Mike Huckabee: Morality Affects Our Economy

In the 2008 presidential race Mike Huckabee was the consistent and unashamed voice for social issues. He championed a right to life amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and strongly believed in the sanctity of marriage. In response to Mitch Daniels comments, he released a missive entitled "Morality Affects Our Economy" which explains why we must not surrender the social issues if we want to rebuild this economy. If only Huck could have convinced Republicans in 2008 that he was a fiscal conservative, we may not be in this situation.

Many of you saw the comments made by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels last
week when he said the next president “would have to call a truce on the
so-called social issues” so he or she could focus on the fiscal problems facing
the country.

As I’ve made clear, I really like Governor Daniels, and I consider him a
friend and colleague, but his comments mirror those of the GOP establishment who
view values voters dismissively as “single-minded.” The fact is that every value
voter I know is truly committed to fiscal conservatism, but many fiscal
conservatives and libertarians range from disinterest to contempt for social
issues.

I learned a lot during 13 1/2 years as a Governor and Lieutenant Governor
about why government gets big and taxes get higher and what causes and solves
the issues of poverty and crime. I detailed a lot of that in my book “Do the
Right Thing,” but here’s the simple truth: Poverty and crime are the direct
results of broken families and broken values of responsibility, work, marriage,
and respect of others. Prisons are overflowing and government “relief”
programs get traction often because of the breakdown of our social structure. If
we don’t respect the value of each individual life whether in the womb or the
classroom or the living room, we devalue property and intangible qualities of
life. It gets expensive.

I responded to Gov. Daniel’s comments with the following blog post on
HuckPAC.com: “ . . .the issue of life and traditional marriage are not
bargaining chips nor or they political issues. They are moral issues. I didn’t
get involved in politics just to lower taxes and deficit spending though I
believe in both and have done it as a Governor. But I want to stay true to the
basic premises of our civilization.”

Sadly, Gov. Daniels is not alone in his way of thinking and it’s not a new
concept. During the last presidential election – many reporters, Republicans and
Democrats suggested the same moratorium on morality. The political winds began
to whisper of stopping the discussion on morality and starting the discussion on
the “important issues.”

Let me be clear – MORALITY AND THE ECONOMY are inextricably
linked.

• The collapse of morality and ethical business practices preceded the
collapse of Wall Street – unchecked greed caused the downfall;
• A decrease in morality preceded an increase in the prison population –
state budgets via taxes, increase every year to pay for prisons;
and,
• We don’t emphasize character in our public schools, and ignorance is
expensive-- a national high school drop out rate of 1 in 3 students produces
poverty – crippling our economy in countless ways.

I’m not saying Wall Street, prisons and poverty are not the only influences
on our economy – there are countless others – nor am I saying morality solves
every economic crisis we face. But I am saying strong moral fiber would prevent
many of our nation’s economic disasters.

Should we focus on the economy and the staggering and crippling debt?
Absolutely! But I fear that talk of a “truce” means that we are making excuses
for compromise on moral issues, and there is no need to separate economic issues
from the social issues. We can and must focus on both. Now is not the time
to shift focus from moral issues we need to shift focus toward moral
issues.

Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee

In Which I Agree With Tom Davis...

While I tend not to agree with Tom Davis, he understands Virginia politics very well, and his analysis of last week's primary was spot on. When asked by Politico what the most important election result was, and what we can learn, Davis made the point that the establishment is in trouble and even pointed to Virginia as an example of this.

"It's a political revolt out there. Jane Harman's numbers were down. Gary Miller's under 50 percent. Even the establishment Republicans in Virginia who run, they had multiple candidates against them and they were well under 50."

In VA-2, VA-5, and VA-11 there were very clear establishment candidates in Scott Rigell, Robert Hurt, and Pat Herrity. Scott, had the full backing of Bob McDonnell and Bill Bolling, Robert Hurt had the support of most Republican officials because of his electability as opposed to his positions, and Herrity had the support of almost every party leader and elected official in the 11th district including Becky Stoeckel and Anthony Bedell. With all this support all three of these candidates failed to top 50% of the vote, and in probably the biggest surprise of the night, Herrity lost to Fimian by double digits. The only reason the establishment won in the 2nd and 5th is that the opposition was very disorganized and self centered and split the vote at least 5 ways in each race. When you combine these results with Howie Lind and Bill Stanley's victories in the 10th and 5th District Chair races, combined with victories in a number of unit chair races, this has to be a discouraging year for the establishment in VA. When the grassroots organizes and works together it can win any race. As a result we now have a much stronger party as we work together to win every congressional district in the state this fall.

The Kind of Candidates We Should Not be Recruiting

In this article Patrick Ruffini argues that another front in the war on the establishment is stopping ending the search for self funded candidates. This is a must read article as we prepare for the 2010 election cycle.

An important quote is

The lesson here is that fundraising is not an independent variable. Fundraising is a dependent variable and the independent variable is the message. There does not exist an innate ability to fundraise independent of a strong message -- unless the candidate is fabulously wealthy and can self-fund. And in cases where there might be, all the fundraising in the world cannot overcome a poor message. If a candidate is wealthy or has rich friends, but has no message, the GOP should run -- not walk -- away from that candidate.

What is our priority for next year?

In a recent interview Erick Erickson made news by saying that his number one goal for 2010 is beating the Republican establishment.



Those are sentiments I definitely concur with. Some argue our end goal must be electing Republicans, and after the nomination contests are over that is definitely true, but our number one goal must be advancing conservative principles. We must run viable conservatives in primaries, run them for party office, and hold them and all Republicans accountable after we elect them. We did it this year by electing Ken Cuccinelli, and we will run him for whatever else he needs to run for, my fellow blogger and others tried to do it last spring when they fought to keep Jeff Frederick as party chair, and we must keep up the fight this coming year in the many nomination contests and district chair races across the state next spring.

It is as we advance our conservative principles and govern as conservatives that we will win elections, and if the establishment stands in our way, so be it.

Mike Huckabee Endorses Marco Rubio for U.S. Senate

In this video Mike Huckabee announces his support for Marco Rubio as he seeks the Republican nomination to replace Mel Martinez in the U.S. Senate.

Mike Huckabee also issued a statement in which he was highly critical of the Republican establishment's support for Charlie "I love the bailout" Crist.

“I’m disgusted that they would take a position in a hotly contested race when you have a quality candidate like Marco Rubio, who was the youngest Speaker in the Florida House,” Huckabee told The Hill. “This is not just some nameless, faceless guy that decided to throw his name in, who had no chance and no credibility.”

He continued: “I thought that their endorsement not only was premature, but was outrageous. And they ought to get behind the guy who would do a whole lot more, in my mind, to unite and fire up Republicans, and that’s Marco Rubio.”

“The establishment Republicans have made this endorsement for the same reason that they’re in so much trouble,” Huckabee said. “They go out there and support stuff like TARP bills and stimulus packages, pork-barrel spending and huge debt, and they wring their hands and act like, 'This is not good, but we don’t have a choice.' "

Party Activsts Declaring this a Race for the Future of our Party

I am excited to announce that Mason Conservative is now on board. At the beginning of the month he posted to regretfully ask for Jeff to step down. At the time it was one of the most pro-Jeff pieces I had seen on the internet. Now we are excited to have him as a partner in the "We Support Chairman Jeff Frederick" movement.

That's what has finally changed my mind, because a stand has to be taken. If its not Frederick, it will be the next outsider/grassroots conservative that makes a run for the top that will be torn apart... If I roll over on Jeff Frederick, then there will be more of these purges from these establishment puritans who don't want activists, independent thinkers, people who care more about what the activists say and less about what the leadership, the lobbyists, and the consultants say... This move by the state central committee is a slap in the face to people like me who work hard at the grassroots level, who went to that convention and voted for Jeff Frederick.

Without referencing Jeff Frederick, James Atticus Bowden described the grassroots vs. establishment fight that is occurring in VA, and argued for a rise of Constitutional Republicans.

If you would like to get involved in the We Support Chairman Jeff Frederick movement, please join us on facebook, or the RPVNetwork, sign the petition, and contact your state central members and the McDonnell campaign.