabee writes:

He was usually accompanied by a phalanx of eager young aides who bullied their way through events as if they were carrying badges, guns, and the authority to move the “little people” out of Mitt’s way. It did not go unnoticed by other candidates or by the “little people” who spoke with open contempt of the treatment.

Huckabee states while most of the candidates had good camaraderie, there was “an almost universal discomfort with Romney and his staff.” Huckabee also says Romney tried to do “a leverage buyout of the Republican Presidential nomination.” But that’s actually the whole sentence he wrote about Romney, and then moved on to talk about Obama and Clinton. Huckabee’s main argument is that the strength of arguments, not the size of pocketbooks should decide elections.

Huckabee does talk about the “Christmas Ad.” There’s not a whole lot more to tell, except that Huckabee insists the “floating cross” was not intentional or planned. To paraphrase Freud, “Sometimes a bookshelf is just a bookshelf.” It was done on the same day several ads were shot and the ad itself was ad-libbed. Huckabee put $358,000 into running the ad. Huckabee says regarding the subliminal charges that everyone in the campaign thought, “We don’t have enough money to be that smart.”

We continue our blog of "Do the Right Thing" because while certain people think we shouldn't do it, others think its useful to take a more broad look at what Huckabee is saying in the book for more reasoned analysis and discussion, rather than taking a few quotes out of context.

Secondly, this book is fairly popular. My brother went into Borders and they were all out, this CNN i-reporter had about 800 people show up in Bentonville, AR and there was record-breaking lines in Cedar Rapids. I think because this is a book that people are reading, it's important to know what's in it and what's it about.

In Chapter 4, Huckabee mentions rivals, but it's pretty sparing. He briefly discusses Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani's position on abortion, has a kind work for Former Governor, HHS Secretary, and short-time Candidate Tommy Thompson and then talks about the irony of Bob Jones endorsing Mitt Romney to get a winner when Romney finished with half the votes of Huckabee or McCain and was beaten by Fred Thompson.

The focus of the book is on "Faith Voters." Huckabee chided the media for labeling everyone concerned about social conservatives as an "Evangelical Voter" writing, "Many of these voters are Catholic, Jewish or even nonreligious." If some are non-religious, I'm not certain the term "faith voter" is particularly apt, but probably more so than "Evangelical Voter"

Huckabee grabs a hold of the theme of homelessness as an analogy for cultural conservatives suggesting that political operatives running campaigns have a similar understanding that most people do to the homeless. "We know of them, but we don't really know about them. We know what they are, but not who they are."

Carrying this forward, he writes:

Increasingly, these voters are expected to be satisfied with a crumb of attention from the ruling class, but no one wants them to show up at the main table. If anything, they are expected not to get in the way, not to be that visible during the day, not to engage in conversations with the political elites. Just like during the holiday season when the swells often show up to dish out a plate of turkey and dressing, the politically homeless can typically expect to be permitted visibility during the two political "Holy Days," the primary and the genral election, when the unwashed masses of religious zealots are expected to dutifully attend rallies holding signs, pull all-nighters doing yard-sign placement and literature drops, ring doorbells, man phone banks, and stand at polling places. They are expected to make the noise at the election night party in the main room, even though most of them won't be able to get near the nice finger food being served to those whose large checks have apparently exempted from the kind of street work done in the trenches.

The faith people are driven by a simple desire to preserve simple principles of faith, family, and freedom for their children. They are not expecting to be named an ambassador to a European nation or invited to a sleepover in the Lincoln bedroom. They are not expecting to attend the inauguration, because the trip would cost more than two months of their salary. They have no illusions about sitting next to the first lady during the State of the Union or catching a ride on Air Force One. They did none of what they did in order to get more involved with the government, but rather to keep government from getting even more involved with rearing or educating their children, confiscating their hard earned paychecks, or adding to the burdens on their already stressed-out employers.

This is definitely a passage that will resonate with frustrated cultural conservatives and it defines their feelings and where much of the tension comes.

Huckabee then spends several pages talking about his conversations with the Arlington Group, a group of religious conservative leaders which he thought at the time could provide his campaign a shot in the arm. The group, in a move that symbolizes much of the lethargy in the cultural conservative movement, ended up endorsing no one. Huckabee said he was "spared" as the endorsement would have basically turned him into a candidate of the Arlington Group and given the sheer volume of questions asked about his faith, that would not have been good.

Huckabee pays homage to Cultural Conservative movement: Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy, and Bill Bright. Huckabee suggests that the giants are dying or becoming less active and the current Arlington Group is wavering as they had "become more enamored with the process, the political strategies, and the party hierarchy than with the simple principles that motivated the founders."

Huckabee points to several up and coming leaders who are more concerned about principles than the horserace mentality. Some of these names I find kind of odd: Don Wildmon has been around a while, and Michael Farris since the 1990s and Beverly and Tim LaHaye for quite some time, but I think that's some sense of diplomacy in not lumping them in with some of the other Christian Conservatives who were criticized.

Huckabee's criticism of Gary Bauer has made headlines. Huckabee went after Bauer for telling he was more focused on national security than traditional cultural conservative issues. Huckabee wrote, "...it occurred to me if a pro-family organization was now focusing on the might of the military and the role of the CIA in combatting terrorism, then it was no longer a pro-family group, but a national security group, just like dozens of others similiarly focus. It would be like the NRA saying, 'Well, we we still care about guns, but what we really want to focus on is global warming.' When an organization can't even focus on its focus, it's hopelessly lost."

Bauer has fired backsaying Huckabee wasn't conservative enough on multiple issues, and furthermore:

Immediately after attacking me for talking less about life and marriage, he writes about Christians like himself who have, “…an expanding concern for issues like human poverty, AIDS, disease, and hunger.”  So the problem is not about whether these newer issues are important.   Rather, it concerns which issues have become so important that they should join the list of most important issues. "

Actually, this is something wrote about. In the same paragraph Bauer quoted, Huckabee said, "The irony was that while I was being rejected because I thought Christian groups should be addressing this expanded list of issues, those who rejected me for that were the ones who said that my views ought to include a certain orthodox on global warming, terrorism, and torture." Let the reader decide who's side irony's really on here.

Bauer concludes his piece with this statement, "After he is finished attacking all those who he thinks denied him the GOP nomination, I look forward to working with him to reform the GOP and revitalize the conservative movement. "

Actually, Huckabee doesn't so much say that the Arlington Group denied him the nomination but rather that current cultural conservative leaders are ineffective, divided, and more focused on Inside Baseball than the issues their constituents care about. Huckabee doesn't say, "If not for Gary Bauer..." He rather suggests a need for new voices and that new leaders are emerging.

The rest of the chapter includes Huckabee's feelings on being pegged as the religious candidate, as well as his annoyance at the "game show" style of Presidential debates that in many cases left him with half the time of other candidates and questions that weren't relevant.

He recognized the key turning point of the campaign was at the Values Voter Debate in Ft. Lauterdale, Fl. where Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain skipped out and the debate was not carried by major TV networks. That, he considered the start of the Huckaboom.

He also pointed to the debate hosted by Tavis Smiley and largely targeted towards minority audiences that Huckabee attended while other candidates dodged. Minority outreach is kind of hard when you won't go and outreach to minorities.  

If there's one thing in this chapter, I'll criticize Huckabee for, it's the use of somewhat obscure scripture allusions that I'm not even sure most Christians know. Sadly, most of our churches don't teach the finer points of 2 Samuel and 2 Kings and I'm not sure how many Christians, let alone secular folks,  will get the allusions to Elisha and to King David's prophet.

As Mike Huckabee's book, "Do the RIght Thing" is going to be a topic of some controversy for the next few weeks, I think it's more helpful for people to know the facts about the book rather than go on and on about excerpts. So, over the next few weeks, I'll be blogging 1 Chapter a day. Today, I'll take the Prologue: I Love Iowa

Caucus Night Remembrance

Huckabee opens the book with an unglamourous account of having to get a ride to the airport from a stranger due to the car they were supposed to take being blocked in.

Of course, this gave way to euphoria from Huckabee supporters when his plane touched down in Des Moines.

Huckabee wrote:

 "Throughout the campaign, one of our great challenges was trying to manage with far fewer staff members than was reasonable or realistic. It meant that all of our mostly young and inexperienced staff had `would be called on to do the tasks of several people...

"But on this night, no one was complaining. Our courageous army of volunteers and underpaid kids were euphoric, and they had the right to be: The kids had worked their hearts out to prove that conentional politics of money and sophisticated political strategy could beaten by sticking to core convictions and finding creative ways to communicate those convictions. A bunch of unknown, ordinary people had beaten "the best in the business."

Huckabee wrote that when he actually got up to speak, "It hit me that this was not our victory, it was their victory." Every good political story begins with a victory night celebration and this was their "We Shocked the World" moment.

The controversial passages about Mitt Romney's concession call (or lack theeof) is in this section. Reading the Prologue, it seems that the Governor really didn't have "bloggers who followed campaign stories religiously in mind." Huckabee's book is targeted towards those who may not have paid attention to the 2008 process on the GOP side extremely closely. He takes time to explain the players and the process.

He talks about Fred Thompson running a "feeble" campaign in Iowa, failing to spend a lot of time in the state and having poorly attended events. I know that some people will make a big deal of this, but really for those of us who followed the campaign, the worst Huckabee deserves is a "Master of the Obvious"  award. But, as he's writing to people who may not have followed the race as closely, it reads more background than anything else.

I have to confess that I got caught in the "Fred" thing because of the fact that I focused on the professed rule that if you finish in the top 3 in Iowa or the top 2 in New Hampshire, you are a legitimate contender. However, even at the time, I was a little concerned that even though Fred Thompson finished 3rd in Iowa, he did it with a smaller percentage of the votes than Alan Keyes got in the 2000 Iowa Caucuses. I think someone needs to rewrite this political rule of thumb, "To win the nomination, you have to win Iowa or New Hampshire." That meshes more with reality than the top 3 rule, because those of us who thought Fred would get enough momentum out of 13% in Iowa to win South Carolina were slightly delusional.   

Huckabee stood waiting backstage as a matter of courtesy for the customer congratulations call from his opponent. The reason for this is that candidates want to avoid stepping on each other's toes, particularly since the media will often cut from the losing candidate's speech to the winner. Both McCain and Giuliani could find the phone, but for whatever reason, Romney could not and Huckabee finally went out at 10 PM to declare victory.

My final note is that this section serves to bat down rumors that have spread on various Talk Shows, news stories, and the Internet. Huckabee writes that there was no "nefarious collusion" between his campaign and that of John McCain. Even though, both McCain and Giuliani were pleased that Huckabee's Iowa win had punctured Mitt Romney 's best Presidential victory scenario of running the board in early contests.  The reaction was similar to that of a baseball team being happy that their division rivals lost and allowed them to gain a game in the standings. It's not a conspiracy if the Toronto Blue Jays are glad the Boston Red Sox lost to the New York Yankees (or to the Arkansas Travelers if they were a major league team in the AL East.)