As we noted earlier this week, right-wing Alaskan attorney Kevin Clarkson had waded into the "Troopergate" saga in Sarah Plain's defense and was working in conjunction with the Liberty Legal Institute, a right-wing legal organization based in Texas.
Why a right-wing organization out of Texas that, by its own admissions, focuses mostly on cases dealing with religious freedoms, student's rights, parental rights, and the definition of family was taking the lead in a case involving an investigation into the dealings of the Alaska Governor was hard to understand. But now Kelly Shackelford, head of Liberty Legal, is explaining just what they are doing there ... assuring impartiality:
Liberty Legal Institute says it has filed the suit on behalf of Alaska legislators and citizens who want to halt the investigation because those running it have lost the impartiality required under the Alaska constitution. The investigation stems from Palin's July 2008 firing of former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety Walt Monegan for insubordination.
Kelly Shackelford -- chief counsel of Liberty Legal Institute -- says the investigation is being led by the Alaska Legislative Council and three Democratic state senators who are outspoken supporters of Barack Obama. "Those people have [made] contributions to Obama. They have public statements pro-Obama and anti-Palin. They have public statements prejudging the case before there's any evidence in," warns Shackelford.
"They have conflicts of interest with those in charge because of past and current relationships. So this is clearly an unconstitutional...political witch hunt which violates the very terms of their constitution."
That would be the same Kelly Shackelford who was recently on James Dobson's radio program crowing about how Palin was the answer to the right-wing movements prayers and explaining his efforts as part of the GOP's platform committee in drafting “the strongest pro-life platform ever in the history of the [Republican] party."
No concerns about impartiality or "conflicts of interest" there.
The AP reports that “five Republican state lawmakers filed suit Tuesday to end the bipartisan investigation into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's” role in the “Troopergate” scandal and buried near the bottom of the article is this little tidbit of information:
"There is no nonpartisan reason to complete this investigation until after the election," said Anchorage attorney Kevin G. Clarkson. "We just want to take the politics out of it and bring fairness back into it."
Clarkson said he and a nonprofit legal firm in Texas, Liberty Legal Institute, were donating their work on the suit.
If the name of Clarkson sounds familiar, it’s because he showed up in a post from a few weeks ago explaining how, back in 2006, he personally assured Focus on the Family that Palin shared their views – and he’d know since he was providing legal counsel to her on the Alaska Supreme Court’s ruling regarding benefits for partners of state employees:
Clarkson explained that it was a convoluted process that led to the veto. Acting as legal counsel, Clarkson advised Palin to veto the bill that he said, because of confusing legislative machinations and existing court challenges, would've had the opposite effect and locked in benefits for all couples.
Clarkson said he had to explain the whole decision to Focus on the Family to put minds at ease.
Clarkson appears to be something of a free-lance right-wing lawyer, as in the earlier article he was listed as affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund and is now listed as working with the Liberty Legal Institute, which just so happens to be run by Kelly Shackelford who was an early backer of Mike Huckabee and was recently hobnobbing with Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer and James Dobson on Dobson’s radio program where they cooed over Palin and Shackelford detailed his role in drafting “the strongest pro-life platform ever in the history of the [Republican] party."
On Tuesday, Focus on the Family released audio of a special James Dobson radio program, recorded last Friday after John McCain's announcement that Sarah Palin would be his running mate. Containing analysis of the decision from Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, Tom Minnery, and Kelly Shackelford, the group of right-wing heavyweights discussed everything from the elation at the announcement felt among those gathered for the Council for National Policy meeting to Gary Bauer’s role as the McCain campaign’s surrogate to the Republican Platform Committee in crafting the “the strongest pro-life platform in the history of the Republican Party.”
Among the most striking information was Gary Bauer’s revelation that, contrary to the McCain’s campaign’s claims that it was taking a hands-off approach to the platform, they were actively involved and supportive of the Right Wing’s efforts to craft the hardline document that emerged. In fact, Bauer reports that he was tapped by the McCain campaign to be their surrogate and that the campaign was "very open to the kind of changes" the Religious Right was pushing.
Among the other interesting facts contained in the program was Shackelford’s declaration that CNP members felt that God was answering their prayers with Palin and Tony Perkins' assessment that McCain has shifted dramatically in their direction from a year ago and that his decision to name Palin as his running mate shows that “he can listen.” But perhaps the most entertaining thing about the program was the shame in Dobson’s voice as he explained how he has gone from a vocal critic of McCain to someone who, “if I went into the polling booth today, I would pull the lever for John McCain.”
Dobson: Have you ever, in your life, seen as large a crowd of people give a standing ovation to [the Palin announcement on] CNN? Have you ever seen that happen?
Kelly Shackelford: I don’t think so and the other thing is, a number of people literally had tears in their eyes. I think that there was such pent-up worry, prayer that had been going on for so long and they really felt like the Lord was answering those prayers with somebody who is pro-life, somebody who is committed to the definition of marriage and the issues that we believe in so strongly.
Tony Perkins: This was a tremendous strategic decision by the McCain campaign. They have seen social conservatives drifting away from them over the last year and, in part in the last year there’s been some pushing and shoving going on as the social conservatives have not signed on to the McCain campaign. But he has shown …
Dobson: Tell me about it. I’ve been pretty explicit about it.
Perkins: And there’s a reason for that because he’s not where he is today a year ago. But he has shown that he listens and I though two weeks ago at the Saddleback Forum he did a tremendous job at being straight-forward and he got the attention of social conservatives that he can listen, he can respond. And then today, with this selection, I think the strongest among the names that have been out there, he has shown that he cares about these issues and has solidified a strong conservative, pro-life, pro-family ticket for the Republican Party.
Dobson: Gary, you have been advising the McCain campaign for some time and so you really signed on with him before any of the rest of us made up our minds …
Gary Bauer: I’ve been watching not only today, I’ve been watching the last couple of weeks and giving my advice to everybody I could within the McCain campaign. I would disagree with my good friend Tony, I think this is where John McCain’s been for a long time. He really does have a twenty-five year pro-life voting record, except for a couple of notable exceptions, but I thought this choice was just outstanding. I actually think over the last couple of weeks, from Saddleback where he was very clear on these issues to what he’s been emphasizing in his speeches and town meetings, the platform which was adopted this week – just an outstanding pro-life platform – and now this vice presidential selection, there’s just a real commitment that he’s showing here.
…
Dobson: I’ve been pretty vocal in my opposition to John McCain. I haven’t done it on Focus on the Family, but I’ve done it in the media and for some good reasons. I could right now tick off fifteen or twenty things that have concerned me. And, having made that statement, the assumption is that I must stay with it even if the circumstances change. And they have changed. Saddleback changed me. What I heard John McCain say at Saddleback didn’t eliminate all of the concerns but it did draw me in his direction. And then, of course, this selection and other things. Tony, you said McCain seems to be changing - Gary, you disagreed with that - but it sure looks that way to me. And so, I am not endorsing John McCain. I have only endorsed a presidential candidate once in my life and that was George Bush in the second term after I’d watched him for four years. I just don’t endorse presidential candidates and I don’t see myself doing that this time. But I am moving closer and closer to being able to say … well, I’ll say it now, if I went into the polling booth today, I would pull the lever for John McCain.
…
Bauer: I got appointed by the McCain campaign to be their advisor on the platform. It was an interesting assignment. I arrived there, usually I’m on the outside beating on whoever the nominee is to do better, but when I got there and met with the McCain staff people I was immediately amazed, surprised and happy to hear them say “look, we think it’s a great platform already, it’s pro-life but we know people might want to strengthen it and we’re open to that. We want to work with people, we don’t want to alienate anybody and we’d like you to go back and forth between the delegates and us and see if we can work these things out.” I think that Kelly will affirm that, other than a few places, there really weren’t many brutal fights. Most of it was done in a very collegial way with the McCain people being very open to the kind of changes that made the platform draft even better than it was when it started.
Dobson: Would you agree that this is the strongest pro-life platform in the history of the Republican Party?
Shackelford: There’s no doubt. I was on that sub-committee and every pro-life leader who was there watching from Phyllis Schlafly to you name the pro-life group, they were all watching and they all said this is the strongest pro-life platform ever in the history of the party. We not only kept the famous plank that was put in during the time of Ronald Reagan, but we added additional strong language that made it even stronger. It was really incredible to be a part of this and I will affirm what Gary said; this is my third platform committee in a row and it was different than the last ones. The McCain campaign not only did not fight us as severely as the last campaigns did but they actually were in favor of the platform becoming more conservative because they knew that’s where the people were.
Back in 2006, we wrote a report about the "Patriot Pastors" movement, various state level efforts by evangelical pastors to organize so-called “Restoration Projects” that would transform America by applying the significant resources of their churches to political campaigns. The most high-profile effort was in Ohio and run by Rod Parsley and Russell Johnson, with close cooperation from then Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, though efforts were underway in several other states as well, including Texas. While the forces behind the Ohio movement are lying low, with Parsley still smarting from being humiliated by John McCain and Blackwell busy with his various jobs with the Family Research Council, the Club for Growth, and Tom DeLay's Coalition for a Conservative Majority, the Texas Freedom Network reports that the efforts in Texas are still going strong, thanks to the committed backing of Gov. Rick Perry:
The governor’s disturbing mix of faith and militancy comes in an invitation to conservative evangelical pastors to attend a Texas Restoration Project event in Austin next month … The Pastors’ Policy Briefing on Oct. 9-10 in Austin will be the group’s eighth since May 2005. … According to the invitation, [Mike] Huckabee will be joining Gov. Perry at the Austin event next month. Other speakers will include David Barton, who is the former Texas Republican Party vice chairman and the founder of the Christian advocacy group WallBuilders, and Kelly Shackelford, head of Free Market Foundation, which is Focus on the Family’s Texas affiliate.
TFN has also posted the invitation sent out by Perry:
Both our nation and our Judeo Christian heritage are under attack by a force that is more dangerous than any threat our world has faced in recent memory. I am convinced that our ability to defeat the radical jihadists who threaten our nation will be significantly impacted by the prayers and leadership of America’s evangelical pastors.
"Rediscovering God in America” was created to inspire people of faith to engage the culture and bring America back to our worldwide standing as a beacon of hope, a city shining on a hill.
Because God entrusted you to care for and lead His flock, you can play a key role in restoring God to the center of American life, thus strengthening our nation to confront this looming threat.
While Congress occupies its time trying to legislate defeat in Iraq, we hope you will attend a Pastors’ Policy Briefing that will equip you to walk point in the war of values and ideas.
Rediscovering God in America-Austin is intended to remind us that excuses are not the proper strategy when facing evil and confronting enemies. Instead, we must rally godly people and seek God’s provision for the resources, the courage, and the strength necessary to win and, ultimately, glorify Him.
A few weeks ago, we wroteseveralposts about the meeting in Colorado where a large group of right-wing leaders finally decided to support John McCain. At the time, all we had were second-hand accounts that those in attendance had decided that Barack Obama would “decimate [the] moral values” they hold dear and, as such, collectively decided to support McCain as the lesser of two evils.
Glossed over in the press coverage was the fact that their support for McCain seemed to rest heavily on his choice of candidate for Vice President, with those in attendance making their preference known that they really want him to pick Mike Huckabee:
Those in attendance also reached a consensus that they would send a letter to McCain, R-Ariz., encouraging him to consider former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as his choice for vice president.
"It's not a demand; it's a request," said [Mat] Staver, who couldn't say when McCain would be contacted about Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor who resonated with some evangelical voters during the Republican primaries.
Until now, the content and signatories of that letter remained unknown. But recently Clark Vandeventer, founder and CEO of World Changers, Inc, who reportedly attended the meeting and signed the letter, posted it on a blog called Veritas Rex and it seems clear that they were not so much “requesting” that McCain pick Huckabee as his Vice President as outright warning him that doing so is “necessary for [his] success”:
We believe that a pro-life, pro-family Vice Presidential running mate is critical to confirm to our constituents that you will take affirmative steps to protect these values. Your selection of a pro-life, pro-family running mate will be one of the first and most important opportunities to communicate your commitment to such values, since we believe that personnel is policy.
As citizens who love this country and as leaders who communicate collectively with millions of values voters, we met this week in Denver to discuss our shared moral values and the need to support your campaign. As a sincere expression of what we believe is necessary for your success, we strongly agreed to respectfully urge you to select former Governor Mike Huckabee as your running mate.
We believe putting Gov. Huckabee on your ticket will immediately excite, mobilize, and activate a key grassroots constituency that is essential to your success and the advancement and defense of the values we share. We have heard this message so clearly and consistently from our constituencies that we believe it is our duty to respectfully share it with you -- not as a demand or condition of our support -- but as an honest communication of what we believe to be the surest way to immediately activate millions of social conservative voters and activists nationwide in support of your candidacy.
Thank you for your consideration.
Respectfully,
Phil Burress, President, Citizens for Community Values
Mathew Staver,Founder and Chairman, Liberty Counsel
Gary Glenn, President, American Family Association of Michigan
David Barton, Wall Builders
Bill and Deborah Owens
Clark Vandeventer, Chief Executive Officer, World Changers Inc.
Kelly Shackelford, Esq., President, Liberty Legal institute
John Stemberger, Florida Attorney and Pro Family Advocate
Dr. Beverly LaHaye, Concerned Women for America
Dr. Tim F. LaHaye, Tim LaHaye Ministries
Paul E. Rondeau
Rick Scarborough, President of Vision America Action
Johnnie Moore Campus Pastor, Liberty University
Jim Garlow, California Pastors Rapid Response Team
Steve Strang, publisher, Charisma magazine
Kenneth L. Connor, Wilkes & McHugh, P.A.
Clint Cline
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman, American Family Association
Randy Thomasson, President Campaign for Children and Families
Rebecca Kiessling
Joshua Straub, American Association of Christian Counselors
Sandy Rios, President of Culture Campaign
Deryl Edwards, President, Liberty Alliance
Linda Harvey, Mission America
Diane Gramley, President, American Family Association of Pennsylvania
David N. Cutchen
Micah Clark, Executive Director, American Family Association of Indiana
Don McClure
Alex Harris, Founder and Chairman, Huck's Army and Director, The Rebelution
Brett Harris, Founder and Chairman, Huck's Army and Director, The Rebelution
Several articles have appeared in recent months suggesting that Mike Huckabee is some sort of “new breed” of evangelical – one who is not committed only to opposing abortion and gay rights, but also cares about the environment and the poor. And Huckabee has worked hard to play up the idea that he is nothing like traditional demagoguing Religious Right preachers such as Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell.
As Huckabee likes to say, while he may be conservative, he’s “just not angry about it” – or, to put it another way, he drinks “a different kind of Jesus juice. To the press, this seems to be enough to qualify Huckabee as a “different kind of evangelical,” and exempts him from having to explain himself when he proclaims that we need to “amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards.”
An example of this sort of coverage appeared on the New York Times over the weekend:
Much of the national leadership of the Christian conservative movement has turned a cold shoulder to the Republican presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee, wary of his populist approach to economic issues and his criticism of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. But that has only fired up Brett and Alex Harris.
The Harris brothers, 19-year-old evangelical authors and speakers who grew up steeped in the conservative Christian movement, are the creators of Huck’s Army, an online network that has connected 12,000 Huckabee campaign volunteers, including several hundred in Michigan, which votes Tuesday, and South Carolina, which votes Saturday.
They say they like Mr. Huckabee for the same reason many of their elders do not: “He reaches outside the normal Republican box,” Brett Harris said in an interview from his home near Portland, Ore.
The brothers fell for Mr. Huckabee last August when they saw him draw applause on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” for explaining that he believed in a Christian obligation to care for prenatal “life” and also education, health care, jobs and other aspects of “life.” “It is a new kind of evangelical conservative position,” Brett Harris said. Alex Harris added, “And we are not going to have to be embarrassed about him.”
The article noted how Huckabee’s rise in the polls has occurred “without the backing of, and even over the opposition of, the movement’s most visible leaders, many of whom have either criticized him or endorsed other candidates.” While Religious Right powerbrokers like Tony Perkins, James Dobson, and Gary Bauer have credited Huckabee for energizing evangelical voters, all have made clear that they do not support his candidacy and seemingly have no intention of doing so.
But just because the most prominent right-wing activists are reluctant to climb aboard the Huckabee bandwagon doesn’t mean that those already on board are in any way moderates or representative of some sort of new, more moderate evangelical movement. In fact, most of Huckabee’s backers are even more radical.
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."
Former Arkansas Governor and Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee announced the personal endorsement of Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr. Falwell is the son of the late Jerry Falwell, founder of Liberty University and Falwell Ministries.
"I knew Jerry's dad for more than 30 years and have admired the long tradition of Liberty University and the legacy for creating 'Champions for Christ'," Huckabee said. "Dr. Falwell's vision of helping students to start with nothing to believe they can change the world is exactly what our campaign is all about."
Huckabee also unveiled his Faith and Family Values Coalition which, as one would expect, is chock full of Religious Right figures of varying fame and influence:
Dr. Jerry Jenkins, best-selling author, including the Left Behind series; Colorado
Star Parker, Founder and president of CURE;* Washington D.C.
Michael Farris, Chair of Home School Legal Defense Association* and Chancellor of Patrick Henry College;* Virginia
William J. Murray, Chair of Religious Freedom Coalition,* Chair of Government is Not God PAC,* and author; Washington D.C.
Don Wildmon, Founder and Chairman of American Family Association;* Mississippi
Dr. Mark Bailey, President of Dallas Theological Seminary;* Texas
Rick Scarborough, Founder and President of Vision America;* Texas
Jerry Cox, President of Arkansas Family Council;* Arkansas
Janet Folger, President of Faith2Action;* Florida
Jim Pfaff, President and CEO of the Colorado Family Action;* Colorado
Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel*/ Dean of Liberty University Law School;* Virginia
Kelly Shackelford, Chief Counsel, Liberty Legal Institute and President of Free Market Foundation;* Texas
Phil Burress, President of Citizens for Community Values;* Ohio
As for Janet Folger, not only is she a member of the coalition, she is also serving as co-chair. This comes as no surprise, as Folger has been Huckabee's most vocal backer ever since he won the straw poll at the Values Voter Debate, which she organized.
It should also be noted that Folger personally invited the Grand Avenue Church of God choir to perform their rendition of "Why Should God Bless America?" at the debate:
In recent weeks, Folger has been going all out for Huckabee in her WorldNetDaily columns, calling Hillary Clinton "Queen of Slaughter" and claiming that, if elected, Clinton will put Christians in prison.
For that, Huckabee appears to have decided that she deserves to serve as co-chair of his Faith and Family Values Coalition.
