Posts on Iowa

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was always near the top of the Right’s wish list when it came to potential running mates for John McCain. That “honor” went to Sarah Palin and now that Palin and McCain seem headed for defeat, it looks like Jindal is preparing for his own run in 2012:  

Jindal, the Louisiana governor widely seen as a Republican rising star, will keynote a high-profile Christian conservative fundraising dinner next month in Iowa, his office confirms.

Jindal will speak at the Iowa Family Policy Center's “Celebrating the Family” banquet in suburban Des Moines on November 22nd, according to his spokeswoman, Melissa Sellers.  While in the state, he also may to go to Cedar Rapids to see some of those areas impacted by the summer floods.   Jindal, of course, has led his state's recovery from Katrina since being elected in 2007.

It will be Jindal's first visit to Iowa, Sellers said.

The trip is a reminder that, even with a presidential election looming, caucus politics is never far away in the Hawkeye State.

The Christian conservative organization is led by Chuck Hurley, a well-known activist who first backed Sam Brownback before switching over to Mike Huckabee in this year's GOP nomination battle. 

Their flyer touting Jindal's speech features quotes from conservative luminaries.  "The next Ronald Reagan," says Rush Limbaugh.

Of course, Mike Huckabee has also hinted that he plans to run again, so it looks like next time around the Right will have a couple of true believers to pick from.  Frankly, I think that is a battle that Jindal wins especially in light of the fact that, as Kevin Drum says, Sarah Palin is nothing but a one-hit wonder.

Normally, merely being a Republican Senator from any state in the nation would all but assure said Senator of getting a spot on his or her state’s delegation to the Republican National Convention in September.  But not if you are Charles Grassley of Iowa and your state party has been taken over by right-wing zealots who are upset about your investigation into potential financial improprieties at several high-profile televangelist ministries:   

Evangelical Christians in Iowa, dominant in the state's Republican Party, have denied Sen. Charles E. Grassley his request for a place on the state's delegation to this summer's Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Mr. Grassley may attend the party's Sept. 1-4 nominating convention in St. Paul, but not as a voting delegate.

With a majority of nine out of 17 members on the Iowa Republican central committee, religious conservatives made Iowa Christian Alliance President Steve Scheffler chairman of Iowa's 40-member delegation in a vote immediately after their state party convention July 12.

"The Republican Party of Iowa is moving significantly to the right on social issues," the just-ousted Iowa Republican National Committee member Steve Roberts told The Washington Times. "It hurts John McCain's chances to win this state."

Other party officials said money for the party is drying up because of past mismanagement and current religious dominance, which has turned traditional Republican politics upside down.

"It's pretty well controlled now by the Christian Alliance," Mr. Roberts said. "If somebody came to me and wanted to be a delegate to the national party convention, I used to say, 'Talk to the state party chairman or to Grassley.' Now it's very simple. You go to the Christian Alliance, and they determine who is a delegate, and you have to do exactly as they say."

In recent weeks, religious activists replaced Mr. Roberts as the national Republican committeeman and also replaced the national committeewoman with pro-life advocates who also oppose gay marriage.

Barring Mr. Grassley from voting-delegate status is seen as a blow to him as the senior Republican official in the state, who normally might have led the convention's delegation.

Mr. Grassley had said "yes" when asked by Iowa Republican Chairman Stewart Iverson if he wanted to be a voting delegate to the national convention, Mr. Iverson said.

Political observers in Iowa saw the move against Mr. Grassley as retribution for his having tangled with evangelical pastors in his state. He initiated a Senate Finance Committee investigation of six televangelists for conspicuous personal spending.

The head of Alan Keyes' "presidential campaign" is accusing the Republican National Committee of excluding Keyes from the Iowa Caucus, saying it "appears motivated by bias against him -- in a way that is un-American and contrary to democratic principles ... In our judgment, the tactics we've witnessed by the state party are reminiscent of 'communist-style' electoral politics."

As we have noted several times before, Mike Huckabee’s primary campaign strategy to date has been focused almost exclusively on wooing evangelical voters – a strategy that paid off handsomely in Iowa:

Religion played a huge role in Mike Huckabee’s triumph in the Iowa Republican caucuses, though there are some mixed signals for him on the road ahead. On the Democratic side, it was fresh blood — and an outcry for change — that helped propel Barack Obama to his victory in the state.

Eight in 10 Huckabee supporters said they are born again or evangelical Christians, according to an entrance poll for The Associated Press and television networks. Another six in 10 said it was very important to share their candidate’s religious beliefs. In both categories, none of the former Arkansas governor’s opponents came close to that kind of support.

While it seems obvious to most that Huckabee’s success can be directly attributed to his ability to convince Religious Right voters that he is one of them, Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America doesn’t see it that way.  In fact, she rejects that notion all together and instead sees Huckabee’s Iowa victory as evidence of his ability to overcome anti-Evangelical bias among participants in the Republican caucus: 

While 46 percent of Evangelicals voted for Huckabee, more than half of them (54 percent) split their vote among the four other candidates (Romney, McCain, Thompson and Paul). 

…

Huckabee had to overcome extraordinary anti-Evangelical bias.  The message of Iowa is that anti-Evangelical bias was extraordinary and overwhelming.  Eighty-seven percent of non-Evangelicals voted against Huckabee, whereas only 66 percent of all Iowa Republicans voted against him — an astounding 21 percent gap.  [Exit polls] shows that among those who self-identified as non-Evangelicals, Huckabee finished 4th (behind Romney, Thompson and McCain).  It is significant that Huckabee got only 14% of non-Evangelical votes, while Romney got 19% of the Evangelical vote.

Huckabee was too busy running as a “Christian Leader” to make much of an effort to court non-evangelicals, so his limited support among that group is not surprising and certainly isn’t evidence of any sort of “anti-Evangelical bias.” 

By comparison, Huckabee won the support of a plurality (36%) of self-identified Republicans in Iowa, but only 17% of independents.  According to Crouse’s logic, Huckabee must have also somehow managed to overcome extraordinary anti-Republican bias as well.  

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."

Conservative Christian activists in Iowa are playing a key role in the sudden success of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, through groups like the Iowa Christian Alliance, the Iowa Family Policy Institute, and now the Iowa Pastors Coalition. It was Pat Robertson’s quixotic presidential run in 1988 that first developed the Religious Right as a political force in that early-caucus state—indeed, the Iowa Christian Alliance used to be the Christian Coalition of Iowa, a chapter of the national group Robertson founded after the campaign with his hard-won mailing lists.

So it’s hard not to compare Huckabee’s rise to Robertson’s strong second-place finish in the caucuses (ahead of George H.W. Bush, the eventual nominee). Huckabee, like Robertson ordained as a Baptist minister, shares Robertson’s views on social issues, and he even had a brief career in televangelism, working for culture warrior James Robison.

But the connection between the two men will apparently stop at that, since this year, Robertson has already endorsed Rudy Giuliani, citing terrorism as reason to ignore differences over abortion and gay marriage.

So when Robertson brought commentator Dick Morris on the “700 Club” Tuesday to wax nostalgic over how similar Huckabee’s run is to Robertson’s, the two were sure to bring it back in the end to the importance of eventually nominating Giuliani.

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.

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."

“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:

As we reported last week, Mike Huckabee’s right-wing supporters are going all out in Iowa to try and propel him to victory in the upcoming caucuses, with Vision America, Redeem The Vote, the Iowa Family Policy Institute, and the Iowa Christian Alliance gearing up for ten days of voter registration and mobilization efforts. 

Just in case that is not enough, Marc Ambinder is now reporting that Huckabee himself is scheduled to do his own outreach to the Religious Right, starting with an address to the Iowa Renewal Project: 

Today or tomorrow, Huckabee is a featured guest at the latest pastor briefing of the "Iowa Renewal Project," which aims, in the words of an e-mail Don Wildmon sent to pastors, to "encourage pastors and their congregations to take a stand for morality in their daily lives."

Don Wildmon, is, of course, the president of the American Family Association, one of the Project's key sponsors. He's also endorsed Huckabee.

There is no overt coordination between the project, which has affiliates in South Carolina and New Hampshire, and the Huckabee campaign. But to the extent that pastors who attend the project's briefings are familiar with Huckabee and Wildmon's support for his candidacy, Huckabee's rivals worry that the group amounts to a "campaign organization for pastors" operating on Huckabee's behalf.

…

The briefing takes place the Des Moines Marriott and is closed to the press. Huckabee is listed as a guest on the invitation but does not list the event on the schedule his campaign distributed to reporters Sunday.

Huckabee will be joined by the likes of Wildmon, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, and Mat Staver – who have all endorsed him – as well as Newt Gingrich and David Barton, the right-wing pseudo-historian who was last seen in Iowa stumping with Sam Brownback.  

With Brownback now out of the race, can a Barton endorsement be far behind?   And, for that matter, Gingrich has had nothing but good things to say about Huckabee in the past, so perhaps an endorsement from him will forthcoming as well.

Rick Scarborough, a pioneer in organizing churches around partisan politics, has seen his national stature rise dramatically in the last few years—the Texas ex-pastor even starred on CNN’s “God’s Warriors” series—but he’s also faced some setbacks. His “Patriot Pastors” strategy was dealt a blow last November when voters in South Dakota rejected an abortion ban and Missourians voted in favor of embryonic stem cell research, despite non-stop church-based organizing by Scarborough in both states up to Election Day. He also discovered the fact, known by most other political advocacy groups, that full-time lobbying or organizing for or against legislation is not tax-deductible—a sad day for him.

And his latest “Patriot Pastors” campaign—the ambitious “70 Weeks to Save America” tour that was to culminate on Election Day 2008—has apparently suffered from a lack of media coverage, spotty participation, and finally abandonment by Scarborough’s partner, Alan Keyes, who is running for president again. “Needless to say, this created a serious reevaluation of our whole program to register voters and to educate Christians through our Seventy Week campaign,” wrote Scarborough, who announced that sparser church events would be “augment[ed]” by voter registration drives and rallies at state capitols, “followed by an all out effort to move Values Voters to vote their values on Election Day '08.”

But sometimes opportunity knocks. Joining Randy Brinson, head of the embattled Christian Coalition of Alabama as well as a voter-registration outfit, Scarborough is bringing his “Patriot Pastors” act to the Iowa caucuses:

Beginning December 6, Vision America will be joining forces with RedeemtheVote.com in an effort to mobilize thousands of Values Voters all over Iowa as we barnstorm the state for ten days. We have been offered the use of a bus that has been especially designed for rallies, complete with a roll out stage, satellites on the roof to connect with the worldwide media, loud speakers and spotlights.

We will be working with the Iowa Family Policy Institute as well as the Iowa Christian Alliance, two very aggressive and effective pro-family organizations. Our goal is to host three rallies a day as we crisscross the state, registering thousands of voters and mobilizing tens of thousands to vote their values during the Iowa caucuses in January.

"Fox News," "US News and World Report," and other national media have expressed interest in covering this groundbreaking event as we travel the length and breadth of this important state.

Scarborough’s “One Day Crusades” this year have so far been focused on next year’s general election. Why the sudden interest in the Republican presidential primary? Well, Scarborough has heartily endorsed his former seminary classmate, Mike Huckabee, as has Brinson. And media are reporting that Huckabee has a shot of winning the Iowa caucus.

While Scarborough’s help may or may not push Huckabee over the edge in Iowa, the activist is still hedging his bets. After all, Rudy Giuliani still leads in national polls, and some have speculated that Huckabee’s surge ultimately benefits Giuliani by siphoning off far-right support for Mitt Romney. Scarborough has publicly waffled over whether he would support Giuliani were he nominated, but while he’s said Giuliani’s stance on abortion is unacceptable, he’s also been giving himself some wiggle room. Radical Islam, he said recently, is “the ultimate life issue."

There have been a few articles in recent days suggesting that moderate Republicans are growing increasingly weary of the stranglehold the Religious Right has had on the Republican Party for the last several years and that efforts by presidential candidates to pander to the likes of James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and Pat Robertson are only alienating them further:

Scott Reed, who managed Republican Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign, sees three overlapping problems for Republicans among business leaders and high-income voters. One is desire to go with the winning side at a time when Democrats have captured Congress; a second is loss of confidence in the Bush administration's competence; and a third is "a sense that the leadership of the Republican Party is too beholden to a small group of self-appointed social conservative leaders."

Apparently, Rudy Giuliani’s campaign was initially a cause for hope for some moderate Republicans, but those hopes have been dashed ever since he started promising to nominate right-wing ideologues to the federal courts and cozying up with the likes of Robertson:

Moderate Republicans in Iowa, eclipsed for years by the party's social conservatives, were looking forward to the 2008 caucuses.

After all, they had a candidate — Rudy Giuliani — who said early in his campaign that he could win in Iowa by attracting moderate Republicans and reinvigorating one-time GOP caucusgoers who had turned away from the party.

So far, it hasn't worked out that way, according to once-loyal Republicans who have felt pushed aside by the party's right wing.

"When Pat Robertson comes out and endorses him, that was the final straw for me," said former state Rep. Betty Grundberg, a Des Moines Republican who had flirted with supporting Giuliani. "I don't buy that this signals a united party. This shows me who he is more concerned about attracting."

...

[S]ome former Republicans say their hopes for 2008 have turned to alienation.

"I've left the party. I am no longer a Republican," said Dottie Carpenter of Des Moines, who served as a Republican in the Iowa House of Representatives for 14 years until 1995. "I'm sick and tired of every candidate for the Republican nomination kowtowing to the religious right."

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.  

Fred Thompson appeared at the Iowa Christian Alliance’s annual fall banquet alongside David Barton over the weekend, seeking support of the right-wing activists in attendance.

Sam Brownback says he has to come in at least fourth place in the Iowa caucuses if he wants to continue his campaign: "It doesn't mean that I'll drop out, but I think it will be hard to continue from that point on forward. We'll appraise it because you don't know what other dynamics are going to be in place at that time."