The New Scenario

With Senator Thompson's departure from the race for the Republican presidential nomination, the field of conservative candidates has narrowed to two. This bodes well for Governor Huckabee because the vote will now only be split two ways rather than three. As I had written last Saturday morning, before the South Carolina results were available, my prediction was that the conservative vote would be split in three parts and that the result could be a win for Senator McCain. This, in fact, is exactly what happened. If Senator Thompson had not been in the race, I believe that most of his support would have gone to Governor Huckabee, thus giving him the victory.

However, since there was only one moderate candidate running, Senator McCain, who received a majority of his support from independents, against three conservatives, he was the victor with 33% of the vote. Please note that the combined vote percentage for the three conservatives was over 60%. If the situation had been one conservative versus Senator McCain, the outcome would have been the same as it was eight years ago, a landslide victory for the conservative, just as it was for George W. Bush.

I am now more convinced than ever before that Governor Huckabee is the best candidate for everyone, especially for the conservative voter. He is by far the most consistent supporter of conservative family values. He hasn't had to rethink his position on abortion and traditional marriage. He is a strong supporter of the second amendment.

Governor Huckabee's overall plans for the various issues confronting our country would lead us back to a sound economic footing. The Fair Tax is something that is long overdue, as is the elimination of the IRS. This would bring into play all of the economy that is currently underground (illegal immigrants and others who get paid under the table) and eliminate the tax loopholes that are available only to the extremely rich. It also provides for those who are at poverty level incomes to pay no tax at all. No one else is proposing anything like this type of reform.

He has a solid plan for addressing the situation with the illegal immigrants. His nine point plan is on his website, http://www.mikehuckabee.com/, and is endorsed by the head of the Minutemen organization as the best plan out there. It would secure our borders first and then require the illegal immigrants to go back to their native countries and get in line to legally enter the country. The Fair Tax would also encourage them to do so because they would have to pay taxes on all their purchases and would no longer be hidden from our tax system.

Governor Huckabee is an advocate for the U.S. to achieve energy independence. He has an ambitious goal of getting us there in ten years. He supports exploration and free market solutions. We absolutely need to become energy independent. Our national sovereignty and our economy depend upon it. Some say it can't be done in ten years. There were similar naysayers in 1960 when it was proposed to put a man on the moon in ten years.

He has proposed health care reform via free market solutions. He doesn't support nationalized health care.

All these things, the lack of energy independence, illegal immigration, rapidly rising health care costs, and the current oppressive tax system, combine to drag down our economy. He is the only candidate putting forth a comprehensive, conservative solution to address these issues.

Finally, Governor Huckabee's record as governor in Arkansas is one of getting things done. He saw the challenges that were there for the people of Arkansas, and fought to get the things done that needed to be done. They improved their infrastructure (roads), their education system, and their health care system. He has a proven record of accomplishment. And all this was with a heavily Democratic legislature.

One last comment. A number of sources have repeatedly stated that Governor Huckabee isn't a true conservative. However, in all the times that I have heard this stated, I have never heard a sound basis for reaching this conclusion. The things that I have heard don't stand up to scrutiny. They are the same repeated talking points. Normally, when one is making an argument and offers supporting evidence, one provides the most solid evidence available. This in particular makes me very suspect of their claims.

Even Rush Limbaugh offered the normal littany of lame reasons. For stating that Governor Huckabee was a tax and spend fiscal liberal, he offered that taxes increased from the time that Governor Huckabee took office to the time that he left office. That was the one and only piece of evidence cited. While this is a true statement, one needs to look at the full picture. Part of the increase was due to the courts mandating an increase in spending for schools. Thus it was necessary to increase taxes. In order to reduce unnecessary costs however, he also closed some schools in order to consolidate schools where there weren't enough students to warrant the number of schools at that time. Additional taxes were voted by the people of Arkansas because they recognized that they needed to do something about their roads. Finally, at the end of his last term, the state had a budget surplus of about $850 million. If he were truly a tax and spend liberal, that money would have been spent and not ended up as a surplus. Can you imagine a tax and spend liberal not spending money that was available?

Rush Limbaugh also stated that he was weak on immigration. He cited that Governor Huckabee had changed his position on immigration at the South Carolina debate. Apparently Rush hadn't read Governor Huckabee's nine point plan on addressing illegal immigration which has been on his website now for probably over two months. The "weakness" is generally cited as Governor Huckabee's support for allowing children of illegal immigrants who had gone through school in Arkansas, who had excelled academically, had not been involved with drugs, and who would apply for citizenship, would be eligible to apply for a scholarship in that state. This allowed for the cream of the crop to be able to become contributing citizens of this country. Please note that this would have been very limited and was available only to the children who met very specific criteria. As Governor Huckabee has stated, he doesn't think it is right to punish the children for what the parents have done.

Also to be noted is that this proposal was supported during a time when the federal government was not only abdicating its responsibility to deal with the illegal immigration issue, but also actively punishing those that did. You may recall the border incident where the two border guards were sentenced to jail for shooting an illegal immigrant drug smuggler on the border. They were doing their jobs to protect our country and ended up in jail because of the so-called rights of the illegal immigrant.

If you have found Governor Huckabee to represent your positions, I would ask you to consider supporting his campaign in some way. We have the opportunity to select a candidate that we can support and one who truly represents us in November. However, you will need to participate in order for that to happen. He doesn't have the means to buy his way to the White House. One way that you can support him is by making a contribution to his campaign. Even if it is only a buck for Huck or a little more, it all adds up.

Perhaps you can't make a contribution now, you might be willing to make phone calls for him. If you have a cell phone with national long distance, your cost would be nothing if you call in the off-peak hours. You can sign up at his website to make calls.

Another easy thing you can do is to communicate this to your friends via e-mail. It is extremely important to get the message out as quickly as possible. The Florida primary is next week. Super Tuesday is the following week. The Ohio primary is in the first week of March. Let's do what we can to get an authentic, family friendly conservative as our President.

Please note the box on the upper right hand side of this blog. If you wish to contribute to his campaign, please use that link and my donor code, R10734. For every two dollars donated to Governor Huckabee's campaign, I will personally match it with one dollar up to a total $200.

Please feel free to comment on the opinions of this blogger.