Mike Huckabee

David Barton introduced Mike Huckabee at the Rediscover God In America conference, praising him as the epitome of the "Black Robe Regiment" mentality of seeking to apply the Bible to every aspect of the culture. 

Huckabee, in turn, repaid the compliments to Barton, calling him one of the most effective communicators in America and wishing that every American would be forced, at gunpoint, to listen to every Barton broadcast:

Michele Bachmann

History: New Hampshire politicians take jabs at Bachmann's history blunder (Politico, 3/17).

2012: Deep roots in conservative movement bolster her campaign prospects (TNR, 3/17).

Haley Barbour

Campaign: Expanding campaign and presence in early state (NYT, 3/22).

Mississippi: State taxpayers paid for $300,000 of his out-of-state traveling costs (Clarion Ledger, 3/21).

Foreign Affairs: Calls for reducing troop level in Afghanistan (CBS News, 3/16).

Mitch Daniels

Book: Signs book deal with conservative publisher (AP, 3/21).

2012: Wife raises doubts about potential run (Indianapolis Star, 3/20).

Newt Gingrich

New Hampshire: Schedules speeches and meetings in the Granite State (Union Leader, 3/21).

Foreign Affairs: Claims President Obama "does not even know who his enemies are" (Union Leader, 3/20).

Obama: Says President is busy on ESPN instead of handling crises (LA Times, 3/18).

Mike Huckabee

Religious Right: Says he wants world leaders to have a "biblical worldview" (RWW, 3/21). 

Anti-Choice: Lauds anti-choice leaders on Fox News show (News Hounds, 3/21).

Fox News: Favorite candidate of Fox News viewers (HuffPo, 3/18).

Sarah Palin

Foreign Affairs: Plans to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu during tour of Israel after visiting India (Forward, 3/21).

Energy: Alaska abandons much of Palin's energy agenda (NYT, 3/17).

Campaign: Top aide profiled by Los Angeles Times (LA Times, 3/16).

Ron Paul

Foreign Affairs: Slams US involvement in no-fly zone as "unconstitutional" (Raw Story, 3/21).

GOP: Wins California GOP convention straw poll (Sacramento Bee, 3/20).

Economy: Pushes elimination of the Federal Reserve (Reuters, 3/17).

Tim Pawlenty

2012: Announces formation of exploratory committee (Star Tribune, 3/21).

Campaign: Adopts Southern accent in stump speech (Minnesota Public Radio, 3/18).

Tea Party: Set to address New Hampshire Tea Party rally (Think Progress, 3/17).

Mitt Romney

Health Care: Allies downplay impact of Massachusetts health care reform law on primary (The Hill, 3/17).

Campaign: Recruits fundraisers close to former President Bush (Bloomberg, 3/17).

Donald Trump

Foreign Affairs: Brags to Fox News that he "screwed" Qaddafi on land deal (Fox News, 3/21).

New Hampshire: Scheduled to address political forum in New Hampshire (Boston Herald, 3/16).

Rick Santorum

Foreign Affairs: Derides Obama for turning the US into "the military of the UN" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 3/18).

Health Care: Calls Mitt Romney's health care reform law a "failure" (The State Column, 3/18).

Religious Right: Tells far-right Catholic group that he was "appalled" by JFK's "radical" support of the separation of church and state (Boston Globe, 3/15).

While Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann raised eyebrows after consistently and wrongly asserting that the Battles of Lexington and Concord occurred in New Hampshire, rather than Massachusetts (and later implying that Bay Staters were not proud of the American Revolution), the birther website WorldNetDaily was touting an interview between Bachmann and right-wing radio personality Jeff Katz.

“I am concerned about the future of this country; I am concerned about the existence of the country my dad handed down to me,” said Katz, “And just yesterday my boys brought home the signup sheets for little league and I’m looking through them and I realize I have to provide more documentation for them to go and play tee ball in little league than the president ever had to provide.”

Bachmann replied, “I’ll tell you one thing, if I was ever to run for president of the United States, I think the first thing I would do in the first debate is offer my birth certificate so we can get that off the table.”

Such statements may play well among Republican voters, over half of whom don’t believe Obama was born in the U.S.

Republican legislators in eleven states have introduced legislation based on the birther conspiracy theory, and Mike Huckabee has even raised doubts about Obama’s heritage. In Maine, the Tea Party candidate running against Olympia Snowe for Senate announced his campaign by flaunting his birth certificate at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Michele Bachmann

Health Care: Decries secret funding of reform law which wasn't actually a secret (Minnesota Post, 3/7).

Energy: As gas prices rise over Mideast crisis, Bachmann blames Obama (CNN, 3/7).

Religious Right: Invites Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel to her Tea Party Caucus (RWW, 3/4).

Haley Barbour

Campaign: Adds staff to leadership PAC (The Fix, 3/7).

Iowa: Will join Bachmann, Santorum, Gingrich and others at conference hosted by Steve King (Des Moines Register, 3/7).

Background: Made millions as a lobbyist for the energy industry, now repeating their arguments (HuffPo, 3/3).

Mitch Daniels

Indiana: Democrats in state legislature lead boycott to protest Daniels's anti-labor agenda (TPM, 3/4).

Religious Right: Richard Land attacks Daniels's truce proposal as "political suicide" (RWW, 3/4).

Newt Gingrich

Campaign: Discusses "confusion" of exploratory committee announcement (Des Moines Register, 3/7).

Obama: Tells Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition that "secular, socialist" Obama administration "cannot represent America" (The Hill, 3/7).

Religious Right: Plans to address Religious Right conferences in Iowa and Liberty University, and meet with controversial pastor John Hagee (RWW, 3/4).

Mike Huckabee

South Carolina: Tells South Carolina crowd on book tour that the state is a must-win primary (The State, 3/8).

Culture: Slams actress Natalie Portman for allegedly glorifying single motherhood (The Week, 3/4).

Obama: Agrees with Bryan Fischer that Obama is anti-American; falsely claims that President Obama grew up in Kenya and then lied in his mea culpa (RWW, 3/2; County Fair, 3/7).

Religious Right: Joins Bachmann, Barbour, Gingrich and pseudo-historian David Barton for a webcast on religion in politics (RWW, 3/2).

Jon Huntsman

Campaign: Top aides meet in New Orleans, set sights on New Hampshire voters (RCP, 3/7).

Obama: Praise from President may damage Huntsman's chances (Salt Lake Tribune, 3/6).

Donors: Supporters of Huntsman paid for video about his work as Ambassador (Politico, 3/3).

Sarah Palin

2012: Says she would run for President if voters are ready for someone who is against "obsessive partisanship" (BBC News, 3/7).

Culture: Picks fight with comedian Kathy Griffin (LA Times, 3/7).

Foreign Affairs: Prepares for trip to India (Politico, 3/6).

Tim Pawlenty

2012: May be GOP front runner due to the "process of elimination" (TNR, 3/8).

Religious Right: Calls on members of Ralph Reed's Iowa group to "take back our country" (CBS News, 3/7).

Minnesota: Keith Ellison says Pawlenty has "no connection" to his roots (Think Progress, 3/4).

Buddy Roemer

Tea Party: Tells Religious Right group, "Thank God for the tea party" (Des Moines Register, 3/7).

Campaign: The former Louisiana governor announces exploratory committee (CBS News, 3/4).

Mitt Romney

Health Care: Massachusetts AG uses Romney's health care policy to defend federal law (Politico, 3/7).

Social issues: After turning hard right on social issues, Romney now wants to downplay them (Salon, 3/7).

Campaign: Produces "restoring hope" video for leadership PAC (Politico, 3/7).

Rick Santorum

Reproductive Rights: Plays-up his career in the anti-choice movement to Ralph Reed's Iowa group (Des Moines Register, 3/7).

Religious Right: Argues in Iowa op-ed that LGBT equality will "eviscerate" freedom (RWW, 3/7).

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Richard Land took a preemptive strike against Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who raised eyebrows after calling for a “truce” on social issues and is considering a run for president. Land writes just one day after a WSJ poll found that the majority of GOP primary voters would be sympathetic to the “truce” offered by Daniels, who believes that the nation should be focusing on economic issues instead of fighting the “culture war.” Land, like many other Religious Right leaders, has come out swinging against Daniels’s proposal and dubbed the truce “political suicide.” The influential head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission said that if Daniels continues to pursue the truce, he would go the way of former Sen. Phil Gramm, who lost many socially conservative supporters in his failed 1996 campaign for president. Land writes:

Indiana governor and likely Republican presidential candidate Mitch Daniels has suggested that Americans call a "truce" on divisive social issues until our precarious financial house is back in order. Many pundits have praised the idea, typically thrilled that a Republican leader seems willing to jettison, even temporarily, strong positions on abortion or gay marriage. But social conservatives are mad, and rightly so.

Throughout the 1980s and '90s, social conservatives were the foot soldiers for Republican victories—only to see their issues bargained away or shoved to the bottom of the GOP agenda, beneath issues of fiscal and foreign policy. Reacting to Gov. Daniels, former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee recently said: "For those of us who have labored long and hard in the fight to educate the Democrats, voters, the media and even some Republicans on the importance of strong families, traditional marriage and life to our society, this is absolutely heartbreaking."

Perhaps Gov. Daniels interprets the emergence of the tea party as a sign that GOP candidates don't have to depend on social-issues voters as they once did. That seems unlikely. As Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has said, "Calling for a truce on core conservative principles might get you some high profile media sound bites, but it won't win you the Republican presidential nomination."

…

For Republicans to do anything to de-energize this voting bloc would amount to political suicide.

Most social conservatives are also fiscal conservatives. They recognize that a federal government that borrows more than 40 cents of every dollar it spends is committing generational theft, spending our grandchildren's money and impoverishing their future. Social conservatives also argue that government has such high costs partly because of the broken families, broken communities and broken ethics generated by moral relativism.

…

As Mark Twain reportedly observed, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." There once was a promising Republican presidential candidate known for being an economic guru and master of the numbers: Sen. Phil Gramm. At one point in 1996, he had raised more money than any other candidate. Like Gov. Daniels, Sen. Gramm had a sterling social conservative voting record and his lack of telegenic charisma was seen as an advantage, in contrast to President Clinton's slick persona. But Sen. Gramm's candidacy went down in flames after he dismissed a question about social issues by saying: "I'm not running for preacher, I'm running for president."

…

There is a deep longing in large segments of the American populace for a restoration of a morality that emphasizes personal obligations and responsibilities over rights and privileges. Such a society will have a restored moral symmetry in which exemplary personal and professional behavior is rewarded and less exemplary behavior is not. As Jesus reminded us, "Man shall not live on bread alone."

The AFA's Bryan Fischer spent the first hour of his daily radio program doing what he usually does: railing against gays and Muslims. 

But today he kicked off hour two with a special guest: Mike Huckabee. 

Huckabee was there ostensibly to promote his new book but most of the interview spent with Huckabee lashing out at those who have criticized him for claiming that President Obama grew up in Kenya.

Huckabee insisted that he simply misspoke but then agreed when Fischer asserted that Obama's childhood is responsible for instilling some "fundamentally anti-American ideas" in him:

Huckabee: And it's really an indication of just how pathetic some of these folks are who claim to be journalists and reporters and have failed to do a decent job. You know, I admitted that I misspoke on that, but I corrected it. But what I have never done is taken to position that Obama was born in Kenya or Indonesia or anywhere other than Hawaii where he claims to have been born. Frankly Bryan, that is not a popular position with conservatives but it is the position I have consistently taken and I just am very amazed at the firestorm this has caused, especially in light of the fact that the talk show host himself has said there is nothing to it.

Fischer: Well Governor, what got lost in all the shuffle was the legitimate point that you were making which is that we may have a president who has some fundamentally anti-American ideas that may be rooted in a childhood where he had a father who was virulently anti-colonial, hated the British - might have something to do with the President returning the bust of Winston Churchill back to England. You know, I was struck by the fact that when he made his tour to Indonesia, he made a point of going to an Indonesian memorial that celebrated the victory of Indonesians over British troops - again, part of that anti-colonial thing. And so I'd like you to comment on that; you seem to think that there is some validity to the fact that there may be some fundamental anti-Americanism in this president.

Huckabee: Well, that's exactly the point that I make in the book and I don't know why these reporters - maybe they can't read, I guess that's part of it because it's clearly spelled out and I'm quoting a British newspaper who really were expressing the outrage of the Brits over that bust being returned and the point was that they felt like that due to Obama's father and grandfather it could be that his version and view of the Mau Mau Revolution was very different than most of the people who perhaps would grow up in the United States. And I have said many times, publicly, that I do think he has a different worldview and I think it is, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas.

Later in the interview, Fischer asked Huckabee his thoughts about the news that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum had been been suspended by Fox News as they mull presidential bids and Huckabee admitted that part of the reason he is in no rush to make any public decision about a run of his own is that, if he does, he'll also lose his gig with Fox. 

Here is the entire nine minute interview:

• Michael B. Keegn @ Huffington Post: Union Busting: The Real Call from the Koch Brothers.
• Towleroad: Mike Huckabee Says He Doesn't Want Gays to Parent, Marry, or Serve in the Military.
• Larry Keller @ SPLC Intelligence Report: Cliff Kincaid Takes on ‘Liberal Media,’ Gays.
• Bruce Wilson @ Truth Wins Out: Federally Funded ‘Missionaries’ Now Teach in Florida Public Schools.
• Steve Benen: Broun (Eventually) Does The Right Thing.
• Ryan Grim @ Huffington Post: Behind The Assault On Planned Parenthood.
• Equality Matters: Alan Keyes: "Granting Homosexuals The Right To Marry Is Like Granting Plantation Owners The Right To Own Slaves."

• PFAW: PFAW Commends President Obama’s Stand Against Unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act.
   
• Eric Lach @ TPM: Indiana Dep. AG Loses Job After Advocating 'Live Ammunition' For WI Protesters.
   
• Rob Boston @ AU: Kern Spurned: Oklahoma Legislator’s Backdoor Creationism Bill Bounced.
   
• Joe.My.God: Mike Huckabee Slams Obama: Gays Are Breaking Up "Traditional" Families.
   
• Igor Volsky @ Wonk Room: Thrice-Married Gingrich Confronted On Opposition To Marriage Equality.
   
• Charles Johnson @ LGF: Glenn Beck Rants About 'Commie' Logo That His Own Group Used.
   
• Andy Kopsa @ Florida Independent: Federally funded Jacksonville abstinence program has ties to ‘Kill the Gays’ Ugandan pastor.

• Rick Santorum defends the Crusades.
• Ken Cuccinelli is scheduled to speak at Regent University.
• As promised, Randall Terry's crew was arrested at Speaker John Boehner's office today, though Terry himself was not.
• Mike Huckabee needs to make up his mind about how easy it will be to beat President Obama in 2012.
• For some reason, the ACLJ has been very silent on their loss in their suit against health care reform.
• Matt Barber says that everyone who doesn't realize that Muslims are out to enslave us all are "idiots."
• Finally, John Hagee explains that the developments in Libya were all foretold in the Bible.