Jan 07 2008
Huckabee Is Crusading
I simply do not recall this kind of rhetoric ever coming from George Bush:
“When we become believers, it’s as if we have signed up to be part of God’s Army, to be soldiers for Christ,” Huckabee told the enthusiastic audience.
I understand the intent and can dial back the words to mean something much less provocative. I was raised a Catholic and have a few evangelical preachers in my family. But this is the kind of stuff that al-Qaeda just loves to run as recruitment material to enlist suicide bombers. Huck should have realized that when he ran for President it meant suspending his being a preacher. They are two different jobs. Another neophyte mistake (like Obama’s attempt to give the Surrendercrats in Congress credit for the successes in Iraq and the Sunni Awakening).
I do not want a preacher elected President. My soul is not the Presidents business. President Bush supported with Federal dollars those who help the needy recognizing that they did good work that the government could not do. Huck needs to go back to his church.
Not only that but would a Jewish or Buddhist voter want to be “soldiers for Christ”? That quote just about does it as far as Huckabee is concerned. I do NOT want religion injected into the race and I am going to make a point not to vote for a candidate who runs on his religious beliefs. It is needlessly polarizing.
This is Jimmy Carter all over again – the Jimmah of ’75 and ’76. Huck has Jimmy Carter economic policy, Jimmy Carter foreign policy, and the same kind of happy religion talk meant to fool southern voters into thinkins he’s some kind of conservative. We’re still paying for the mistakes that Jimmy made today (see Iran; esp. Ayatollah Khomeini) Last night, the Huckster was claiming with glee that the voters of Arkansas re-elected him several times even though they were predominantly democrats. Gee, ya think that’s a clue as to your true philosophy, Huck?
No true conservative could ever fall for the aw-shucks gomerism that Huckabee is trying to sell.
I can remember Bush catching hell for using the phrase evil doers and crusade.
My question is: is this remark in response to a question about his faith or about his politics?
If it is his faith, he has every right to express how he feels about his religion. If it is about his feelings as a political leader that is something else.
I will say this, being a Christian did not turn Bush into Jimmy Carter. And I still think that while he is not my first choice I certainly do not want to insult or run off his supporters. That would be the kiss of death for Republicans.
WWS:
This is the kind of thing that irritates me. Right now Huckabee is ahead in the polls among Republicans. He will probably not stay there, but it is not up to you or me anyone else to decide what a true conservative would vote for, it is up to the people. remember them?
This is Ronald Reagan, back in 1977 when he was actively pursuing social conservatives:
And let me say so there can be no mistakes as to what I mean: The New Republican Party I envision will not be, and cannot, be one limited to the country club-big business image that, for reasons both fair and unfair, it is burdened with today. The New Republican Party I am speaking about is going to have room for the man and the woman in the factories, for the farmer, for the cop on the beat and the millions of Americans who may never have thought of joining our party before, but whose interests coincide with those represented by principled Republicanism. If we are to attract more working men and women of this country, we will do so not by simply “making room†for them, but by making certain they have a say in what goes on in the party. The Democratic Party turned its back on the majority of social conservatives during the 1960s. The New Republican Party of the late ’70s and ’80s must welcome them, seek them out, enlist them, not only as rank-and-file members but as leaders and as candidates.
And btw, Ronald Reagan did well with Democrats too, so does McCain and Rudy.
Wow, it sounds like a Frankenstein movie. The traditional business/limited government wing of the Republican party embraced the christian evangelicals starting in 1980 and rode their coattails to hold the White House for 20 of the next 28 years. Not only did the Republican party push the moral issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc.), it adopted them as central policies in large part to attract and galvanize evangelicals. All was good in the land of the elephant – seemed like a perfect relationship.
Suddenly, an evangelical candidate adopts a populist message that is not in line with the traditional business/limited government wing and you Republicans are concerned he is too religious.? Oh no, we created a monster and now it is turning against us!!! Too funny.
I’ve been telling my conservative/religious friends for a long time that the Republican party is using them and playing them for fools. Look what happened in 2004 when the evangelicals began to realize that despite all of your lofty rhetoric, the Republican party is morally bankrupt. I can’t wait to see the fall out when the evangelicals realize that you think their candidate is just a little too religious. Wow, I never thought I’d see a major politcal party self-destruct in such a short amount of time.
The thing is when we see the Obama rallies, everyone is happy and optimistic and looking forward to the future. Hell, the Europeans are calling him the new Kennedy.
And then we have the Republicans, who instead of looking like a good time, are looking like a dysfuctional family at a funeral just wanting to get the old boy in the ground so that they can start fighting over his money.
They need to stop the bickering. People don’t like miserable unhappy people. They certainly don’t vote for them.
Well you know what conman, I never thought the first female Speaker of the House would bring down her party’s popularity in less time than it took for them to win the election that put her there, but Pelosi managed to do just that.
Terrye,
While I’m not going to defend Pelosi because I agree that she has not been a steller Speaker of the House, the irony is that it doesn’t really matter. The Republican party is in such disarray that the Democrats will take the White House and increase their margins in Congress in 2008 despite the weak Democratic Congress. Look at the facts. The Democrats have raised much more campaign money than the Republicans. The Republicans have far more open seats in play for Congress. The Democrats are excited about almost all of their presidential candidates and the Republicans are left trying to choose between the lesser of many evils. The Democratic turnout in the Iowa caucas crushed the Republican turnout (contrary to recent history). Polls show independents swinging away from the Republicans to the Democrats in droves. I could go on and on. Face it – the Republicans outlook for 2008 is as bleak as it gets. Why you folks are spending so much time fighting amongst yourselves when the deck is already stacked against you is beyond me.
’08 is a long way off, it is too early to make those kinds of predictions. After all, who would have predicted 6 months ago that Hillary would be in tears and Obama would be in the lead?
As for turnout in Iowa, keep in mind there are 49 other states. We have a long long way to go.
I know the Democrats can push some kind of fantasy and get people to vote for them. It is like telling me I can eat all the chocolate I want and not get fat. I like the sounds of that, but sooner or later reality will break through.
Such as everyone is tired of war, but if not for the war Libya would have a bomb and Saddam and his psycho sons would be slaughtering Kurds and building weapons they are not supposed to have. Oil might be even higher than it is. I know that the Democrats will tell us that Saddam would have seen the light as would Gaddafi, there would be peace in the world and everyone would love us and oil would be cheap no matter how much of it China was buying blah blah blah.
But I remember the world before Bush and it was not the kind of world Obama wants to sell us. He is like a pretty child and someday the new just might wear off.
BTW, conman Democrats do a pretty good job of fighting among themselves too.
It isn’t Huckabee’s evangelical credentials that bother me – if I thought he was an honest candidate who supported general conservative values I’d be glad to support him. But there’s a story out tonite from his camp that illustrates perfectly why I believe he’s a lying, scheming, untrustworthy snake oil salesman who is pulling the wool over the eyes of his honest supporters.
“Mike Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution to prevent children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens from automatically becoming American citizens, according to his top immigration surrogate — a radical step no other major presidential candidate has embraced.”
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080108/NATION/311698216/1001
Now, this is a debatable position – honestly, getting a constitutional amendment passed on this matter isn’t going to happen – but the real point is that this is 180 degrees opposed to everything Huckabee has ever said or done on the subject before. This came out of the blue – can anyone possibly believe that he actually supports this idea, or is this just 30 day pandering to the anti-immigrant crowd during a key point in the primaries? And of course, once the primaries are over he can conveniently forget anyone in his camp ever said this.
This is exactly why I object so strongly to Huckabee – everything I see shows me a man who will do anything, say anything, be anything to get what he wants and who, once he’s there, will do whatever he wants without any regard at all to what he’s said before. He believes in nothing except his own ambition – how like the previous governor of Arkansas who made it to the top!
And how like Jimmy Carter. Huckabee is a disaster – I’m sorry if that offends his supporters, but thanks to what I see as the complete lack of honesty and disingenuousness in his campaign I believe he and Ron Paul are the two Rep. candidates who would actually be worse for the country than either Obama or Hillary. And that’s saying a lot.