California Debate

The debate was structured to buy into the fiction that this is only a two-man race between Governor Romney and Senator McCain, but if I have one hope coming form it, it would be that everyone could hear Governor Huckabee's response to the final question of the night. When each candidate was asked if Ronald Reagan would have endorsed them for President, Mike said:

I think it would be incredibly presumptuous and even arrogant for me to try to suggest what Ronald Reagan would do, that he would endorse any of us against the others.

Let me just say this, I'm not going to pretend he would endorse me. I wish he would. I would love that, but I endorse him, and I'm going to tell you why.

It wasn't just his specific policies, but Ronald Reagan was something more than just a policy wonk. He was a man who loved this country, and he inspired this country to believe in itself again.

What made Ronald Reagan a great president was not just the intricacies of his policies, though they were good policies. It was that he loved America and saw it as a good nation and a great nation because of the greatness of its people.

And if we can recapture that, that's when we recapture the Reagan spirit. It's that spirit that has a can-do attitude about America's futures and that makes us love our country whether we're Democrats or Republicans. And that's what I believe Ronald Reagan did -- he brought this country back together and made us believe in ourselves.

And whether he believes in us, I hope we still believe in those things which made him a great leader and a great American.

When I can find some video of it, I'll add it. The best part was that this was the very last statement made by any of the candidates in the debate.

Governor Huckabee at Heritage

I am a long-time member of (more than that, i make an automatic monthly contribution to) the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank based in Washington DC. Their primary purpose is to assist political leaders, particularly Senators and House members, craft public policy that comports with conservative principles. Well, heck, here is their mission statement.

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute - a think tank - whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

Early in his tenure as Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee presented a lecture at Heritage called "Cutting Taxes and Other Great Ideas for Congress". I have highlighted some good excerpts…

• In Arkansas…, there are conservatives who believe that government really does need to get smaller, not larger; who believe that the best government is the most local government; who believe that taxes should be smaller; and who try to bring more efficiencies into what we do in government. And the good news is that this message of smaller, more efficient and accountable government is selling in our state.
  
• The executive branch cannot accomplish anything without working with the legislative branch, sitting down with them, negotiating, and treating the members with respect because they were elected just like I was.
  
• One of the greatest challenges that I faced as governor of a state like Arkansas was that for 162 years the tax burden on Arkansans always went up. It never went down… But, for the first time in 1997 and again this session, the old paradigm was no longer valid. The big battle was no longer, "Which taxes will we raise and by how much?" but, "Which taxes will we cut and by how much?"
  
• We passed a comprehensive income tax relief package, marking the first time in Arkansas' history that the state had seen a major, broad-based income tax cut. This $90.6 million tax relief measure lessened the tax burden on Arkansans in many ways.
  
  • Ended the income tax marriage penalty
    
  • Below the poverty line? No income tax
    
  • Ended bracket creep by indexing to inflation
    
  • Doubled the allowable child care credit
    
  • Eliminated the capital gains tax on sale of primary home
    
• In both 1997 and 1999, we produced balanced budgets with tax relief in the budgets. In other words, we budgeted for tax relief. By finding savings to pay for new programs, we proved it was possible to propose new and needed programs by reallocating resources while still providing tax relief. This has never before been accomplished in Arkansas.
  
• Character-based education has become a very important component of our education structure in Arkansas, and school districts have options on how they implement it… Children need to understand there are consequences for living out virtues, and we've already seen some pretty convincing results: discipline problems are going down and the learning atmosphere has improved dramatically.
  
• In addition to making it possible, through the Fair Dismissal Act, to get rid of teachers who are not doing the job and who are violating their contract, we also passed a bill that will provide financial incentives up to $2,000 a year of additional money for teachers who show extraordinary excellence in teaching.
  
• 44 percent of the people on welfare a year and a half ago are now off the welfare rolls and are in jobs and working.
  
• These are some of the things we've done, and they are proof positive that cutting taxes, making government performance-driven and accountable to the people, and bringing some sense of real fairness to government's overall approach is making life better for all our citizens.
  

Now does that look anything like a liberal to you? Don't believe the nonsense you hear from cranky political opponents. And consider that, around the same time Governor Huckabee delivered this address and set his state on a new path of conservatism, John McCain and Fred Thompson were in the Senate cooking up some new bitter brew called campaign finance reform, and this same duo would soon be strategizing to make McCain the 2000 GOP nominee for president.

Vote For, Not Against

NOTE: Originally posted December 12, 2007, on my personal blog.

One of the main reasons I finally decided to support Mike Huckabee for President in 2008 is that I like the prospect of voting for somebody rather than against someone else. In 2004, I noted to anyone who would listen that John Kerry wouldn't beat Bush because it is too tough to rally people long-term in voting against somebody. The Democrats kept talking about how much they hated Bush, and they tried to turn out the vote with an anti-Bush message rather than a pro-Kerry one.

I feared that 2008 would be a mirror image. Only this time, it would be Republicans trying to GOTV with appeals to the scariness of Hillary Clinton (and make no mistake about it, she is plenty scary). This strategy is a loser. It's also why I never jumped on the electability bandwagon. In the Republican race so far, "electability" has most often been defined as "somebody who can beat Hillary." Yes, several people would be inspired to come out to vote against Hillary, but firming up that support is much easier if the Republican is someone the people want to vote for.

Mike Huckabee is the kind of candidate that many people will want to vote for, even if they don't agree with him on every issue. I've only voted "against" somebody once in my life. That was in 1996. I wasn't particularly thrilled with Bob Dole, but I knew he was preferable to Bill Clinton.

I'm excited to have a candidate I can vote for in 2008.

My Own Two Hands

I love this Huckabee-supporter-created video featuring the song My Own Two Hands by Ben Harper and Jack Johnson. As the supporter asks on the youtube page...

What can we imagine if we all took the time to live in harmony with the world and people around us? What would the world be like if we had a president who lived by that philosophy?

Let's all make use of our own two hands, using all the gifts God gave us, to make this world a better place. To quote Henry Van Dyke: "Use what talent you possess - the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best."

Huckabee Does Not Exist

Mike Huckabee does not exist. It's just not possible. At least not the version presented to us by his detractors.

We are to believe that Mike is, at once, both Bill Clinton and Pat Robertson. He is a knuckle-dragging caveman and a hillbilly in one breath, and a Rovian genius, churning out brilliant ads choked with subliminal message for true believers only, in the next breath. He is Pat Buchanan and John Edwards. He's Jimmy Carter & Jerry Falwell. He is left of Dennis Kucinich and right of Jesse Helms.

It's dizzying.

There's an old adage in both politics and journalism that if you're being attacked from both sides, you must be doing something right. FDR also supposedly was quoted along those lines back in the mid-30s, right before he went out and won another term with over 60% of the popular vote, and a landslide % of the electoral college (97%), losing only 2 states (Maine & Vermont).

I'm also reminded of a 70s rock tune "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealers Wheel. (And not because someone's gonna get their ear cut off, a la Reservoir Dogs, a movie I haven't seen.) I amended the lyrics for Huck…

Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am
Huck in the middle with you

It's time for a re-read of The Party of Sam's Club. It's time for a Grand New Party. Or just understanding the party we already have. The coalitions that already exist. So even if a pundit-created Mike Huckabee does not exist, the real Mike Huckabee does, and he best fits with where America is today.

Hometown Paper Comes Through

Growing up in Dallas, the premier (and only surviving) newspaper was the Dallas Morning News. Today, they endorsed Mike Huckabee for the GOP nomination for President. It's a nice write-up, with a great conclusion:

Plain-spoken and eloquent, Mr. Huckabee strikes us as decent, principled and empathetic to the views and concerns of others – an antidote to the power-mad partisanship that has led U.S. politics to a dispiriting standstill.

"I'm a conservative," he likes to say. "I'm just not mad about it." Along those lines, what sold us on Mr. Huckabee is a sense that of all the Republicans, he is the change agent the nation most needs...

America needs a clean break from the bitter politics of the recent past. From the right, Mike Huckabee, a progressive conservative with a pastor's heart, can deliver.

Not (Merely) Republican or Democrat, But American

Underscoring my point from Friday, Rick Scarborough presents this anecdote about the support of Mike Huckabee.

This week an activist in Iowa made an interesting comment to me about the Mike Huckabee phenomena. While the Romney campaign has spent millions in Iowa to attract voters, the Huckabee campaign has aired few commercials because, until recently, they couldn’t afford a full campaign staff--let alone spend money on media buys. Yet Romney is falling like a rock in the polls and Huckabee’s numbers are soaring. This long time activist in Iowa politics said of Huckabee that rank and file people of both parties in her state are attracted to him because he is neither Republican nor Democrat, but American.

As I pondered her statement I thought, how refreshing, and perhaps how insightful. Huckabee has rankled the ire of many traditional conservatives with his unorthodox politics; while being unapologetic about his traditional social views, he challenges some of the conservative conclusions with many of his views regarding taxes, immigration and education. That mix usually spells disaster among Republicans yet he is leading the pack at present.

There are many speculative reasons offered for why he holds those views, but my friend’s comment that he is American resonates with me. Could it be that people are drawn to him because in him they see a genuine, authentic American, who embraces biblical truth and is attempting, in his humanity, to apply it to public policy? No one will ever get it completely right, and Huckabee won’t, but people like the fact that he is trying and not affected by the attacks from both the left and the right. And I believe that true Americans like the fact that in his campaign, “they,” not the handlers, nor the money people, nor the media, nor the political hacks, are driving his candidacy. His campaign has lacked money but it has generated what millions cannot buy--true believers.

Well said. That's how we Huck the system.

A Leader of All

Despite the punditocracy attempt to marginalize Mike Huckabee as a single constituency candidate, as merely a pastor catering to evangelicals, the governor takes a higher road and seeks to serve all Americans, as he has stated time and time again. He champions "vertical politics", as witnessed in an answer to one of the questions at the most recent Iowa debate.

It's a resonating message. To wit, in the latest Newsweek Iowa poll, Governor Huckabee draws as much support from non-evangelicals as does Mitt Romney, with the two governors tied for the lead among that group with 24% a piece. If you still think this is Pat Robertson redux, you will be surprised, as you have been until now.