December 2007

The Politico reports that Mike Huckabee "is continuing to accept paid speaking engagements in the thick of his insurgent presidential campaign, although churches get a break from his usual fee of up to $25,000."

American Right To Life Action is running TV ads in Iowa that say that Mitt Romney is "willing to sacrifice children, [and] lying for your vote."

While it is debatable that God is really responsible for Mike Huckabee’s recent rise in the polls, as he claims, it is clear that something is at work which has propelled the one-time “also ran” into a legitimate contender for the Republican presidential nomination – and that something appears to be a network of disparate but committed right-wing grassroots activists and organizations.  As the Dallas Morning News recently explained:

Mike Huckabee's political rise has been fueled by a vast network of local Christian leaders largely unknown to the general public but powerfully influential in evangelical circles.

That strategy – methodically rolling up the support of these grass-roots networks – has paid big dividends, helping catapult Mr. Huckabee ahead in Iowa and boosting his prospects in the Republican field.

"All these leaders that most of the national media don't recognize, they're all coming to Huckabee," said supporter Kelly Shackelford of Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute.

…

"You've got the home-school network. You've got the right-to-life network. You've got networks of megachurches," said John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

"The Huckabee campaign apparently understands something about the evangelical community that people outside don't – that it's highly decentralized," he said.

So far, Huckabee has been rolling up an ever-growing list of B-list right-wing figures while courting even fringier figures such as Steve Hotze and John Hagee, whom Huckabee praised as "one of the great Christian leaders of our nation."  Meanwhile, his supporters were all geared up to travel around Iowa and put on “non-partisan” rallies benefiting him until they ran into problems with the weather and their tour bus.   

But Huckabee’s biggest and most active boosters, at least in Iowa, seem to be home-schoolers who are, as the Des Moines Register described them, “Republicans … united by core principles, especially their rejection of public schools in favor of their own religious-based teaching”:

"They stand for the same things, and they trust each other," said Christine Hurley, a Pleasant Hill Republican active in the state's home-school network.

"I think that's what's happening with the Huckabee thing," said Hurley, who supports Huckabee. "When you understand he's a Baptist minister, you don't have to ask what he stands for."

…

Michael Farris' endorsement of Huckabee in May, meaningless to much of the voting public, sent a strong signal to Crawford and other Christian home-school families in Iowa. Farris is founder and chairman of the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association and the national figure for Christian home-school families.

"That was sort of the icing on the cake," Crawford said of Farris' endorsement. "It wasn't the be-all and end-all. But that was the thing that got me to take Governor Huckabee seriously."

The Washington Post reported on the same phenomenon, as has the Los Angeles Times, and even CBN’s David Brody. And while Mike Farris might not be a household name, he is a longtime right-wing activist (having served as general counsel for Concerned Women for America and as executive director and general counsel of the Washington state chapter of the Moral Majority) and obviously extremely influential within the home-school movement.  

In the end, what really excites these home-schoolers about Huckabee is that he is the most “biblically qualified” candidate out there:

"[Home-school families] see it as a civic duty and it's important to try to elect leaders who hold the same values families do. They get behind a candidate and support them," said [Justin] LaVan, who supports Huckabee as a "biblically qualified" figure "who doesn't want to put up barriers or increase control over home-schooling."

When we posted the “700 Club” report on a group of missionaries who believe God is using Interstate 35 to “invade” gay bars and porn shops along the highway, many people remarked on the amateur video featured in the segment that purported to show a young man being “freed” from “the desires to be with men” through the laying of hands outside a nightclub:

CBN REPORTER: Stabile felt God moving in him then, saving him and taking away his homosexuality.

JAMES STABILE: He just came in and complete transformed and radically saved me … I didn’t feel the desires to be with men like I had felt before.

JOE ODEN: We laid hands on him. He was hit by the power of God and filled with the Holy Ghost, got plugged into our church, and is just living for God.

What really happened to James Stabile? John Wright of the Dallas Voice tracked him down. When Stabile was interviewed by the “700 Club,” he had already been kicked out of Heartland World Ministries’ “ex-gay treatment facility” for lying compulsively.

But, as Wright reports, that did not prevent Heartland from “asking Stabile to do an interview for a segment on televangelist Pat Robertson’s ‘The 700 Club’ about the so-called purity sieges organized by the church outside gay bars.” Additionally, Stabile, who reportedly has bipolar disorder, “hadn’t taken his medication in 2 and-a-half weeks and had been drinking when he encountered the group from Heartland on the strip.”

Wright also spoke with Stabile’s parents, who helped explain how their son became a Religious Right media sensation for a day:

Joseph Stabile said the Heartland folks also may have advised James to throw away his medication, telling him that God would cure his bipolar disorder, too.

Joseph’s parents said James has a tendency to be less than truthful, especially when he’s off his medication, and that he loves attention. They said they don’t believe he’s ever questioned his sexuality, but that the folks from Heartland manipulated and exploited him for publicity.

They also provided a glimpse of life inside the “ex-gay” facility:

James just told them it was “horrible” and that there are some things he will never be able to share.

James’ mother, Suzanne, said he told her the people at Pure Life constantly threatened that he was going to hell.

Men in the program had to be fully clothed from the neck down at all times, including when they went to sleep, James told his parents. And they were prohibited from any physical contact, including shaking hands.

Speaking with Wright, Stabile “apologized to the LGBT community” and said he hopes “his story will discourage others from entertaining ideas that they can change their sexual orientations.”

The anti-immigrant sentiment that swept across the country in 2006—leaving in its wake hard-line activist groups and anti-immigrant ordinances in a handful of localities—seemed to hit the wealthy Northern Virginia exurbs a year late. But efforts by Virginia’s Republican Party to ride the anti-immigrant wave to last month’s off-year elections did not pan out, as the party lost control of the state Senate. Nevertheless, the suburban vigilantes persist, and they’re now forming a statewide lobbying group and political action committee:

Greg Letiecq, president of the group Help Save Manassas and a co-founder of Save the Old Dominion, said … "What is missing is the engagement of regular citizens in legislative process[.] The only people who showed up last year [to lobby the General Assembly] was the illegal alien lobby." …

Corey A. Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, has said the grass-roots efforts of Help Save Manassas were instrumental in drumming up support for a resolution adopted by county officials on July 10 that restricts public services for illegal aliens. Mr. Letiecq said organizers hope to replicate their success on a statewide level.

"Hopefully, we can do that in Richmond and make sure they are listening to citizens as much as special interests," he said.

Unfortunately for Stewart, the Prince William County supervisor, he’s also finding out that his immigrant-fighting plan is going to cost a fortune and require a property-tax hike. (Via Ryan Avent.)

After Minutemen co-founder Jim Gilchrist endorsed Mike Huckabee last week, other anti-immigrant border vigilantes rushed to repudiate their erstwhile comrade. Chris Simcox, who split with Gilchrist in 2005, dismissed the latter’s influence and criticized Huckabee’s “duplicitous” immigration program. The leader of another Minutemen splinter group called the endorsement “disturbing.”

A variety of anti-immigrant groups also came out of the woodwork to pile on Gilchrist in a letter distributed by Americans for Legal Immigration: “We denounce Jim Gilchrist's solo endorsement of a pro-amnesty and Open Borders candidate for President. Mr. Gilchrist does NOT speak for us!” Signatories included representatives of a number of local Minutemen franchises, a FAIR front group, Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, Save Our State, California Coalition for Immigration Reform, and many more.

This week, Gilchrist is facing heavy pressure from WorldNetDaily reporter Jerome Corsi, the premier advocate of the “North American Union” conspiracy theory. Corsi’s approach, rather than simply denouncing Gilchrist, was to confront him with the claim that Huckabee’s immigration program contained some element making it unacceptable to them. In response, Gilchrist “backtracked” on his endorsement, according to a Corsi article titled “Minuteman reconsiders Huckabee endorsement.”

The only problem with Corsi’s friendlier approach—helping Gilchrist along with his retraction of the endorsement—is that Gilchrist denies it:

But Gilchrist says Corsi's article is not accurate. "I am holding firm. I am endorsing Governor Mike Huckabee for president. I'm not wavering or waffling," he states.

And as for the WorldNetDaily report? "I have to say that Mr. Corsi really made me feel like he was interrogating me like a police investigator or a prosecuting attorney, rather than interviewing me," Gilchrist asserts. "He kept insisting that I was waffling -- and I did not say that; he kept saying that. And apparently he had an agenda."

But Corsi says he sticks by his story. "If Jim can't keep his story straight from one day to the other, ... I'll be happy to play back [for him] the recordings I made of him each day and Jim can listen to himself saying that he was going to reconsider the endorsement of Huckabee," he says.

What’s strangest about this exchange between Corsi and Gilchrist—with misunderstandings, hurt feelings, agendas—is that the two know each other very well. They wrote a book together on the Minutemen last year. Now, sadly, it seems they are no longer on speaking terms: Corsi’s latest article, which accuses Gilchrist of going soft, ends with the poignant line, “Gilchrist declined to comment.”

The AP reports that Mike Huckabee "is determined to make up for his skimpy organization in the state by enlisting national evangelical Christian supporters to rev up Iowa pastors and coax voters to the Jan. 3 caucuses."

Not every religious-right leader has fallen in love with Mike Huckabee. Although Christian Coalition founder and “700 Club” host Pat Robertson has a lot in common with Huckabee, whose surge in Iowa in some way mirrors Robertson’s run in 1988, Robertson is a firm backer of Rudy Giuliani, as he made clear last week.

Perhaps responding to Huckabee’s recent rise in South Carolina and even in Florida—Giuliani’s stronghold—Robertson has taken a break from meteorology to hit the campaign trail (by radio, anyway). On a Panama City, Florida station, Robertson emphasized that terrorism is his first priority, followed by the economy—no mention of those social issues that make James Dobson so angry:

BURNIE THOMPSON: “[G]lad to have you and I’ll tell you, Mayor Giuliani really does want Bay County’s vote. He’s been on talking with northwest Florida and I know that Florida’s very important to the Mayor. But I’ve got to tell you Dr. Robertson, I’m sitting with a very conservative Republican friend of mine who’s an evangelical Christian and his question he said ‘Please ask Dr. Robertson why, why would you endorse … Mayor Giuliani’”

ROBERTSON: “Well it’s real simple. I think the overriding issue in our society is going to be defense against terrorism. We’re in a war against militant Islam and I think we have to defend the American people. I think that’s the overriding issue and the second issue has to do with whether we’re going to destroy the economy or whether we’re going to build it up and have a future for our children.”

And on a Savannah, Georgia—Hilton Head, South Carolina station, Robertson promised right-wing Supreme Court appointments:

EDWARDS: “[H]e also is an administrator and most of the other people running for president have never run anything.”

ROBERTSON: “Well I felt that too. You know the United States government is the biggest corporation---executive decisions that a president has to make. … And especially the thing that strikes me also is his selection of judges. He has promised the American people, promised me, promised others that he’s going to put in judges after the stripe of Scalia, Thomas …”

Where does that leave Giuliani nemesis Randall Terry, who protested Robertson’s endorsement at the D.C. office of the televangelist’s Christian Broadcasting Network? Terry headed in the opposite direction, holding “vigils, literature drops, pickets and more” in New Hampshire “to expose the agenda of Rudy Giuliani.” Terry’s “literature” includes a fake pamphlet for the campaign of a white supremacist named Smith—“A Candidate with the courage to deal with the disaster of free Negroes, and the ‘white man’s right to own!’” The punchline: It’s a thickly-veiled metaphor for Giuliani, of course.

Should a Christian vote for someone who supports slavery? No!

Should a Christian vote for a racist who supports segregation? No!

Then how can a Christian vote for a candidate that supports the murder of children by abortion?! …

Don’t be seduced! If you vote for Rudy or Hillary or any pro-choice candidate, you share in the sin of child-killing, and betray the very Law of God. … Do the right thing: vote according to principle, not party; life, not death.

It looks as if Mike Huckabee is heading to Texas to raise a bit of money with the help of a few of his right-wing supporters:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has been gaining ground in the Republican presidential primaries, is scheduled to meet campaign donors in Houston today at the Tanglewood home of physician Steve Hotze, a longtime Christian conservative activist. Like other major presidential candidates, Huckabee is making a last dash for Texas cash before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary next month. His trip includes a fundraising event in Dallas after his Houston event.

Co-hosts for the $500-per-person Houston event include state Rep.Debbie Riddle of Tomball and Texan Rick Scarborough, founder of Vision America, which works to mobilize pastors and church congregations for political action.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you are undoubtedly familiar with Rick Scarborough, the self-described “Christocrat” who heads Vision America and has a penchant for suggesting that evangelical leaders are dying off because the nation has turned its back on God, suggesting that Christians will have "the blood of martyrs on [their] hands"if they don't oppose hate crimes legislation, blaming "the church" for just standing by and allowing the election of "unrighteous leaders" in 2006, and saying that opponents of the War in Iraq are committing treason, among other things.

Then there is Debbie Riddle, who is perhaps best known for this comment:

"Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever? It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell. And it's cleverly disguised as having a tender heart. It's not a tender heart. It's ripping the heart out of this country."

And what about Steve Hotze? Well, the Texas Freedom Network discribes him thusly:

Hotze is a prominent leader of anti-abortion, anti-gay and politically active religious political extremism in Houston. Hotze gained prominence while promoting a ‘Straight Slate’ of political candidates in response to Houston Mayor Kathy Whitmire’s support from the gay community. Using Christian Coalition tactics of organizing through churches and organizing on the precinct level, Hotze led the religious right’s campaign to take over the Harris County Republican Party from moderate Republicans.

The Houston Press provides a bit more background:

Thin and long-faced, 46-year-old Steven Forrest Hotze has carved out a niche in local politics over the past decade as an unyielding and occasionally strident opponent of abortion and public acceptance of homosexuality. He may not be a household name outside Republican circles, but within the party he is admired by a devout coterie of followers, catered to by secular conservatives and feared by moderates, who find themselves in a position of needing his approval to win nominations in GOP primaries. Those summoned to kiss his ring encounter a tough, uncompromising zealot who is used to getting his own way.

...

It's a considerable amount of clout for someone whose stated beliefs place him to the right of the religious right. "If we are to survive as a free nation, and if justice and liberty are to be restored in our land, then biblical Christianity, with its absolutes, must once again be embraced by our citizens," he wrote several years back in a Chronicle op-ed piece. "Only then can we expect to see Christianity's influence once again to be reflected in the laws of our civil government."

According to a separate Houston Press article that suggests that Hotze's medical credentials and views are a bit suspect, he also signed something called the Coalition on Revival's Manifesto for the Christian Church in 1986 that dictated:

• A wife may work outside the home only with her husband's consent

• "Biblical spanking" that results in "temporary or superficial bruises or welts" should not be considered a crime

• No doctor shall provide medical service on the Sabbath

• All disease and disability is caused by the sin of Adam and Eve

• Medical problems are frequently caused by personal sin

• "Increased longevity generally results from obedience to specific Biblical commands"

• Treatment of the "physical body" is not a doctor's highest priority

• Doctors have a priestly calling

• People receiving medical treatment are not immune from divine intervention or demonic forces

• Physicians should preach to their patients because salvation is the key to their health

Give that the vast majority of Huckabee's Religious Right backers are borderline theocrats, it remains to be seen just when, if ever, Huckabee is going to called to account for the types of people with which he is surrounding himself.

For months, Republican presidential hopefuls have been wooing potential conservative voters with pledges to nominate right-wing ideologues to the seats on the federal judiciary and, more importantly, the Supreme Court.  Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have been the two candidates most actively pushing this pledge, both having unveiled their own respective “judicial advisory committees” stuffed with judicial confirmation activists ranging from Ted Olson and Miguel Estrada to Jay Sekulow and James Bopp.  

But now Mitt Romney appears to have a leg-up in the battle over which candidate can secure the most militantly right-wing backer by landing the endorsement of Robert Bork:

Today, noted conservative jurist Judge Robert Bork endorsed Governor Mitt Romney for President of the United States.

Joining Romney for President, Judge Bork said, "Throughout my career, I have had the honor of serving under several Presidents and am proud to make today's endorsement. No other candidate will do more to advance the conservative judicial movement than Governor Mitt Romney … Our next President may be called upon to make more than one Supreme Court nomination, and Governor Romney is committed to nominating judges who take their oath of office seriously and respect the rule of law in our nation. I also support Governor Romney because of his character, his integrity and his stands on the major issues facing the United States."

Welcoming Judge Bork's support, Governor Romney said, "For decades, Judge Bork has been a leader in moving the conservative legal movement forward. As one of our nation's premier conservative jurists, he has been an important voice for our conservative values in Washington. I look forward to his counsel and working with him on the most important judicial matters facing our nation today."

Earlier this year, Bork appeared at the Values Voter Summit where he explained that social conservatives must use “tactical discretion” and continue to support the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, no matter who it is, in order to ensure that right-wing justices end up on the Supreme Court because, ultimately, “the object should be to get rid of Roe [v. Wade]:

While Romney may consider Bork to “one of our nation's premier conservative jurists,” that was obviously not the view of the bipartisan group of 58 senators who defeated Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, rejecting his extremist legal and judicial philosophy.  

In light of Bork’s endorsement, perhaps now would be a good time to dust off a 2002 PFAW op-ed ”In Praise of 'Borking’” which takes on the Right-created mythology that Bork was somehow the victim of a smear. In reality his confirmation hearings were perhaps the best public conversation about the Constitution that most Americans had ever seen, and it was Bork's own extremism that led to his bipartisan defeat.

It’s been a banner year for Florida’s Religious Right. In 2006, activists failed to get enough signatures to put their anti-gay marriage amendment on the ballot (despite help from the Republican Party), and its favored candidate for governor lost the GOP primary, leading one conservative commentator to declare that “the once-mighty ‘organized’ Christian-conservative voting bloc is no longer intact.”

The last few months have been a different story. In September, dozens of national religious-right activists converged on Fort Lauderdale for the Values Voter Presidential Debate, including Don Wildmon, Phyllis Schlafly, and Rick Scarborough. Even more headliners came to the state just days later for the Family Impact Summit, including Tony Perkins and Richard Land. All the attention must have paid off: Florida 4 Marriage succeeded in gathering enough signatures to put an anti-gay marriage amendment on the 2008 ballot.

Meanwhile, a CBN report warns of the threat of the “gay agenda” in Washington State, which recently passed a domestic partnership law, and in California, where anti-gay activists are in a frenzy over a recently-passed law that bars schools from promoting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. While this protection is already in effect when in comes to discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity, according to “700 Club” host Pat Robertson, when it comes to gays it’s a matter of “trying to recruit more of the straight population.”

Farah rages against Rick Warren even as pastor gives the right-wing web site a generous interview.

Yesterday we wrote that Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist’s endorsement of Mike Huckabee might be more of a hand up for the struggling anti-immigrant activist than for the cresting presidential candidate, given Gilchrist’s troubles maintaining leadership of his own group, much less a movement.

Sure enough, other anti-immigrant groups are rushing to dispute Gilchrist’s relevance. Chris Simcox, who split with Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project in 2005 to form the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, rushed out a mass e-mail dissing his rival:

No National Minuteman Group has endorsed Mike Huckabee. One individual Minuteman has personally endorsed him. For the sake of clarity, it is important to note that the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), the nation's largest Minuteman organization, is a 501(C)4 non-profit organization and cannot and does not endorse any candidate for public office. MCDC is not associated with Mr. Jim Gilchrist, who today endorsed Mike Huckabee for president. Jim Gilchrist’s erstwhile Minuteman Project is itself an organization which by its own representations as a non-profit civic group cannot legally endorse candidates. It does not have any volunteers who observe illegal border activity. It has no border fence building projects. Jim Gilchrist here speaks only for Jim Gilchrist, he does not speak for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, nor is he nationally representative of most patriots in the "Minuteman movement" – who under no circumstances could ignore the failed record nor endorse the duplicitous “plan” recently rolled out by candidate Mike Huckabee. The national media needs to recognize that Jim Gilchrist’s endorsement is his own personal statement, nothing more.

Another splinter group, the Patriots Border Alliance, called the endorsement “at best disturbing.” Group leader Bob Wright said, “[Huckabee’s] past rhetoric about the goals of Minutemen everywhere has been vicious — parroting the tired and discredited foolishness that an American citizen's desire to see the law enforced is somehow racist or xenophobic." A group called Americans for Legal Immigration also sent a mass e-mail warning against Huckabee.

What does Mike Huckabee need to get Religious Right leaders and voters to rally around his candidacy?  Apparently, all he needs is to have his right-wing views and record criticized by “elite secularists”:

Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington, DC, says Huckabee is being subjected to the same reverse religious litmus test that was applied during judicial confirmation hearings between 2003 and 2005.

"Senator Charles Schumer of New York said that he was opposed to some of these nominees of the president because of their 'deeply held personal beliefs' and those beliefs coming from their faith -- in particular, regarding abortion and seeing it as wrong," Perkins points out. "So we see a reverse religious test being applied [saying essentially] that anyone who has a vibrant Christian faith that impacts their life will have to choose between that faith and serving in public office -- and that, simply, is wrong."

Perkins says "elite secularists" are trying single out Huckabee because of his evangelical Christian faith, and are attempting to "make him look scary" to the public because he, among other things, rejects evolution, believes in the Bible, and trusts in Jesus Christ. But such efforts, the evangelical leader suggests, may only serve to generate more support for Huckabee in the conservative Christian community.

"I think there's a clear understanding and an attitude [about this] among Christians," says the FRC president. "They're simply tired of the elites who belittle their beliefs and attempt to rob them of every public reflection of their faith -- and I think this could backfire."

As always, whenever a Republican is questioned about his or her views and record, the Right’s immediate response is to impugn the motives of those who dare to point them out and accuse them of harboring everything from anti-Latino prejudice and flagrant anti-woman bias, to anti-Catholic bigotry and basic racism.

If Perkins was professionally invested in seeing anti-Christian persecution at every turn, he’d know that it is not “elite secularists” who are making Huckabee look scary – it is Huckabee’s own views that those with HIV should be quarantined and that “homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle” that is doing that.   

But if Perkins thinks that this sort of thing will help Huckabee with voters, Huckabee himself doesn’t seem to hold out much hope that the Religious Right elite will ever get over their reluctance to endorse him, even though he is a “true soldier for the cause”:

[Huckabee’s ads] also caught the attention of big-time figures in evangelical Christianity, many of whom have refrained from supporting Huckabee’s candidacy. This failure has puzzled and angered the governor. At the Olive Garden he spoke with bitterness about Richard Land, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. ‘‘Richard Land swoons for Fred Thompson,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t know what that’s about. For reasons I don’t fully understand, some of these Washington-based people forget why they are there. They make ‘electability’ their criterion. But I am a true soldier for the cause. If my own abandon me on the battlefield, it will have a chilling effect.’’

The following week, at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, Huckabee won the roomful of grass-roots evangelicals but failed to gain any significant endorsements from evangelical leaders. ‘‘The evangelical leadership didn’t, and perhaps still doesn’t, perceive Governor Huckabee as a winner,’’ Charles Dunn, dean of the school of government at Regent University, told me. ‘‘But more and more, it appears that the leadership is not in touch with its followers.’’

This indictment extends to the founder of Dunn’s own university, Pat Robertson, who has endorsed Rudy Giuliani. It applies equally to the National Right to Life Committee, which is with Fred Thompson; and to the Rev. Bob Jones III, Jay Sekulow, head of the American Center for Law and Justice (the evangelical counterpart of the A.C.L.U.), and Paul Weyrich, the conservative activist who helped build the evangelical movement, all of whom are supporting Mitt Romney. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, is still on the fence. ‘‘I just don’t understand his neutrality,’’ Huckabee told me one day at the end of October in Des Moines. ‘‘I’d be an obvious choice for his endorsement. We’re old friends. I love him and I love his wife, Shirley. I just don’t know how to explain it.’’

The Financial Times quotes Huckabee-backer Rick Scarborough: "He says many of his colleagues are starting to feel 'buyers' remorse' [for backing other candidates]. 'It's hard for some of my colleagues to admit their mistake,' he says. 'But if he wins Iowa and does well in South Carolina, you will start to see leaders of this community line up behind him ... 'What Huckabee has is something that all the money in the world can't buy: ordinary folk volunteering their time because they believe in him. These are people who don't have Ivy League degrees or political connections but they have a vote - and that's all that matters.'"

CNS News reports that some on the Right are not impressed with Mitt Romeny's views on stem cell research: "Wendy Wright, president of the conservative Concerned Women for America, told Cybercast News Service that Romney's position 'shows a need for more education.'"

As we reported a few weeks ago, a gaggle of right-wing Mike Huckabee supporters are poised to begin a series of non-partisan voter registration rallies in Iowa. 

Among those scheduled to take part are Rick Scarborough (who has endorsed Huckabee), Janet Folger (who has endorsed Huckabee and is co-chair of his Faith and Family Values Coalition), the Iowa Family Policy Center (whose president, Chuck Hurley, has also endorsed Huckabee and is also a member of his Iowa Pastors Coalition) and Redeem the Vote (whose president, Randy Brinson, has been working closely with Huckabee in Iowa.)

But rest assured, the events are “completely nonpartisan” – or so said Rick Scarborough when he discussed the events with Janet Folger on her radio show last week:

“[Our goal is to get] people who love Jesus to register and then vote their values – not as Republicans nor Democrats – but as follower and sons of God and Jesus Christ.  If we can get them to do that and then present to them what the candidates believe, I just happen to believe that the majority of them will vote right.” 

For those who want to know what the candidates believe, Folger suggested they check out the Values Voter Debate, which just so happens to be the event she organized and where she declared Huckabee “the David among Jesse’s sons” after he trounced the other candidates in the straw poll.    

As Scarborough explained:  

“Far too few [preachers] are involved in politics … but this is an election where you can say one of them is running for president and we need to see that God is raising up pastors … God is calling for men of God to take their place in leadership of this nation … Preachers need to go to their pulpits and encourage your people to do the righteous thing, to vote their values.  And then by example, you just say ‘I’m registered, I’m going to vote’ and then step around in front of that pulpit and say ‘I’m not saying this as pastor of this church’ and tell them what you believe about the candidates.”

So you can see:  the efforts of Huckabee’s supporters are entirely non-partisan.  

But for now, questions regarding the intent of those carrying out this endeavor are moot, as the rallies have become bogged down by weather and mechanical problems:

Last week we reported that we would be touring Iowa this week on a statewide bus tour. I regret to report that due to problems with the bus, coupled with the weather in Iowa, we made the decision to postpone the trip until a better time. At the time of this writing, there is still a discussion of going to Iowa and conducting some of the scheduled tour stops without the bus. If the tour goes forward we will send out a special report to communicate the schedule and solicit your prayers.

Once again, with the Right’s bogus “War on Christmas” rhetoric in full swing, members of Congress have stepped up to do their part – just as they did last year – and passed a resolution in the House “Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith”:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;

(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;

(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;

(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;

(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and

(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.

It is nice that the resolution decries the persecution of Christians here in the US, even if such persecution exists only in the minds of right-wing activists.   

Overcoming past slights, Alan Keyes will be participating in the the upcoming The Des Moines Register Presidential Debate: "Confirmed candidates for the Republican debate on Wednesday, December 12 are: Ambassador Alan Keyes; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; Rep. Duncan Hunter; Arizona Sen. John McCain; Texas Rep. Ron Paul; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo; and former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson."

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee recently took a shot at rival Mitt Romney for having changed his political positions:"I think people should judge Mitt Romney on his record. Is he consistent? Does he say and believe the things now that he said and believed before? That's what ought to be the criteria.”

When confronted over the weekend by his 1992 comments about people infected with HIV calling on the federal government to “take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague,” Huckabee said, "The one thing I feel like is important to note is that you stick by what you said" and that while he might say things differently today, “I don’t run from it, don’t recant from it.”

That concern about consistency apparently didn’t extend to his much more recent position on federal government policy toward Cuba. In fact, it only took a couple of hours for him to reverse course when it looked like his previous position might cost him some votes, according to a Miami Herald story about the GOP candidate debate hosted by television network Univisión:

Although the candidates kept it polite on stage, Fred Thompson's campaign circulated press clippings from 2002 in which Huckabee called for an end to the trade embargo with Cuba. In a letter to President Bush, Huckabee wrote at the time: ``U.S. policy on Cuba has not accomplished its stated goal of toppling the Castro regime and instead has provided Castro with a convenient excuse for his own failed system of government.''

That stance is bound to rile many Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade, who believe that the embargo helps undermine Fidel Castro's repressive regime.

Huckabee is certain to face questions about the embargo at a Monday morning press conference in Miami, where he is expecting an endorsement from Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, one of the most prominent Cuban-American Republicans in the state.

Caught off guard, Huckabee's campaign said two hours after the debate that he had since changed his position on the embargo after consulting with Cuban-American leaders. ''He's committed to vetoing any legislation that lifts sanctions on Cuba,'' said Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart.

The Religious Right looks to Maggie Gallagher and Robert George for intellectual cover when arguing that same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry, but whatever credibility they have as independent scholars will be put to the test by their new venture, the National Organization for Marriage.

Gallagher, president of the low-key Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (and perhaps most famous for taking money from the Bush Administration while promoting its marriage policy), and George, a Princeton professor, started NOM in order to lobby against marriage equality for same-sex couples and to campaign against legislators connected to the issue. The group ran this billboard in Massachusetts before the state’s 2007 election (image via Good As You):

The group is airing a radio ad in New Jersey against a bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry, featuring a child saying, “God creating Adam and Eve? That was so old-fashioned.” Although the bill, entitled “Civil Marriage and Religious Protection Act,” explicitly states that no religious group would be required to sanction any marriage (a requirement the First Amendment prohibits anyway) , the NOM ad hits on public fears that marriage equality for same-sex couples would imperil churches, stating, “They also want to penalize traditional New Jersey churches with threats to state tax exemptions and adoption licenses.”

The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation and Priests for Life have announced "the establishment of the 'International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo, and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters' ('Terri's Day'), to be observed each year on March 31, the date of Terri's death."

The Traditional Values Coalition reacts to Ambassador Guest's resignation by hailing Condoleezza Rice: "Secretary Rice is to be commended for taking a principled stand on the importance of granting marriage benefits only to those who are actually married. “Ambassador Guest was clearly attempting to have the State Department grant marriage benefits to homosexual couples. If he had succeeded, it would have had a ripple effect throughout the federal government.”

Newt Gingrich has descended upon the Iowa caucuses again, promoting a “Platform of the American People” –and, incredibly, raising the specter of running for vice president:

The timing of his appearances a month before the Jan. 3 Iowa presidential caucuses is leading political observers to suspect he's angling to be on the short list of running-mates for former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee or whoever is the Republican nominee. …

The former House speaker who flirted with a Republican presidential nomination run earlier this year said in a C-SPAN interview on Sunday that he might accept being the presidential nominee's running mate if offered.

"Depending on the circumstances, I'd be honored to be considered and under some circumstances, I'd probably feel compelled to say 'yes,' " said Mr. Gingrich, who says he will work until this summer's presidential nominating conventions "to get both parties to adopt a unity platform on a handful of things they could enact in the first 90 days of 2009."

It was just two months ago that Gingrich’s incipient presidential run was mercifully laid to rest, but some on the Right are apparently holding out hope that the former House speaker will save them, perhaps fondly recalling the “Contract with America” that he put together shortly before the Republicans took control of the House in 1995 and that served as a right-wing rallying cry after the elections.

Of course, a lot has happened since 1995. Gingrich quickly established his lack of popularity—within two years, his favorability rating was at 15 percent. His skills as a political strategist were put to the test as he pursued the impeachment of Bill Clinton in the run up to the 1998 elections, which resulted in a devastating loss for Republicans and his stepping down from leadership. Many Americans no doubt remember the hypocrisy of Gingrich prosecuting Clinton for sexual indiscretion while he himself was having an affair.

Gingrich was a key figure in creating the era of highly-polarized politics, but today he is branding himself, ironically, as a seeker of common ground, launching a campaign earlier this year of platitudes (“Real change requires real change,” etc.). Now, the Right is looking to him as its “ideas man,” gushing over his “intellectual heft.” “Newt Gingrich is the intellectual cornerstone of our modern conservative movement," said the American Conservative Union’s William Lauderback at this year’s CPAC.

While such a reputation on the Right may be hard to believe, it may ultimately doom his vice-presidential aspirations; ACU’s David Keene warns that Gingrich’s “articulateness and willingness to speak out on virtually every issue” would put candidates at risk of being “upstag[ed]” by him. That would indeed be embarrassing.

In any event, we’re sure Gingrich is enjoying all the attention, and it brings to mind the words of longtime Gingrich ally Matt Towery after Gingrich announced he wouldn’t seek the presidency. "The question is, around Washington: Was it a scam?”

As we noted last month, Tom Tancredo may have no chance of being elected president, but his campaign is succeeding at one thing: making other Republican candidates compete for who’s taking the hardest line against immigration. Indeed, last week’s GOP debate found the frontrunners trying to “out-Tancredo” each other. Still, Tancredo is trucking on, pushing the limits of what “Tancredoing” is. At a New Hampshire event—in which he offered the line, “They're not all coming here to do jobs Americans won't do, unless you can't find an American to blow up an American city”—Tancredo “mused” about his success (from the American Spectator):

… Tancredo offered another measure of his success. He mused about the early days of his crusade, the hundreds of hours spent on talk radio shows. "I used to ask myself, 'Does anyone care? Is anybody listening?'" He doesn't wonder anymore. The Hillary driver's license flap and his Republican opponents' surprisingly brutal dogfights on sanctuary cities and lawn workers are proof enough. When Tancredo repeated his debate one-liner about the other Republican candidates trying to "out-Tancredo Tancredo," everyone laughed appreciatively, then sighed. Predictably, Tancredo has his doubts as to whether anyone can actually out-Tancredo him. "I love the rhetoric," he said. "But how can we really know who believes in their heart and who is just watching polls?"

While Tancredo has never shied from advocating mass deportation of undocumented immigrants—“why not?” he asked at this Heritage event—his past proposals have been for “mass attrition,” the idea that immigrants will clear out on their own once the government gets aggressive enough in cracking down on them. But now that other candidates are pushing “attrition,” Tancredo is complaining it’s not enough:

Yesterday, he released a stark television ad here that shows photos of bloody bodies, including those of children, lying in a street, victims of gang violence. The ad warns that the violent criminals behind those kinds of attacks are sneaking into the U.S., and calls for deportation of illegal aliens — something most other candidates have shied away from, calling for attrition through better enforcement instead.

And he’s managed to distinguish himself in another way: He’s boycotting the GOP debate scheduled for this Sunday on Spanish-language network Univision. The debate is actually Republicans’ second chance, since most of the candidates snubbed them back in September, but this time everyone is coming except Tancredo. According to Tancredo, it’s about the rule of law:

"What all my colleagues — what the other candidates are doing — it's encouraging violation of the law because it's saying, 'Don't worry about the fact that you have to know English to earn citizenship,' " said Mr. Tancredo, the only Republican to turn down the invitation from Univision for Sunday night's debate and who said the other candidates' participation was worse than pandering.

For the Colorado congressman, it's a matter of principle: He said the other candidates are contributing to the Balkanization of the country by joining the debate, in which the candidates will speak English, but their answers will be translated into Spanish for broadcast on the nation's largest Spanish-language network. …

Mr. Tancredo said he expects his voice is being heard this way. "My not being there is probably the strongest statement I can make on this issue," he said.

But Tancredo may be finding it hard to “out-Tancredo” himself. While his last ad equated immigrants with terrorists (and included a dramatization of a terrorist attack), his new one only equates them with violent gangsters.

After months of dithering about whether to make a major speech about his Mormon faith, GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney is scheduled to address “Faith in America” at the George H. W. Bush presidential library Thursday night. John F. Kennedy’s famous speech (video | transcript) to protestant ministers in Houston is often cited as the precedent. But Romney’s no J.F.K. and this will have to be a much different speech.

Kennedy was the Democratic nominee pledging to Americans his support for “absolute” separation of church and state, promising that his Catholicism would not dictate his policy positions, and urging Americans to rise above religious intolerance and promote an ideal of brotherhood.

Romney is in a dramatically different situation. He’s in a heated primary race, losing conservative evangelical Christian voters to Mike Huckabee, and walking a tightrope. He can’t make JFK’s appeal to church-state separation, because he’s trying to get support from people who think church-state separation is, in Pat Robertson’s phrase, a “lie of the left.” Ditto for an appeal to religious tolerance, not a high priority for the “Christian nation” crowd.

So Romney’s more likely to try to convince Religious Right voters that they should care less about the theology of Mormonism and more about his pledge to support Religious Right policy priorities down the line: criminalization of abortion, opposition to equality for gay people, a dismantling of the wall separating church and state -- and judges who agree. That’s been enough to win the support of some high-profile Religious Right leaders, including Paul Weyrich, Lou Sheldon and Jay Sekulow.

But as Huckabee surges, Romney finds himself in a bit of a box, partly of his own making. Given the power of Religious Right voters in the GOP primary, and the de facto religious test many of them apply to the presidency, Romney has stressed the importance of electing a person of faith. But when he has tried to assure Religious Right voters that he is a follower of Christ, he has drawn stern warnings from people like the Southern Baptists’ Richard Land, because many evangelicals view Mormonism as a cult. According to Pew polls, more than a third of white evangelicals, and more than 4 in 10 of evangelicals who attend church weekly, say they’re less likely to vote for a candidate who is Mormon. Says Land, “When he goes around and says Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior, he ticks off at least half the evangelicals.”

Mike Huckabee, in many ways the dream candidate for Religious Right voters, isn’t trying to make things any easier for Romney. While deflecting opportunities to comment directly on whether or not Mormons are Christians, Huckabee has encouraged others to ask Romney. “If we’re going to ask me about my faith, let’s ask all the candidates about theirs,” he suggests. “Now as you noticed, I’m not hesitant or reluctant to talk about mine.”

Of course, the whole conversation tells us how far the Religious Right and its GOP allies are from the vision espoused by John F. Kennedy. In October, a prominent Dallas minister Robert Jeffress, speaking of Romney, said, “It’s a little hypocritical for the last eight years to be talking about how important it is for us to elect a Christian president and then turn around and endorse a non-Christian,” he said. “Christian conservatives are going to have to decide whether having a Christian president is really important or not.”

The Religious Right’s long public war on church-state separation and religious pluralism has been cheered on by Republican officials as long as it has been a weapon against Democratic candidates. But it’s not as much fun for them when the target is one of the GOP’s top contenders.

“Barbra loves Hillary, Oprah loves Obama,” led a news article in Monday ’s Washington Times. “But does America care? Splashy celebrity endorsements may backfire on White House hopefuls as they face canny voters weary of Hollywood hubbub.” Reporter Jennifer Harper may or may not have a point about the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements, but the right-wing newspaper neglected to mention the candidate who has made his collection of washed-up superstars the cornerstone of his endorsement strategy: Mike Huckabee.

We’ve already mentioned Huckabee campaigning with 1980s pro wrestler Ric Flair; to “Nature Boy” we can add “Motor City Madman” Ted Nugent and, of course, Chuck Norris. In fact, Huckabee’s first television ad featured the candidate sitting down with Norris in the actor’s living room. If it’s a joke, Huckabee is stretching it to the limit: He’s deployed Norris at press conferences and campaign stops, and made the kooky martial artist his media point-man after the last presidential debate. According to Newsweek, Norris and his wife are part of Huckabee’s “inner circle.”

Huckabee’s dalliance with stars of a bygone (and not exactly wholesome) era may seem like a humorous quirk, but in a way, it serves a significant purpose: The fawning press coverage of Huckabee’s ironic endorsements means less coverage of Huckabee’s serious endorsements: far-right activists like American Family Association founder Don Wildmon, Rick Scarborough, Mat Staver, the LaHayes, Jerry Falwell, Jr., and so on.

As we noted earlier this week, Huckabee is campaigning more privately with these extreme activists in Iowa, and Scarborough’s “Patriot Pastors” machine is ramping up in Iowa, with the help of Christian Coalition and Redeem the Vote organizer Randy Brinson. And by the way, where did Brinson get his mailing list of “about 71 million contacts”—“one of the most coveted lists in Republican politics”? We’re back to entertainment, reports the Washington Post:

Pass the Salt Ministries (yes, you read that right) has big news for right-wing activists in Ohio -  a bevy of second and third-tier Religious Right leaders will be gracing their fair state later this month for "A Gathering of Eagles":  

"A Gathering of Eagles" is taking place in Coshocton, Ohio on December 14-15 as some of America's finest Christian leaders are gathering for a Leadership Summit and Biblical Worldview Conference. Dr. Alan Keyes is confirmed as the keyniote [sic] speaker and will be joined by the likes of Rev. Flip Benham, Chaplain E. Ray Moore Jr. , Rev. Rick Scarborough, Peter Labarbera, and Pastor Ernie Sanders and others. This NON-POLITICAL event is designed to educate Christians about the great moral issues facing this country. Learn the truth from the front lines in the cultural war regarding issues such as The Gay Agenda, Abortion, Individual Liberty, Hate Crime Legislation, and the religion of Secular Humanism.

This doesn’t really sound like a “non-political” event at all.  In fact, it sounds likes a distinctly political event designed to rally right-wing voters heading into the Republican primaries and general election.  After all, Rick Scarborough has endorsed Mike Huckabee and is currently in the midst of an “all out effort to move Values Voters to vote their values on Election Day '08” while Alan Keyes is currently running for President (though you’d be forgiven for not knowing that.)

As for Pass the Salt, it is the brainchild of Dave Daubenmire:  

[A] veteran 25 year high school football coach, [Daubenmire] was spurred to action when attacked and eventually sued by the ACLU in the late 1990’s for alledgedly [sic] mixing prayer with his coaching. After a two year battle for his 1st Amendment rights and a determination to not back down, the ACLU relented and offered coach an out of court settlement. God honored his stand and the ACLU backed off. Coach’s courageous stand, an inspiration to Americans everywhere, demonstrated that the ACLU can be defeated. As a result of the experience, Coach heard the call to move out of coaching a high school team, to the job of coaching God’s team.

Of course, the claim that ACLU “relented and offered coach an out of court settlement” is accurate only if you ignore the fact that Daubenmire was ordered to stop leading religious activities at school and the school board agreed to pay an estimated $18,000 settlement.

Avid Mike Huckabee backer Janet Folger says the "Supreme Court is right now within our grasp" credits her Values Voter Debate for propelling Huckabee into the top-tier: "You saw the YouTube Republican debate on CNN last week? Want to know why it was last week? It was originally scheduled for Sept. 17, but CNN had to re-schedule it. Want to know why? Because there was another debate on Sept. 17 – the Values Voter Presidential Debate."

The Washington Post reports that Rudy Giuliani and Grover Norquist are bonding over their mutual dislike of taxes: "Norquist responded ... with a letter filled with praise for Giuliani. In it, Norquist lauds Giuliani's 'tremendous record of pro-growth tax policy.' He also expresses his 'delight' with Giuliani's simple 'yes' answer in response to Norquist's request."

Breaking with the national organization, which backed Fred Thompson, Georgia Right to Life goes with Huckabee: "Gov. Huckabee has a proven track record of solid pro-life legislation during his terms as governor of Arkansas. He is noted for having passed a state 'Human Life Amendment' which says that 'the policy of Arkansas is to protect the life of every unborn child from conception to birth.' Arkansas Amendment 68 will take effect the moment that Roe vs. Wade is reversed. He is especially supportive of our efforts here in Georgia, to promote the passage of H.R. 536, the Paramount Right to Life Amendment."