A prominent Christian leader whose radio and magazine outreaches are solidly in support of biblically-based marriages – and keeps in touch with millions of constituents daily – says he cannot consider Arizona Sen. John McCain a viable candidate for president.
"Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," said James Dobson, founder of the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family as well as the Focus Action cultural action organization set up specifically to provide a platform for informing and rallying constituents.
Dobson, who always is careful to note that he's not speaking for the non-profit ministry, which cannot advocate for or against candidates legally, also doesn't hesitate to state his personal opinions on social or political issues and agendas.
Several times he's talked to Republicans, the traditionally conservative political party, about the need to maintain the values of that large part of the U.S. population, or lose the support of those people.
His most recent comments came during an interview on the Jerry Johnson Live program on KCBI 90.9 FM.
The show host noted that pro-family conservatives already are thinking about the next cycle of leadership in the United States, which will be determined in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections. He also noted that McCain and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani appear to be the leaders.
Then he asked Dobson to listen to a statement from McCain and respond.
"I think, uh … I think that gay marriage should be allowed if there's a ceremony kind of thing, if you wanna call it that … I don't have any problem with that," McCain says.
"Dr. Dobson, would you be comfortable with someone like John McCain as the … conservative or Republican candidate for president?" Johnson asked.
"Well, let me say that I am not in the office. I'm in the little condo so I can speak for myself and not for Focus on the Family," Dobson said in rejecting McCain's leadership.
He noted that legislation he'd just been discussing on the program, regarding an attempt by Democrat leaders in Congress to create obstacles for ministries such as Focus to reach constituents with action messages about pending legislation, is being supported by McCain, too.
"That came from McCain, and the McCain Feingold Bill kept us from telling the truth right before elections … and there are a lot of other things. He's not in favor of traditional marriage, and I pray that we won't get stuck with him," Dobson said.
The provisions of the new congressional proposal, hidden deep inside a plan to reform lobbying rules to eliminate the many recent scandals involving members of Congress, would require pro-family groups to provide documentation of their actions to the government any time they try to spark any "grass-roots" action.
Phone calls, personal visits, e-mails, magazines, broadcasts, phone banks, appearances, travel, fundraising and other items all would be subject to government tabulation, verification and audits, Dobson said during a recent program. "On and on it goes."
"Clearly, the objective here is to hide what goes on from the public and punish and silence those of us who would talk about what our representatives are doing," Dobson said of the plan by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. American Family Association Chairman Donald Wildmon, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and American Values President Gary Bauer joined Dobson in urging listeners to flood Capitol Hill with phone calls demanding those speech limits be removed.
Bauer said the telephone number to call is: 202-224-3121.
Focus also has begun an online petition, at Focuspetitions.com.
Wildmon characterized the Washington proposal as a message to the American public: "We don't want to hear from you, and this is the way we're going to handle it."
Dobson also earlier scolded Republicans for blaming the 2006 election victories by Democrats in many races across the country on conservatives.
"Dick Armey emerged from four years in the wilderness to blame conservative Christians for Tuesday's defeat. They were, he said, 'too involved' with the party. He can't be serious! Someone should tell him that without the support of that specific constituency, John Kerry would be president and the Republicans would have fallen into a black hole in '04," Dobson said in a story WND reported earlier.
"Values Voters are not going to carry the water for the Republican Party if it ignores their deeply held convictions and beliefs," he said.
"Republican leaders in Congress during this term apparently never understood, or they forgot, why Ronald Reagan was so loved and why he is considered one of our greatest presidents. If they hope to return to power in '08, they must rediscover the conservative principles that resonated with the majority of Americans in the 1980s – and still resonate with them today. Failure to do so will be catastrophic," Dobson said.
Dobson noted he'd been interviewed by U.S. News and World Report after the 2004 elections and warned if Republicans squandered their opportunity, they would pay a price at the polls in either 2008 or 2006.
Dobson's predictions about values and the Republican Party go back even further than that, too.
In 1998 he told a reporter that the GOP was in danger of losing its ability to "claim to speak for those of us with deep moral convictions."
He said at that time the party has "ignored the moral issues year after year, term after term" and said at that time it was "time to fish or cut bait."
At that time he also warned the GOP Christians and conservatives "will abandon them if they continue to ignore the most important issues."
Monday, 14 January 2008
Dobson's "NO" on Giuliani
ELECTION 08: Dobson says he wouldn't vote for Giuliani
By Michael Foust
May 18, 2007
EDITORS' NOTE: This story is part of a regular series of stories focusing on the most recent news about the presidential candidates' views on faith and morality.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Focus on the Family's James Dobson May 17 became at least the second major Christian conservative leader in recent weeks to say he would not vote for Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani in a general election.
Writing in a WorldNetDaily column, Dobson said Giuliani's liberal positions on abortion and "gay rights," as well as his personal life, should trouble conservatives. Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, also has said he would not vote for Giuliani in a general election.
"Speaking as a private citizen and not on behalf of any organization or party, I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008," Dobson wrote. "It is an irrevocable decision. If given a Hobson's -– Dobson's? -– choice between him and Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I will either cast my ballot for an also-ran –- or if worse comes to worst -– not vote in a presidential election for the first time in my adult life. My conscience and my moral convictions will allow me to do nothing else."
Giuliani, who leads the GOP field in most national polls but trails in the latest polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, is seeking to become the first pro-choice Republican nominee for president since 1976.
"How could Giuliani say with a straight face that he 'hates' abortion, while also seeking public funding for it?" Dobson asked. "How can he hate abortion and contribute to Planned Parenthood in 1993, 1994, 1998 and 1999? And how was he able for many years to defend the horrible procedure by which the brains are sucked from the heads of viable, late-term, un-anesthetized babies? Those beliefs are philosophically and morally incompatible. What kind of man would even try to reconcile them?"
Giuliani, Dobson said, "opposed the Marriage Protection Amendment" in Congress and supports domestic partnerships for homosexual couples. The former New York mayor also has been married three times, Dobson noted, "and his second wife was forced to go to court to keep his mistress out of the mayoral mansion while the Giuliani family still lived there."
"Unlike some other Republican presidential candidates, Giuliani appears not to have remorse for cheating on his wife," Dobson wrote.
Land said on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" May 10 that he would not support Giuliani in a general election.
"I don't think I could sell [Giuliani] to most [Southern Baptists and evangelicals], and I wouldn't try," Land said. "I would say, 'Vote your values, vote your beliefs and vote your convictions,' and have to leave it to them to connect the dots. I don't endorse candidates, but I'm negatively endorsing [Giuliani]."
GIULIANI AND ADOPTION -- Giuliani said during the second GOP presidential debate May 15 that under his administration as New York mayor, adoptions in the city increased 133 percent and abortions declined 16 percent. Although those stats generally are true, The New York Times reported May 17, they "mirrored national trends," and adoptions were increasing before he took office.
Additionally, The Times said, the adoptions statistic refers only to "city agencies involving children in the foster care system" and does not refer to private adoptions. Giuliani is credited with helping reform a broken New York foster care system by creating the Administration for Children's Services, which helped "improve caseworker responses to reports of neglect" and helped find foster care children permanent homes. But "little if anything in the public record suggests that he was promoting adoption as an alternative to abortion," The Times story said.
As mayor, the newspaper reported, Giuliani "continued a strong tradition of supporting abortion rights, including using public money to provide poor women with abortions, as well as contraceptive services."
Maria Comella, a spokesman for Giuliani's campaign, said Giuliani's creation of the Administration for Children's Services, his implementation of welfare reform and other initiatives helped contribute to an increase in adoptions.
"When you're creating an environment that encourages adoption as a choice that will naturally lend itself to decreasing the number of abortions," Comella told The Times.
HUCKABEE SAYS ABORTION ISSUE 'CRITICAL' -- Would Republican candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee consider a vice presidential slot alongside a pro-choice presidential nominee? He's not sure, saying he'd have to think "long and hard" before making a decision to such an invitation.
"This is an issue to me that is very critical," he said, according to the Associated Press. "It's one of the reasons that I got into politics because I believe the manner in which we treat innocent life and the matter in which we respect human life, at whatever stage ... is an incredibly powerful statement about who we are as a people."
Abortion, he said, "is not just some peripheral political position."
CLINTON VIDEO CRITICIZED -- Some pro-life Catholics are criticizing Hillary Clinton's campaign for releasing a five-minute video showing her in a photo side-by-side with Mother Theresa. The late Catholic nun was a staunch pro-lifer, and in 1994 -- with the Clintons in attendance -- delivered a memorable speech to the National Prayer Breakfast where she called abortion the "greatest destroyer of peace today." Conservatives applauded. The Clintons did not.
"And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?" she said, according to a transcript. "... Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child."
Joseph Cella, president of Fidelis, a pro-life Catholic organization, said it is "wholly inappropriate, disrespectful and disturbing" for the Clinton campaign to be using the picture.
"Mother Teresa tirelessly fought to protect unborn children, while Hillary Clinton staunchly supports abortion on demand in all nine months of pregnancy, including partial birth abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion," he said in a statement.
--30--
By Michael Foust
May 18, 2007
EDITORS' NOTE: This story is part of a regular series of stories focusing on the most recent news about the presidential candidates' views on faith and morality.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Focus on the Family's James Dobson May 17 became at least the second major Christian conservative leader in recent weeks to say he would not vote for Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani in a general election.
Writing in a WorldNetDaily column, Dobson said Giuliani's liberal positions on abortion and "gay rights," as well as his personal life, should trouble conservatives. Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, also has said he would not vote for Giuliani in a general election.
"Speaking as a private citizen and not on behalf of any organization or party, I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008," Dobson wrote. "It is an irrevocable decision. If given a Hobson's -– Dobson's? -– choice between him and Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I will either cast my ballot for an also-ran –- or if worse comes to worst -– not vote in a presidential election for the first time in my adult life. My conscience and my moral convictions will allow me to do nothing else."
Giuliani, who leads the GOP field in most national polls but trails in the latest polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, is seeking to become the first pro-choice Republican nominee for president since 1976.
"How could Giuliani say with a straight face that he 'hates' abortion, while also seeking public funding for it?" Dobson asked. "How can he hate abortion and contribute to Planned Parenthood in 1993, 1994, 1998 and 1999? And how was he able for many years to defend the horrible procedure by which the brains are sucked from the heads of viable, late-term, un-anesthetized babies? Those beliefs are philosophically and morally incompatible. What kind of man would even try to reconcile them?"
Giuliani, Dobson said, "opposed the Marriage Protection Amendment" in Congress and supports domestic partnerships for homosexual couples. The former New York mayor also has been married three times, Dobson noted, "and his second wife was forced to go to court to keep his mistress out of the mayoral mansion while the Giuliani family still lived there."
"Unlike some other Republican presidential candidates, Giuliani appears not to have remorse for cheating on his wife," Dobson wrote.
Land said on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" May 10 that he would not support Giuliani in a general election.
"I don't think I could sell [Giuliani] to most [Southern Baptists and evangelicals], and I wouldn't try," Land said. "I would say, 'Vote your values, vote your beliefs and vote your convictions,' and have to leave it to them to connect the dots. I don't endorse candidates, but I'm negatively endorsing [Giuliani]."
GIULIANI AND ADOPTION -- Giuliani said during the second GOP presidential debate May 15 that under his administration as New York mayor, adoptions in the city increased 133 percent and abortions declined 16 percent. Although those stats generally are true, The New York Times reported May 17, they "mirrored national trends," and adoptions were increasing before he took office.
Additionally, The Times said, the adoptions statistic refers only to "city agencies involving children in the foster care system" and does not refer to private adoptions. Giuliani is credited with helping reform a broken New York foster care system by creating the Administration for Children's Services, which helped "improve caseworker responses to reports of neglect" and helped find foster care children permanent homes. But "little if anything in the public record suggests that he was promoting adoption as an alternative to abortion," The Times story said.
As mayor, the newspaper reported, Giuliani "continued a strong tradition of supporting abortion rights, including using public money to provide poor women with abortions, as well as contraceptive services."
Maria Comella, a spokesman for Giuliani's campaign, said Giuliani's creation of the Administration for Children's Services, his implementation of welfare reform and other initiatives helped contribute to an increase in adoptions.
"When you're creating an environment that encourages adoption as a choice that will naturally lend itself to decreasing the number of abortions," Comella told The Times.
HUCKABEE SAYS ABORTION ISSUE 'CRITICAL' -- Would Republican candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee consider a vice presidential slot alongside a pro-choice presidential nominee? He's not sure, saying he'd have to think "long and hard" before making a decision to such an invitation.
"This is an issue to me that is very critical," he said, according to the Associated Press. "It's one of the reasons that I got into politics because I believe the manner in which we treat innocent life and the matter in which we respect human life, at whatever stage ... is an incredibly powerful statement about who we are as a people."
Abortion, he said, "is not just some peripheral political position."
CLINTON VIDEO CRITICIZED -- Some pro-life Catholics are criticizing Hillary Clinton's campaign for releasing a five-minute video showing her in a photo side-by-side with Mother Theresa. The late Catholic nun was a staunch pro-lifer, and in 1994 -- with the Clintons in attendance -- delivered a memorable speech to the National Prayer Breakfast where she called abortion the "greatest destroyer of peace today." Conservatives applauded. The Clintons did not.
"And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?" she said, according to a transcript. "... Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child."
Joseph Cella, president of Fidelis, a pro-life Catholic organization, said it is "wholly inappropriate, disrespectful and disturbing" for the Clinton campaign to be using the picture.
"Mother Teresa tirelessly fought to protect unborn children, while Hillary Clinton staunchly supports abortion on demand in all nine months of pregnancy, including partial birth abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion," he said in a statement.
--30--
Saturday, 12 January 2008
WHY HUCKBEE?
Some of Gov. Mike Huckabee's Political Experience...
Some of Gov. Mike Huckabee's Awards...
Gov. Mike Huckabee on the Issues...
Sanctity of Life:
Taxes/Economy:
Education and the Arts:
Energy Independence:
Health Care:
Crisis Management:
Some of Gov. Mike Huckabee's Endorsements...
Click here for full list of endorsements.
For more information on Mike Huckabee, visit:
Mike Huckabee for President
Facebook Group:
Mike Huckabee for President 2008!
If you want to support Mike...
Forward this message to everyone you know! Copy and paste the following into a new note/blog/bulletin:
Mike Huckabee for President
Facebook Group:
Mike Huckabee for President 2008!
If you want to support Mike...
Forward this message to everyone you know! Copy and paste the following into a new note/blog/bulletin:
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Janet Huckabee - Woman of Steel
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-janet8jan08,1,2929953.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=4&cset=true
Los Angeles Times
She's Huckabee's staunchest supporter
The candidate's wife, Janet, doesn't like to get in front of the cameras, but she's not shy -- she's one of the only spouses in this race to have her own experience running for office.
January 8, 2008
MANCHESTER, N.H. — As the Mike Huckabee campaign prepared to air a television advertisement attacking Mitt Romney in the last days before the Iowa caucuses, one crucial player argued strenuously against the spot. Her name was Janet Huckabee.
Mike Huckabee would eventually announce at a news conference that he was overruling most of his advisors and would not air the ad. He described this as an act of conscience, but he was also bowing to the wishes of his wife of 33 years.
"I told him, 'I don't feel comfortable with you doing this,' " she said in an interview. "I kind of always knew he'd come to his senses."
In the Republican presidential contest, Janet Huckabee is at once the least-known of the candidates' wives, and perhaps the most politically experienced. She and President Clinton, the husband of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, share the distinction of being the only spouses on either side of the race who have run for office themselves.
Janet Huckabee lost a bid to be Arkansas secretary of state in 2002, even as her husband, on the same ticket, won reelection. She and her opponent engaged in negative attacks, and the campaign left scars, by her own account. She says she learned from the experience, and now appears to be applying those lessons behind the scenes.
Aides say she is one of the most effective and determined fundraisers in a campaign that is short of money. Her husband has described her, along with national chairman Ed Rollins and campaign manager Chip Saltsman, as his closest advisors in a campaign that has fewer executive staff than its rival camps.
Her role on the campaign trail, while small, has been growing. Janet Huckabee, who is on leave from an emergency-management job at the American Red Cross, has begun introducing her husband at campaign events, and at one Des Moines rally, even danced with Saltsman while her husband played with a band. When Mike Huckabee jetted to California to appear on "The Tonight Show" hours before the Iowa caucuses, Janet Huckabee filled in for him at campaign events.
About 2 inches taller than her husband and more athletic, Janet Huckabee cuts a nontraditional figure. When Mike Huckabee works crowds, she sometimes helps clear a path. She speaks with a stronger Arkansas twang than her husband, and more colloquially. At one rally, she described the prospect of becoming first lady as "too cool."
For the most part, she prefers to be out of camera range. When Huckabee gave his victory speech Thursday night in Iowa, the woman behind him in the TV images was not his wife but Gena Norris, the model-actress wife of celebrity Huckabee endorser Chuck Norris.
"I'm not the belle of the ball," Janet Huckabee said.
The Huckabees met in junior high school in their hometown of Hope, Ark. Mike Huckabee likes to talk about how he was raised by poor parents in a small rented house, but Janet Huckabee had it worse. Her father abandoned the family; her mother raised Janet and four siblings.
Mike Huckabee has written that he was attracted to her integrity and her physicality. Janet Huckabee, at a sliver under 5 foot 10, was an all-district basketball player and track star who competed fiercely. "My coach used to say I'd argue with a fence post," she recalled.
They married at 18 and went off to college, but within a year she was diagnosed with cancer of the spine. Doctors told her she might not walk again. After surgery and radiation therapy, she recovered.
In Arkansas, she became well-known for her physical courage. During her time as first lady, she tracked bears, hunted rattlesnakes, jumped out of a plane, Jet-Skied the Arkansas River and, on a lark, did some bungee jumping.
In 2002, Republican Party officials, without a candidate for secretary of state, asked her to run. "I wanted people to have a choice," she said. She started behind in the polls and stayed there. "She was very negative and criticized me personally because she didn't have a public record," recalls her opponent, Charlie Daniels, who attacked her as well. Janet Huckabee says the race was very difficult, in part because she and her husband were on the same ballot.
The Huckabees are a tightknit clan, and the presidential campaign is a family affair. Two of the couple's three children, in addition to their daughter-in-law, have been paid employees of the campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Janet Huckabee has given touches of home to the campaign bus, even bringing the family's three dogs on board.
Mike Huckabee likes to tell audiences that he enjoys hearing his wife talk about him on the stump, because she is never so kind at home. The former Arkansas governor says his rivals are wasting their money on negative ads because "my wife will tell you for free that I'm a bum."
This is not entirely a joke, friends of the couple say. His talking, for instance, sometimes seems to try her patience.
"I think sometimes literally we talk things to death. I say: 'Let's quit talking about it. Let's go do it,' " she said.
Shortly after Mike Huckabee announced he was pulling the Romney ad, she retreated to what she thought was the quiet of the campaign's Des Moines headquarters.
Instead, she was nearly run over by a half-dozen cameramen who were interviewing her husband. She made an athletic leap to get out of the way, and shook her head.
"I thought this area was supposed to be private," she said.
joe.mathews@latimes.com
January 8, 2008
MANCHESTER, N.H. — As the Mike Huckabee campaign prepared to air a television advertisement attacking Mitt Romney in the last days before the Iowa caucuses, one crucial player argued strenuously against the spot. Her name was Janet Huckabee.
Mike Huckabee would eventually announce at a news conference that he was overruling most of his advisors and would not air the ad. He described this as an act of conscience, but he was also bowing to the wishes of his wife of 33 years.
"I told him, 'I don't feel comfortable with you doing this,' " she said in an interview. "I kind of always knew he'd come to his senses."
In the Republican presidential contest, Janet Huckabee is at once the least-known of the candidates' wives, and perhaps the most politically experienced. She and President Clinton, the husband of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, share the distinction of being the only spouses on either side of the race who have run for office themselves.
Janet Huckabee lost a bid to be Arkansas secretary of state in 2002, even as her husband, on the same ticket, won reelection. She and her opponent engaged in negative attacks, and the campaign left scars, by her own account. She says she learned from the experience, and now appears to be applying those lessons behind the scenes.
Aides say she is one of the most effective and determined fundraisers in a campaign that is short of money. Her husband has described her, along with national chairman Ed Rollins and campaign manager Chip Saltsman, as his closest advisors in a campaign that has fewer executive staff than its rival camps.
Her role on the campaign trail, while small, has been growing. Janet Huckabee, who is on leave from an emergency-management job at the American Red Cross, has begun introducing her husband at campaign events, and at one Des Moines rally, even danced with Saltsman while her husband played with a band. When Mike Huckabee jetted to California to appear on "The Tonight Show" hours before the Iowa caucuses, Janet Huckabee filled in for him at campaign events.
About 2 inches taller than her husband and more athletic, Janet Huckabee cuts a nontraditional figure. When Mike Huckabee works crowds, she sometimes helps clear a path. She speaks with a stronger Arkansas twang than her husband, and more colloquially. At one rally, she described the prospect of becoming first lady as "too cool."
For the most part, she prefers to be out of camera range. When Huckabee gave his victory speech Thursday night in Iowa, the woman behind him in the TV images was not his wife but Gena Norris, the model-actress wife of celebrity Huckabee endorser Chuck Norris.
"I'm not the belle of the ball," Janet Huckabee said.
The Huckabees met in junior high school in their hometown of Hope, Ark. Mike Huckabee likes to talk about how he was raised by poor parents in a small rented house, but Janet Huckabee had it worse. Her father abandoned the family; her mother raised Janet and four siblings.
Mike Huckabee has written that he was attracted to her integrity and her physicality. Janet Huckabee, at a sliver under 5 foot 10, was an all-district basketball player and track star who competed fiercely. "My coach used to say I'd argue with a fence post," she recalled.
They married at 18 and went off to college, but within a year she was diagnosed with cancer of the spine. Doctors told her she might not walk again. After surgery and radiation therapy, she recovered.
In Arkansas, she became well-known for her physical courage. During her time as first lady, she tracked bears, hunted rattlesnakes, jumped out of a plane, Jet-Skied the Arkansas River and, on a lark, did some bungee jumping.
In 2002, Republican Party officials, without a candidate for secretary of state, asked her to run. "I wanted people to have a choice," she said. She started behind in the polls and stayed there. "She was very negative and criticized me personally because she didn't have a public record," recalls her opponent, Charlie Daniels, who attacked her as well. Janet Huckabee says the race was very difficult, in part because she and her husband were on the same ballot.
The Huckabees are a tightknit clan, and the presidential campaign is a family affair. Two of the couple's three children, in addition to their daughter-in-law, have been paid employees of the campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Janet Huckabee has given touches of home to the campaign bus, even bringing the family's three dogs on board.
Mike Huckabee likes to tell audiences that he enjoys hearing his wife talk about him on the stump, because she is never so kind at home. The former Arkansas governor says his rivals are wasting their money on negative ads because "my wife will tell you for free that I'm a bum."
This is not entirely a joke, friends of the couple say. His talking, for instance, sometimes seems to try her patience.
"I think sometimes literally we talk things to death. I say: 'Let's quit talking about it. Let's go do it,' " she said.
Shortly after Mike Huckabee announced he was pulling the Romney ad, she retreated to what she thought was the quiet of the campaign's Des Moines headquarters.
Instead, she was nearly run over by a half-dozen cameramen who were interviewing her husband. She made an athletic leap to get out of the way, and shook her head.
"I thought this area was supposed to be private," she said.
joe.mathews@latimes.com
Monday, 7 January 2008
Illegal Aliens Scared of Huckabee??????
Mexicans fear Huckabee
By Jeremy Schwartz | Monday, January 7, 2008, 10:58 AM
A week ago, most Mexicans had never heard of Mike Huckabee. After the former Baptist minister’s victory in Iowa, many here now view Huckabee as a danger. Huckabee is generally seen as the most conservative of the Republican candidates and as such, the toughest on immigration (Mitt Romney might have something to say about that characterization).
Here’s how this morning’s Reforma newspaper analyzed Huckabee’s victory:
“The triumph of Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucus is not good news for Mexico. It happens that the ex-governor of Arkansas … is winning supporters in great part through his plan to seal the border with Mexico with a wall and more Border Patrol. He also has the support of such “wonderful” people as James Gilchrist, founder of the anti-immigrant Minuteman movement and the actor Chuck Norris, who played the role of a violent Texas Ranger.”
In the Milenio newspaper, columnist Diego Petersen Farah writes, “Huckabee’s position on immigration is absolutely radical…Without a doubt, for Mexico and Latin America in general, Barack Obama would be a much more empathetic president, although not free of problems.”
By Jeremy Schwartz | Monday, January 7, 2008, 10:58 AM
A week ago, most Mexicans had never heard of Mike Huckabee. After the former Baptist minister’s victory in Iowa, many here now view Huckabee as a danger. Huckabee is generally seen as the most conservative of the Republican candidates and as such, the toughest on immigration (Mitt Romney might have something to say about that characterization).
Here’s how this morning’s Reforma newspaper analyzed Huckabee’s victory:
“The triumph of Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucus is not good news for Mexico. It happens that the ex-governor of Arkansas … is winning supporters in great part through his plan to seal the border with Mexico with a wall and more Border Patrol. He also has the support of such “wonderful” people as James Gilchrist, founder of the anti-immigrant Minuteman movement and the actor Chuck Norris, who played the role of a violent Texas Ranger.”
In the Milenio newspaper, columnist Diego Petersen Farah writes, “Huckabee’s position on immigration is absolutely radical…Without a doubt, for Mexico and Latin America in general, Barack Obama would be a much more empathetic president, although not free of problems.”
Antics that Provide RESULTS!
Huckabee has history of winning support, or at least attention, with 'bumper sticker' style
The Associated Press
Monday, January 7, 2008
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas: Mike Huckabee's offbeat antics — what some would call stunts — helped propel him to the front of the Republican presidential pack after a decade honing that "bumper sticker" style as governor of Arkansas.
This is a man who moved with his wife into a triple-wide trailer while the governor's mansion was being renovated. Who wedded her again, before a crowd at a sports arena, to show support for a marriage law he had just signed. Who, five weeks into Arkansas' top job, worked a day in the state motor vehicle office sporting a "Cashier Trainee" tag before launching and winning a fight to streamline the agency.
During his decade as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee's style drew criticism from opponents who bristled at his lighthearted approach to serious public policy debates. But it also got the attention and often the support of voters Huckabee needed most.
Transferred to the opening round of the 2008 presidential nominating contest, Huckabee's wit charmed even his Republican opponents — before they saw him as a threat. Among those listening to the affable Arkansas governor were evangelical Christians, who on Thursday night helped propel Huckabee past millionaire Mitt Romney to win the race's first test of strength, the Iowa caucuses.
Touching down a day later in New Hampshire, Huckabee tried to reassure skeptics in a famously independent northeastern state that holds its primary on Tuesday.
"Being president is a serious job. Running this country is serious business. The issues we face are serious," he told about 175 people in Henniker, New Hampshire, on Friday. "The reason I have fun is because I love America."
By that reasoning, he adored Arkansas.
Huckabee's antics earned criticism from lawmakers and groans from reporters, but helped the Republican win re-election twice in a Democratic-leaning state.
"Here in Arkansas, obviously, he knew coming in with one of the most heavily Democratic legislatures in the country he would have to have a strategy of going around the Legislature, around some of the traditional media, around some of the traditional power makers in politics," former Huckabee aide Rex Nelson said. "He had a superb ability at doing that."
Jay Barth, a political scientist at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, said Huckabee's gimmicks in national politics echo those in Arkansas because they were met with criticism but helped Huckabee win over the voters he needed. In Iowa that meant evangelical Christians; in Arkansas, rural white voters.
Barth cited Huckabee's opening campaign ad for president, a tongue-in-cheek spot that featured an endorsement by action star and Internet cult hero Chuck Norris.
"Most of these gimmicks all said the same thing: 'I am one of you. I get the entertainment value of Chuck Norris. I want to celebrate Christmas. I'm sick of negative ads and I know you are too,'" said Barth, a member of the state Democratic committee.
Huckabee's penchant for gimmicks to get his message out began with his first year in office, 1996, when he traveled the Arkansas River by bass boat to drum up support for a one-eighth of 1 percent sales tax for conservation efforts.
Months after his one-day stint at a state motor vehicle office, Huckabee successfully fought to drop annual vehicle inspections and streamline renewals for driver's licenses and car tags.
In 2001, Huckabee created a "tax me more" fund to chide legislators who suggested targeted tax increases to offset $142 million in budget cuts.
"It's put up or shut up time," Huckabee said then. "Either put up the money, write the check and let us see if you're serious, or quit telling me that Arkansans want their taxes raised."
By 2003, the fund held between $2,000 and $3,000.
Legislators lamented the governor's "bumper sticker" approach to serious state budget problems. Senate Majority Leader John Riggs, a Democrat from Little Rock, then called Huckabee's fund a "grandstand act and what you would expect of somebody who takes on clownish behavior."
Nelson, Huckabee's aide, said the criticism was not a major concern and came from people who were not going to support the governor anyway.
Huckabee even used his home and his marriage to gain publicity. In 2001, Huckabee signed into law an option for couples to enter into covenant marriages, which can be ended only after counseling and only on certain grounds — adultery, criminal activity, physical or sexual abuse or a two-year separation.
To mark the occasion, Huckabee and wife Janet converted their 30-year union to a covenant marriage in front of a crowd of 6,400 people at Alltel Arena in 2005.
"We hope to say to others, 'Marriage is tough, but it's best to work through those difficulties,'" he said.
That was five years after the Huckabees moved into a triple-wide manufactured home so the governor's mansion could be renovated. Huckabee went along with plenty of jokes — including an appearance on NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" — when the first family moved into the once-wheeled dwelling. Mrs. Huckabee jokingly referred to herself as the queen of the triple-wide — and received more than $6,000 in honoraria from mobile home industry trade groups grateful for the publicity.
"We're blowing the stereotypes by letting people see that this is not some pull-behind-the-truck trailer," the governor said at the time. "This is a beautiful, very nice home. We're thrilled to death to have it."
Barth said the mobile home may have looked like a public relations disaster, but actually was a political gain for Huckabee.
"It was ridiculed mercilessly, but if you look at the counties where he needed to win, those white, rural, swing counties, those were the places where there are a lot of mobile homes," Barth said.
The Associated Press
Monday, January 7, 2008
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas: Mike Huckabee's offbeat antics — what some would call stunts — helped propel him to the front of the Republican presidential pack after a decade honing that "bumper sticker" style as governor of Arkansas.
This is a man who moved with his wife into a triple-wide trailer while the governor's mansion was being renovated. Who wedded her again, before a crowd at a sports arena, to show support for a marriage law he had just signed. Who, five weeks into Arkansas' top job, worked a day in the state motor vehicle office sporting a "Cashier Trainee" tag before launching and winning a fight to streamline the agency.
During his decade as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee's style drew criticism from opponents who bristled at his lighthearted approach to serious public policy debates. But it also got the attention and often the support of voters Huckabee needed most.
Transferred to the opening round of the 2008 presidential nominating contest, Huckabee's wit charmed even his Republican opponents — before they saw him as a threat. Among those listening to the affable Arkansas governor were evangelical Christians, who on Thursday night helped propel Huckabee past millionaire Mitt Romney to win the race's first test of strength, the Iowa caucuses.
Touching down a day later in New Hampshire, Huckabee tried to reassure skeptics in a famously independent northeastern state that holds its primary on Tuesday.
"Being president is a serious job. Running this country is serious business. The issues we face are serious," he told about 175 people in Henniker, New Hampshire, on Friday. "The reason I have fun is because I love America."
By that reasoning, he adored Arkansas.
Huckabee's antics earned criticism from lawmakers and groans from reporters, but helped the Republican win re-election twice in a Democratic-leaning state.
"Here in Arkansas, obviously, he knew coming in with one of the most heavily Democratic legislatures in the country he would have to have a strategy of going around the Legislature, around some of the traditional media, around some of the traditional power makers in politics," former Huckabee aide Rex Nelson said. "He had a superb ability at doing that."
Jay Barth, a political scientist at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, said Huckabee's gimmicks in national politics echo those in Arkansas because they were met with criticism but helped Huckabee win over the voters he needed. In Iowa that meant evangelical Christians; in Arkansas, rural white voters.
Barth cited Huckabee's opening campaign ad for president, a tongue-in-cheek spot that featured an endorsement by action star and Internet cult hero Chuck Norris.
"Most of these gimmicks all said the same thing: 'I am one of you. I get the entertainment value of Chuck Norris. I want to celebrate Christmas. I'm sick of negative ads and I know you are too,'" said Barth, a member of the state Democratic committee.
Huckabee's penchant for gimmicks to get his message out began with his first year in office, 1996, when he traveled the Arkansas River by bass boat to drum up support for a one-eighth of 1 percent sales tax for conservation efforts.
Months after his one-day stint at a state motor vehicle office, Huckabee successfully fought to drop annual vehicle inspections and streamline renewals for driver's licenses and car tags.
In 2001, Huckabee created a "tax me more" fund to chide legislators who suggested targeted tax increases to offset $142 million in budget cuts.
"It's put up or shut up time," Huckabee said then. "Either put up the money, write the check and let us see if you're serious, or quit telling me that Arkansans want their taxes raised."
By 2003, the fund held between $2,000 and $3,000.
Legislators lamented the governor's "bumper sticker" approach to serious state budget problems. Senate Majority Leader John Riggs, a Democrat from Little Rock, then called Huckabee's fund a "grandstand act and what you would expect of somebody who takes on clownish behavior."
Nelson, Huckabee's aide, said the criticism was not a major concern and came from people who were not going to support the governor anyway.
Huckabee even used his home and his marriage to gain publicity. In 2001, Huckabee signed into law an option for couples to enter into covenant marriages, which can be ended only after counseling and only on certain grounds — adultery, criminal activity, physical or sexual abuse or a two-year separation.
To mark the occasion, Huckabee and wife Janet converted their 30-year union to a covenant marriage in front of a crowd of 6,400 people at Alltel Arena in 2005.
"We hope to say to others, 'Marriage is tough, but it's best to work through those difficulties,'" he said.
That was five years after the Huckabees moved into a triple-wide manufactured home so the governor's mansion could be renovated. Huckabee went along with plenty of jokes — including an appearance on NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" — when the first family moved into the once-wheeled dwelling. Mrs. Huckabee jokingly referred to herself as the queen of the triple-wide — and received more than $6,000 in honoraria from mobile home industry trade groups grateful for the publicity.
"We're blowing the stereotypes by letting people see that this is not some pull-behind-the-truck trailer," the governor said at the time. "This is a beautiful, very nice home. We're thrilled to death to have it."
Barth said the mobile home may have looked like a public relations disaster, but actually was a political gain for Huckabee.
"It was ridiculed mercilessly, but if you look at the counties where he needed to win, those white, rural, swing counties, those were the places where there are a lot of mobile homes," Barth said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
