Posts on Phil Burress

Via Good as You we find out that the National Organization for Marriage has launched a petition drive to thank the Mormon Church for its deep involvement in the passage of Prop 8 and to declare solidarity with them:

We write firstly to express our deep gratitude to you and the entire LDS community for the large and impressive contributions of your church and its members in protecting marriage in California and Arizona.

Anyone who participated in this process has come to admire the competence, diligence and moral courage that so many members of your faith community displayed as part of this coalition effort—as Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, and people of other faith communities all came together to fight this great battle for marriage.

But we write for an even more important purpose: to express our outrage at the vile and indecent attacks directed specifically and uniquely at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members because of your courage in standing up for marriage.

The best thing about this is the name they have chosen for their new effort - Above the Hate.com.  Its name is especially ironic considering the list of those who rushed to add their signatures to the letter:

Maggie Gallagher

Donald E. Wildmon

James C. Dobson, Ph.D.

Charles W. Colson

Tony Perkins

Paul Weyrich

Dr. Gary Bauer

Bishop Harry Jackson

Richard Land

Tom Minnery

Ron Prentice

John Stemberger

Phil Burress

Kelly Shackelford

Regina Griggs

Wendy Wright

Janice Crouse, PhD

That's right - the leaders of the professional anti-gay lobby are "rising above the hate" to thank the Mormon Church for helping them deny gays and lesbians their basic equality.

The Dallas Morning News reports that David Barton of Wallbuilders has been out on the road doing what he does every election cycle – working the churches in an effort to get people to vote Republican:

David Barton never specifically mentioned Sarah Palin from the pulpit. But everybody knew what he meant.

"Christians, you've got to register. You've got to vote. You've got to vote your values," the Texan told parishioners who packed Genoa Baptist Church last week.

But this time around, it looks like his job might be a little more challenging because, even though the Religious Right loves Palin, they are still unsure about her running mate:

His warning, designed to push attendees at Tuesday's event to the polls, may be prescient. Ms. Palin's nomination initially energized Christian conservatives, the constituency that has helped Republicans win elections for a generation.

But in this key swing state and elsewhere, there's still a sense of impending political doom.

Ms. Palin is wildly popular with conservative evangelicals, but they're still lukewarm over John McCain, because of past disappointments, Republican miscues, Bush fatigue and especially the roiling economic crisis.

In fact, while right-wing support for the McCain campaign has skyrocketed since he tapped Palin, it looks like McCain himself is barely even figuring into the Right’s get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of his campaign:   

Phil Burress, who heads the group, spearheaded passage of the Ohio marriage amendment in 2004. In June, he told Mr. McCain at a private meeting in Cincinnati that if he didn't pick an anti-abortion running mate, he would lose evangelical support – and the state of Ohio as a result.

"I know evangelicals, and they were sitting on their hands," he said. "The ship was just sitting there, nobody at the steering wheel and no engine running."

He's confident Ms. Palin changed things, but that might not be enough. Recent polls indicate Mr. Obama's lead is growing in Ohio.

Mr. Burress said he has faith. There's a bumper sticker his wife put on their car that says, "Palin Power."

"It doesn't even say anything about John McCain," he said.

As we noted last week, both John McCain and Sarah Palin seemed to be intentionally avoiding being seen in public with the Relgious Right.  And that indeed seems to be the case:

At this year’s conference, Romney will be a headliner tomorrow night, Huckabee appears by video Saturday, and McCain… won’t be there at all. Despite being in Washington D.C. for the day on Saturday with no public appearances, the Arizona senator isn't expected to take up the offer to speak at the summit, organized by the Family Research Council’s legislative arm and co-sponsored by the likes of Focus on the Family and Gary Bauer’s “American Values” group.

According to The Brody File, Palin was actually scheduled to appear but then pulled out at the last minute, just as she did with Phyllis Schlafly's reception at the Republican convention, but offered to send a video message, which organizer's of the Values Voter Summit dismissed as "not enough." 

But just because Palin and McCain don't want to be seen with the Right doesn't mean that the Right is holding it against them.  In fact, the Right seems to fully understand that McCain has already caved to them and thus they are perfectly happy with his efforts to distance himself from them in order to get back to pretending to be a maverick: 

John McCain won't attend a gathering of religious conservatives this weekend -- and the Republican presidential nominee won't have to ask forgiveness.

The Arizona senator's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate has appeased the evangelical and social conservatives who form his party's core voters. Now, they are letting him know that he doesn't need to further demonstrate his fealty.

Last year, McCain felt compelled to appear at the Values Voter Summit in Washington to woo the religious conservatives who have long mistrusted him. That's not necessary this time: members of the movement now ``know exactly what's going on,'' said Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values in Ohio and a summit attendee.

``I understand if he thinks he's got us,'' said Burress, who led Ohio's 2004 effort to ban gay marriage. ``The Palin appointment guaranteed his base.''

...

``If he can spend his time somewhere else gathering votes, then that's where he should be,'' Burress said. ``The important thing is winning,'' he said, reflecting a new pragmatism from evangelicals who have been slow to embrace McCain.

...

Richard Land, a leader of the 18 million-member Southern Baptist convention, said conservatives appreciate McCain's efforts and don't expect him to make their agenda a cornerstone of his campaign in the closing two months of the election, at least publicly.

``Actions speak louder than words and Sarah Palin speaks not just volumes, but a whole library,'' Land said.

For most of the election season, the Right has been anything but energized about supporting John McCain.  That had started to change in recent weeks, as their fear of a Barack Obama presidency began to overpower their principles and they initiated efforts to mobilize on his behalf.  At least until McCain suggested that he was open to the idea of naming a pro-choice running mate, at which point the Right began to freak out and, as World Magazine reports, the massive mobilization efforts they had planned came to a screeching halt:

[Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values] said McCain appeared sincere and serious about his pro-life and pro-marriage views. After the June meeting, Burress was poised to deliver for McCain in Ohio: With nearly 1 million contacts in the CCV database, Burress began planning mailings that would tout McCain’s pro-life position.

Burress told WORLD he was also in talks with other Christian groups to send material to their state mailing lists: 100,000 contacts from Focus on the Family, 100,000 from the American Family Association, and some 50,000 from the Family Research Council, according to Burress.

…

Then came August 13: When Burress heard McCain’s comments about the possibility of a pro-abortion running mate, the grassroots gears screeched to a halt. “The train has stopped in its tracks,” Burress told WORLD.

Until McCain announces his running mate, Burress says all plans for grassroots activities are on hold. Political observers say McCain will likely announce his running mate next Friday— the day after Obama delivers his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Burress and other social conservatives remain hopeful that McCain will pick a pro-life candidate, and Burress says he’s confident that evangelicals in Ohio would enthusiastically support him if he does. If he doesn’t? “It will feel like a kick in the stomach,” said Burress. “And you don’t feel like working very hard when you’ve been kicked in the stomach.”

It is hard to overstate the shockwave that John McCain sent through the GOP’s right-wing base with his comments earlier this week that he would not rule out the possibility of naming a pro-choice running mate (though not a pro-gay one, of course).

Right-wing leaders were quick to denounce the statement, with Tony Perkins telling the Washington Times yesterday that “if he picks a pro-choice running mate, I don't see how he can win this race."  And today, Phyllis Schlafly weighed in, calling it a “mistake,” and others obviously share that assessment:

"If Tom Ridge is on the ticket, I will not be voting Republican," Home School Legal Defense Association President Mike Farris said told The Washington Times. He thought for a moment, then added: "I won't be voting Democratic either."

The widely influential founder and chairman of the American Family Association Chairman, Donald P. Wildmon, said a Ridge pick would be a "disaster for Republicans."

Concerned Women for America Chairman Beverly LaHaye said "many will walk" away from the Republican ticket if it includes a pro-choice vice president.

Elsewhere, state-based right-wing leaders, many of whom have had personal meetings with McCain, are likewise making their displeasure known: 

“It absolutely floored me,” said Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values. “It would doom him in Ohio.”

Burress emailed about a dozen “pro-family leaders” he knows outside Ohio and forwarded it to three McCain aides tasked with Christian conservative outreach.

“That choice will end his bid for the presidency and spell defeat for other Republican candidates,” Burress wrote in the message.

He and other Ohio conservatives met privately with McCain in June, and while the nominee didn’t promise them an anti-abortion rights running mate, his staff said they could “almost guarantee” that would be the case, Burress recalled.

Now, Burress said, “he’s not even sure [Christian conservatives] would vote for him let alone work for him if he picked a pro-abortion running mate.”

James Muffett, head of Michigan’s Citizens for Traditional Values, met with McCain along with a handful of other Michigan-based social conservatives Wednesday night.

…

To select a running mate who supports abortion rights would be “wrong-headed, short-sighted, fracture the Republican Party and not allow us to capitalize on the Democratic Party’s fracture right now,” Muffett argued.

“If he does that, it makes our job 100 times harder. It would dampen enthusiasm at a time when evangelicals are looking for ways to gin up enthusiasm.”

McCain, Muffett said, got that message in their meeting.

“Some people in the movement say it would be the kiss of death. He heard that in the room last night.”

Predictably, Gary Bauer - one of McCain’s earliest right-wing supporters who seems to only show up when the candidate does something to anger Bauer’s right-wing allies - appeared on the scene to assure them that there was nothing to worry about:

Gary Bauer, founder of the Campaign for Working Families, said he isn't worried.

"I’m confident that at the end of the day, the running mate will be pro-life," he told Family News in Focus.

McCain has a solid pro-life voting record on abortion issues and has promised to appoint "strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court.

If there is one thing Religious Right activists apparently can’t stand, it’s forums on the role of faith in public life that they don’t control.  As we noted earlier this week, Tony Perkins, Mike Huckabee, and Lou Engle are set to hold a press conference on Friday timed to coincide with joint appearance by Barack Obama and John McCain at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church where they are set to “discuss faith in public life, AIDS, the environment and other issues.”

Now, other Religious Right activists have announced that they are having their own conference call with reporters following the event on Saturday in order to provide the media with “an expanded perspective on how evangelicals see the relationship between faith and public policy” – by which they mean the right-wing perspective:   

Some of the nation's top evangelical leaders – Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family; Bishop Harry Jackson, Senior pastor, Hope Christian Church and Chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition; Janet Folger, President and Founder of Faith2Action and national radio host; Phil Burress, President of Citizens for Community Values, among others.

Martha Zoller, Talk Radio World Today Host will be the moderator.

WHAT: Press Conference Call to gauge reaction of conservatives and evangelicals to the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency, moderated by Pastor Rick Warren. The Forum takes place on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008 and features Senators John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill.

WHEN: Press teleconference call takes place at 10:30 EDT/7:30 PDT by calling: Toll-free: 1-888-296-6828. Passcode is: 418647# (announce name and media organization). If you would like to receive speaker bios, transcripts and/or audio versions of the interviews, please email Debbie@NewsGuests.com.

INFO: This press call event provides an opportunity for an informed response to the event at Saddleback Church, thus providing an expanded perspective on how evangelicals see the relationship between faith and public policy. The press conference call will give reporters access to alternative views on each candidate's presentation at the Saddleback Forum.

Back in June, when John McCain met with right-wing activists in Ohio, McCain was told in no uncertain terms that “he needs to talk about marriage” and just one day later he publicly came out in support of the California Marriage Amendment.

Since that meeting, Ohio Religious Right icon Phil Burress has become a vocal supporter of McCain and been working hard to win over other right-wing activists to the cause.  Now, Burress is speculating that, thanks to their pressure and McCain’s need to pander, they just might have some success in getting him to change his position on his support for stem-cell research:

Others, though, see reasons for hope, both that Mr. McCain will draw contrasts on the issues on which he sides with conservatives and that he might end up changing his mind on stem cell research. The feeling stems in part from a meeting social conservative leaders in Ohio held with Mr. McCain late last month, when Dr. Jack Wilke, a pro-life movement leader, made a case for him to change his position on federal research funding.

Dr. Wilke argued that embryonic stem cell research is a false hope and that money is better spent on other areas that are less morally contentious.

"[McCain] took extensive notes; he listened intently to what [Dr. Wilke] was saying; and when he was done, he didn't hesitate to ask for all the research," said Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values, an Ohio-based group. "It was only a month ago he got all this information. I didn't expect him to change his mind overnight. My gut feeling, and this is strictly an opinion, is he has all the reasons to reverse himself."

Mr. Burress said the politics of the situation might make it impossible for Mr. McCain to reverse himself during the campaign - "the left and the left media will immediately pounce on him as pandering to the right and flip-flopping" - but he said once in office he thinks the research showing research options other than embryonic stem cells will be convincing to Mr. McCain.

Does Burress really think that McCain is reluctant to “reverse himself” during the campaign because “the left” will pounce on him?  That would be odd. By one count, he has already done so on more than seventy other issues.

A few weeks ago, we wrote several posts 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

Now that a large group of Religious Right activists have come forward in support of John McCain, the candidate might be tempted to sit back and relax. But as McCain learned from his experience with televangelists John Hagee and Rod Parsley, it’s not easy to be both a beloved “maverick” and a right-wing champion.

McCain was happy to campaign with Hagee and Parsley, until the media started to pick up their extreme views—thus risking McCain’s “moderate” image among many independent voters.

So what happens if and when people start hearing about McCain’s new friends? If Hagee and Parsley are too much for McCain, voters may begin to wonder, what about these right-wing activists, some of whom are even further out there?

Does McCain endorse David Barton’s partisan pseudo-history of America as a “Christian nation”? Does McCain share Phil Burress’s view that Ohio’s anti-gay marriage amendment should have invalidated the state’s domestic violence law? What are McCain’s thoughts on Tim LaHaye’s warning that “Brilliant Jewish minds have all too frequently been devoted to philosophies that have proved harmful to mankind”? Does McCain believe, like Phyllis Schlafly, that women cannot be raped by their husbands, that the U.S. government is secretly plotting to merge with Mexico and Canada, or that Mexican immigrants are “invading” the U.S. and spreading disease? (For that matter, does this mean Schlafly has successfully “worked over” McCain?)

McCain will be tempted to ditch them, as he did Parsley and Hagee, but that only managed to anger the Religious Right. Mat Staver, who organized the recent pro-McCain meeting, complained of McCain’s abandonment of the televangelists he’d courted, “He threw them under the bus.” Right-wing strategist Mark DeMoss called it a “slap in the face to evangelicals who are already somewhat suspect of Senator McCain.” But keeping his Religious Right friends along may be a slap in the face to his poll numbers.

After a private meeting with John McCain, Ohio Religious Right icon Phil Burress remained a little ho-hum about the candidate he felt obligated to support, but soon enough—after McCain announced his support for California’s anti-gay marriage amendment, anyway—Burress was bubbling over with excitement:

He says McCain was courteous and took detailed notes on what the six had to say about issues such as the sanctity of life, marriage, and judges. "It was so refreshing to me because he was so different than any other politician that I have ever met," describes Burress. He says McCain is not swayed like other politicians. …

"...[I] left there a changed man," he admits.

Burress wrote to his supporters that after the meeting, “40 Ohio Pro-Family Forum leaders … have decided to move forward and start working to educate Ohio Values Voters about the vast differences between McCain and Obama.”

I was once one of those people who said "no way" to Senator John McCain as President. No longer. The stakes are too high. And if Obama wins I need to able to get up on November 5th, look at myself in the mirror, and when I pray, say, "Lord, I did all that I could."

And today, Burress joined a hundred other activists—including far-right heavyweights Phyllis Schlafly and David Barton—in Denver to commit to campaign for McCain:

"Collectively we feel that he will support and advance those moral values that we hold much greater than Obama, who in our view will decimate moral values," said Mat Staver, the chairman of Liberty Counsel, a legal advocacy group, who previously supported Mike Huckabee's candidacy. …

The group included leaders like Phyllis Schlafly, the long-time leader of Eagle Forum; Steve Strang, the publisher of Charisma magazine; Phil Burress, a prominent Ohio marriage and anti-pornography activist; David Barton, the founder of WallBuilders and Donald Hodel, a former secretary of the Interior, who previously served on the board of Focus on the Family. Jim Dobson, the head of Focus and an outspoken critic of McCain, did not attend. The McCain campaign was also not directly represented at the meeting.

A second person who attended the event, but asked not to be named, said that the group was motivated principally by a desire to defeat Barack Obama. "None of these people want to meet their maker knowing that they didn't do everything they could to keep Barack Obama from being president," the participant said. "You've got these two people running for president. One of them is going to become president. That's the perspective. That that's the whole discussion." …

On a recent swing through Ohio, McCain met with a group of religious leaders and activists, including Burress, who has previously been critical of McCain's lack of outreach to Christian conservatives. According to two participants at the Tuesday meeting in Denver, Burress spoke out strongly in favor of uniting behind McCain's candidacy.

Staver said the McCain campaign was making progress but still had more work to do. "I think that the outreach to the community has to increase significantly," he said. "There is a clear enthusiasm."

As we noted yesterday, John McCain was scheduled to meet with a handful of right-wing activists in Ohio who were not particularly excited about the prospect of supporting his campaign.  At the meeting, McCain reportedly “took detailed notes and listened intently” but apparently didn’t quite win them over:

He spoke for more than an hour but never mentioned issues that social conservatives skeptical of McCain want to hear about: his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, or appointing conservative judges to the Supreme Court.

Conservative activists say that's a big problem.

"John McCain needs to talk about life more often, he needs to talk about marriage," activist Phil Burress said. "If the senator thinks he is going to run the campaign appealing to the middle by avoiding to talk about the social issues, he is going to lose Ohio."

But what do you know?  One day later, it looks like the message these activists delivered has sunk in, leading McCain to suddenly come out in support of the California Marriage Amendment:

United States Senator John McCain today announced his support for the California Protection of Marriage initiative on the state's November ballot, leaders of the ProtectMarriage.com campaign announced. In an email received by the ProtectMarriage.com campaign, Senator McCain issued the following statement:

"I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions."

John McCain’s messy break-up with televangelist Rod Parsley had the potential to hurt him most in Ohio, a swing state necessary for McCain and the place where Parsley built a network of electorally-charged “Patriot Pastors” in 2004 and 2006. Now McCain is making amends by delving deeper into the state’s Religious Right.

Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who helped Bush win there in 2004, is a close ally of Parsley; the two campaigned heavily together during Blackwell’s losing bid for governor in 2006. In an AP story today, Blackwell was critical of McCain’s ham-handed efforts to enlist the Religious Right:

"He has never identified with the evangelical and Christian movement and therefore he can, at times, misread or misinterpret certain activities in the political field of play or certain comments that are offered," said Blackwell, now at the Family Research Council, a conservative think tank. "I personally would like for John to get to the point of comfort with some of our issues and policy positions, through understanding and genuine acceptance."

Despite these warnings, Blackwell is a Republican politician at heart and is supporting McCain (who endorsed Blackwell in 2006)—he even recorded a robo-call for the Arizona senator before the Ohio GOP primary in February. But other activists are even more cagey about how much they’ll work for McCain.

In the same AP article, Chris Long of the Ohio Christian Alliance (which broke away from the Christian Coalition when it got too soft) warned, “There’s certainly a little reservation about Mr. McCain.”

Phil Burress, a leader of Ohio’s Religious Right, has been skeptical of McCain’s judges promises and emphasized in March that McCain had a lot more sucking up to do:

Burress, who heads Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values, says although he would vote for McCain in the general election, the Arizona lawmaker has thus far failed to energize the bloc Burress refers to as "values voters."

"They are not mobilized right now -- and in fact, they're just going to be sitting back waiting to hear what he has to say to try to get these people to engage in his campaign," explains Burress.

Burress contends McCain needs to apologize to evangelical Christians and values voters for the way he has treated them over the years. He says because the senator is not likely to make that apology, he must strengthen his pledge to appoint strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court.

Jack Willke, the former National Right to Life leader who has been called the “grandfather” of the anti-abortion movement, also made “clear” to McCain the unhappiness of the Right, as the Wall Street Journal reported last month.

Nevertheless, Willke, like the others, is supporting McCain. But McCain is still worried enough to set up a meeting today with Burress, Wilke, Long, and others, as Jake Tapper reports.

Lori Viars, executive director of the Family First PAC … told the Dayton Daily News that her fellow conservatives "would probably hold our nose and vote for McCain."

Apparently before said mass nose-holding can transpire, this meeting was required.

Last week, there was speculation swirling that John McCain was considering choosing one-time presidential rival Mike Huckabee as his vice-presidential running mate and over the weekend, Huckabee himself made it abundantly clear that he really, really wants this job:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said yesterday he’d like to be John McCain’s running mate.

“There’s no one I would rather be on a ticket with than John McCain,” said Huckabee, who was a stronger than expected challenger against McCain for the Republican presidential nomination.

“All during the campaign when I was his rival, not a running mate, there was no one who was more complimentary of him publicly and privately. . . . I still wanted to win, but if I couldn’t, John McCain was always the guy I would have supported and have now supported.”

The conventional wisdom is that picking Huckabee would go a long way toward helping McCain shore up the right-wing base that has been somewhat reluctant to support him, given that McCain’s own outreach to that community has little to show so far beyond the controversy generated by the endorsements of John Hagee and Rod Parsely.   

Considering that McCain’s own efforts to woo the Right have been such a disaster, it might behoove his campaign to think long and hard about bringing Huckabee on board because if he climbs aboard the Straight Talk Express, he’ll be bringing his own right-wing baggage along for the ride. 

It was at a Council for National Policy meeting back in September that the Goldilocks brigade of the Religious Right, led by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, threatened to break away from the Republican Party if Rudy Giuliani won the nomination. And the CNP meeting in March was one of John McCain’s first stops after securing the GOP mantle—continuing his pandering to the fringe.

Now, Warren Cole Smith of the conservative-Christian World magazine relates a tense scene from the CNP meeting:

Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association, an early supporter of Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, chided the group for cold-shouldering his candidate until it was too late. Others, including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, disagreed. The meeting quickly threatened to dissolve into accusations, rebuttals, and recriminations.

Then, venerable Paul Weyrich—a founder of the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the Council for National Policy (CNP)—raised his hand to speak. Weyrich is a man whose mortality is plain to see. A freak accident several years ago left him with a spinal injury, which ultimately led to both his legs being amputated in 2005. He now gets around in a motorized wheelchair. He is visibly paler and grayer than he was just a few years ago, a fact not lost on many of his friends in the room, some of whom had fought in the political trenches with him since the 1960s.

The room—which had been taken over by argument and side-conversations—became suddenly quiet. Weyrich, a Romney supporter and one of those Farris had chastised for not supporting Huckabee, steered his wheelchair to the front of the room and slowly turned to face his compatriots. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, "Friends, before all of you and before almighty God, I want to say I was wrong."

In a quiet, brief, but passionate speech, Weyrich essentially confessed that he and the other leaders should have backed Huckabee, a candidate who shared their values more fully than any other candidate in a generation. He agreed with Farris that many conservative leaders had blown it. By chasing other candidates with greater visibility, they failed to see what many of their supporters in the trenches saw clearly: Huckabee was their guy.