Why Huckabee Can't Drop Out

A funny graphic going around the Internet these days shows Senator John McCain and Governor Mike Huckabee in full debate mode. McCain says, "Since all of the moderates in the country have endorsed me, I think you should drop out of the race and let me fool the Democrats!" Huckabee replies, "Since all of the moderates in the country have endorsed you, I think conservatives should be able to vote for me."

This strikes at the heart of why Mike Huckabee seems to dig his heels in when operatives within McCain's campaign and the Commentocracy urge him to quit before voters in 20 other states have been heard. Huckabee clearly is not following any conventional political instincts in his decision to remain in the race until someone clinches the nomination. Instead, he's listening to the most vocal chorus of more than two million supporters who have yet to participate in the electoral process. Huckabee is the only means conservatives have of conveying a simple message to McCain: "If you want to be our nominee, earn it."

The political party bosses front loaded the nominating process to give moderates a better shot at bringing forth an early nominee from their ranks. Unfortunately, they didn't count on the presence of a strong and motivated conservative base this election cycle. Their hopes of repackaging Mitt Romney as a conservative fell flat -- none of his conservative views were realized before he opened his campaign headquarters. Romney is so prone to ideological fluidity that he originally endorsed Mike Huckabee, withdrew that endorsement so he could run, and then did a 180 kick-flip to grind his way into the McCain camp. Suddenly, McCain went from geriatric ultra-liberal to a national hero and man of substance. Such is the character of the people who occupy the highest rungs of the GOP ladder. While many conservatives were fooled into supporting Romney, thanks to an almost hysterical two-week rant from Talk Radio, a remnant of serious conservatives stood their ground, voting for Huckabee and for Fred Thompson. McCain's divide and conquer strategy proved more effective than Giuliani’s firewall in God's Waiting Room.

Even if the conservative remnant were foolish enough to fall for Romney's multiple personality disorder of a campaign, he didn't have a chance against McCain. Just before Romney dropped out, the math told the story: McCain at that point had 53% of delegates and everyone else combined had 47%. Pundits and historians will fiddle with facts for generations to come, but the bottom line is that the "Anybody but Romney" vote far outweighed the "Anybody but McCain" vote. The Establishment would have been happy with either man, since their objective is to have a moderate who can appeal to some Democrat constituency. They closed ranks behind the more liberal McCain as soon as he sowed traction. What better Republican to run against liberal Democrats than one who has supported them more often than his own party? If it was only about power and winning, this would be a slam dunk. Unfortunately, some of us still look for something intangible – like core convictions. Romney had none and McCain’s are fundamentally wrong for conservatives.

Huckabee, and to a lesser degree Fred Thompson, provided conservatives with an alternative "anti-Establishment" vehicle. The GOP Establishment and NeoLib conservatives had no way of anticipating that the conservative base had finally reached the tipping point of refusing to be the GOP's step 'n fetchers for yet another election cycle. The 2008 election cycle is proving to be a pivotal moment for traditional conservatives. Instead of staying home in droves as they did in 2006, conservatives may well bolt the party altogether if the rift is not healed soon. It cannot be healed by efforts to crush Huckabee's Quixotic insurgency. MEMO To McCain Camp: Huckabee's supporters aren't going to support you until the last delegate has voted at the convention. Even then, much rests in the person who will run with McCain. Without a real conservative on the ticket, all of the geotargeting in Huckabee's strong districts will not pursuade the political burn victims on the right.

Less than a month ago, GOP insiders were salivating over the possibility that a young and charismatic Democrat named Barack Obama would be crushed by the Clinton Machine in the most cynical and abusive way, putting a disillusioned African-American voting block up for grabs. The Perfect Storm of Bill Clinton's racial slurs and Obama's lack of gravitas did not come to fruition. Democrat Party bosses reined the former President in and many African-American leaders closed ranks behind Hillary -- for a few hours. In spite of his weakness as a potential leader of the free world, Obama's growing popularity is allowing him to ride a wave of feel-good 60's type Democratic politics -- possibly all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

What it means.

The GOP needs their base back. Even if Hillary is the Democratic nominee, Al Gore and other party leaders are trying to make an amicable end to the Democratic Party's current nominating disaster. The Democratic nominee will be poised to wage a generational battle of their Young Liberal against the GOP's Old Moderate. Conservatives need not show up. McCain cannot be recast as a conservative with any more credibility than Romney was. Without the Get Out the Vote efforts of disenfranchised Social Conservatives, McCain cannot win. He would be a fool to pick Romney or any other moderate as his running mate. He may not be thinking of Huckabee with any warm fuzzy feelings right now, but he needs to make a credible overture to the new generation of Social Conservatives. Establishment "OnceCons" like Gary Bauer, Pat Robertson and Phyllis Schlafley have no credibility speaking to this constituency. Their endorsements of “any elephant”, including moderates, over the past twenty years has proven that their loyalty is with pragmatic politics and not movement conservatism.

Conventional wiseguys tell us this new Social Conservative movement is uniting around the impossible hope that Huckabee could emerge as a standard bearer in a brokered convention. They are short sighted and shallow in their analysis. What is happening is a united effort among SoCons to take their place at the table -- even if they have to scorch the tablecloth in the process. If conservatives are not given an opportunity to vote their conscience and the GOP loses in the Fall, the fault will not be their intransigence. It will be the end of their 40 year journey of discovery that people of principle can never throw in with people of power and expect to come out with a clear conscience. The last few primaries will be their final feeble attempt at conveying this message to the moderates who run the party. It can be a reunion song or a breakup song.

John McCain and his OnceCon apologists are calling the tune.

Feeling Disenfranchised?

This may be my shortest post ever. You are free to send it to anyone you know who you think may be feeling a bit disenfranchised lately.

I’ve always been against “strategic voting”. However, I believe everyone should vote – even if the establishment and the media tell us it’s all over. That’s why I’m deciding this year to take someone else’s advice: I got an email from another blogger today that cynically said, “since McCain has it all locked up, I guess I can go ahead and vote for Mike Huckabee as a protest vote.” Not a bad idea.

Here’s the message you’re free to send along to those Democrats whose delegates won’t be seated or to those Republicans who were told it was a “two man race” when there were still four active candidates (one of those two men recently dropped out and endorsed the other): Give your vote to Huckabee or Ron Paul on the GOP side and to Kucinich or Gravel on the Democrat side. Since it’s all over, you can send a message to your party that politicians who have ears for the media and talk radio need to start tuning in their constituents.

An Open Letter to Phyllis Schlafley

Dear Ms. Schlafley,

I have long been a Republican activist and the journey has brought me many great memories. One of them was a call I made to Eagle Forum to ask for your endorsement of a candidate – and you answered the phone. It was your home phone number.

We’ve come a long way since then. As a homeschool dad of more than 20 years and a GOP activist, my path has crossed with Eagle Forum many times and I’ve learned to value the research and wisdom you have provided over the years. Now, more than ever, we in the conservative movement are confronted with a choice and a possible challenge to stand our ground on principle and for the convictions we cherish.

The mainstream media is cheering on what they perceive to be a “realignment” taking place within the GOP. They crow over the failure of talk radio and many in the conservative punditry to persuade their followers to pull the lever for Governor Mitt Romney. The problem is that the realignment, if any, is not taking place in a shift toward the left, but in a direction of inclusion and broadening of the conservative wing of the party that with leadership could give us a permanent governing majority within the party – and within the country.

In order to recognize this realignment on the conservative side, we have to distinguish between the angry class warfare of John Edwards’ “Two Americas” and instead look toward a rhetoric that, while respecting the importance of free market economies and the role of business in providing jobs, innovation and growth, also respects the fact that these economic drivers do not function in a vacuum. We have to be a party that can relate to the working class “Reagan Democrats” and take the leadership role of persuading them that business is their partner and not their enemy.

In order to recognize the realignment on the conservative side, I believe we have to distinguish between the neo-Marxist “universal healthcare” offered by the Democrats and the creative approaches offered by Republicans on the conservative side. Programs and policies that spur competition, improve quality of care and promote wellness are a top priority – not cradle to grave minimum care at maximum taxpayer costs. Former Governor Mike Huckabee pointed out in his book, “Stop Digging Your Grave With a Knife & Fork”, that it doesn’t make sense for the government to become our nanny when the industry itself can find its own economies of scale through prevention and wellness. He cites the cost of providing weight loss and management training and follow-up for a total cost of $3,000 makes more sense to an insurance company than paying $38,000 for open heart surgery. In Huckabee’s view, the government’s role can and should be much more limited – providing incentives for business and industry to take a common sense approach to wellness, reducing the cost of healthcare overall by giving consumers the wheel. Free markets work every time they’re tried.

In order to recognize the realignment on the conservative side, I believe we have to distinguish between a philosophy that grants citizenship to people who criminally invaded our country and who seek concessions from us in ways that jeopardize our security and contaminate our culture, and a philosophy that secures the border while removing incentives illegals have for coming here. Among these, increasing – and enforcing – penalties to businesses that hire illegals making it more beneficial to hire Americans, implementing a Fair Tax that cannot be avoided by the underground economy, and the immediate deportation of any illegal who has committed a felony. And no amnesty. A plan partially modeled on a proposal by Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, was adapted by Governor Huckabee as his own position and plan for immigration reform. It is among the more popular plans in the field.

Perhaps the most important consideration of the conservative realignment is the recognition that conservative issues cannot always be bound up in the notion that appointing strict constructionist judges will protect us from the abusive and tyrannical behaviors of the court in recent years. Some issues are too important and fundamental to our national sovereignty, and to our national conscience to allow the courts to have jurisdiction at all. Rather than pursue the overturn of Roe v. Wade, we need to support the Human Life Amendment. Rather than trust the courts to rule on the meaning of marriage, we need to unite in an effort to define marriage within the constitution itself, forever settling this issue outside the jurisdiction of justices who may “grow” in office.

In order to realign the conservative movement around its own core principles, we need to be willing to fight Senator McCain’s nomination. There are possible scenarios by which this can happen, one of which I trust you would not be favorable to. Given the opportunity to unite conservatives behind a candidate who is fundamentally right on our core issues and risking a protracted floor fight in a brokered convention, I would much rather see Governor Romney release his delegates to Mike Huckabee. If you could take a moment to speak with Governor Huckabee and consider an endorsement, that would be helpful. However, if it comes to a brokered convention, you can count on me as a “foot soldier” in the fight. In the end, the “realignment” I spoke of above is not a realignment at all. It is a call to recognize that this election is about choices and I do not believe conservatives are seriously making a choice for McCain. Without unity behind the remaining conservative, we will need to take a bold stand at the convention and send a message to the establishment and to the media: The realignment is not toward the moderate views of John McCain, it is back to the roots of the Reagan Coalition that made the GOP great.

If you need delegates committed to this purpose, I ask only that you point me in the right direction to getting selected and taking this message of realignment to the establishment leaders in the Indiana party. I believe the stakes are too high to allow for the harshness of the campaign through Super Tuesday to keep us divided. If we cannot mend fences and unite right now, we are electing Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton by default.

A Victory for the American Creed

In the absence of the shrill and hysterical rants from Talk Radio over the past few weeks, who knows what kind of case Governor Romney could have made for himself among conservatives? I spoke out against what I felt was a bullying from the Commentocracy that was unprecedented in American history. As irony would have it, the day before Governor Romney suspended his campaign, I sent each of the major talk radio people a simple chart showing the delegate count for each candidate with this observation:

Senator McCain 53% of delegates
All others together 47% of delegates

They could not, after all, blame Mike Huckabee for their failure to browbeat us into voting for Governor Romney. After he invested more than $80 million in his campaign, combined with the tens of millions in free airtime courtesy of Talk Radio and a near total blackout of anything positive about McCain, Huckabee or Ron Paul, Mitt was only able to capture primaries in his adopted home states and a few caucus states. This, I told the talkers, all translated into a "weak and unconvincing candidate".

Now that it is all said and done, and we struggle to put this dark chapter of GOP history behind us, there is a clear lesson to be taken from the events that took place over the past month: It was just as important to defeat Governor Romney because of his effort at self-funding as it was to turn him out for his failure to convince us that he had any core conservative principles.

Please don't take this as yet another class warfare rant. Neither Governor Huckabee nor his supporters buy into the "Two Americas" populism of John Edwards. Mitt is entitled to his money, hard earned and invested as he saw fit. However, the overarching message of this leg of the 2008 presidential campaign had everything to do with the American Creed. It was a bold push-back sent to the Establishment, the Commentocracy and any Mainstream Media types curious enough to seek the truth: “The Oval Office is not an asset to be acquired in a leveraged buyout.”

Huckabee’s little band of guerilla warriors helped their fellow citizens maintain a proud American tradition of rejecting self-funded campaigns. The eBay strategy didn't work for Steve Forbes and Ross Perot. Now it has failed Governor Romney. Whether the demise of the Romney campaign was a backlash against self-important Talk Radio barons or yet another rejection of self-funding, we can all take pride in the fact that conservative market principles and not money or media decided Mitt Romney’s electoral fate. It all took place without government regulations, Fairness Doctrines or McCain Feingold anti-speech laws.

The storyline will be wrong, as usual. For those of us who watched and were awed by the way America’s political process heals itself, a minor miracle envisioned only by the nation’s Founders took place. Mike Huckabee, a simple preacher decades ago, learned through real life experience what it means to serve and to struggle and to see others struggle. He was able to maintain conservative principles and held true to his convictions through a difficult stretch as a voice crying in the wilderness of Democrat corruption in Arkansas politics. He stood against the Clinton attack machine and prevailed three times -- the longest term of a Republican governor in Arkansas practically since Reconstruction -- and did not misplace his core principles along the way.

With hardly any money and a small army of everyday people giving of their time and treasure to take this message across the nation, Huckabee, like David with five small stones against insurmountable odds felled a well-funded establishment supported candidate and all of Talk Radio with the first of those stones. The Giant is dead.

We now wait to see what will become of the remaining four stones.

Talk Radio's Birthday Gift to Reagan

Here it is, Ronald Reagan's birthday, and the party he restored to greatness is asking itself some serious questions. Perhaps those questions shold have been asked after the Iowa Caucuses last month. In the national political autopsy of Super Tuesday, the Commentocracy typically followed their biases and long held grudges. Instead, they should be considering not the future of their talk radio colleagues, but the future talk radio has made for the GOP.

Liberal pundits and talking heads are gleefully touting the end of talk radio as a dominant center of influence for the conservative movement. Their logic goes something like, “since the GOP is moving away from Mitt Romney, the candidate of choice for talk radio, are Rush and his colleagues fading into irrelevance?”

It is an exercise in wishful thinking of seismic proportions. As Rush has proven over and over, his relevance is not determined by who is in power but by those who must live with the consequences of the decisions those powerbrokers make. Limbaugh and other popular talk radio hosts will thrive no matter who the GOP nominates and no matter who wins the general election in November. Unfortunately, the party of Lincoln has been thrown into an irrecoverable civil war as a result of their unrelenting assault on Mike Huckabee and John McCain.

Reagan’s Revolution

Ronald Reagan’s revolution began many years before 1979. It was a result of a once in a generation mending of fractures in the GOP and the festering dissatisfaction of social conservatives and working class people within the Democratic party. As the 1980 presidential contest neared, Reagan found a way to bring three disparate and often conflicting groups together in what has been likened to a “three-legged stool”. The coalition of the Reagan Revolution was made possible because Reagan supported all three legs of his stool. Neoliberals, the supply-side, free-market economic conservatives and the national defense conservatives were already a large part of the GOP. What Reagan did was everyday man the party of blue blood.

Social conservatives have been thrown a few bones in the form of platform planks addressing their issues, and in exchange, Evangelical leaders invested their reputations in a massive effort to mobilize their flocks to become the most effective political ground force since the early years of the Labor Movement. This leg of the stool included many disaffected working class people in the South and the upper Midwest who felt the Democratic Party had left them. Combined, social conservatives and blue collar workers did not represent enough votes to obtain a governing majority. Nevertheless, if the GOP could not find a way to bring these “values voters” into the fold and keep them there, the coalition would collapse. They earned the name, “SoCons” by being the hands and feet of a party that had become mostly a disembody policy brain.

Merely mouthing pro-family positions and supporting the Second Amendment would not be enough. SoCons were drawn to the Reagan Coalition because Reagan himself convinced him he was one of them. No candidate before or since has been so effective in persuading this block of voters than Reagan. That meant the party stalwarts had to have a hammer to keep SoCons in line. Talk radio and the failed nomination of Justice Robert Bork provided the perfect storm that would codify all of the SoCon agenda into a single, easily defined wedge issue: Judges. Even now, talk radio and the party establishment have worked together to use the hammer of “liberal justices” to hold the values voters in line. Whenever a marginal candidate is offered up, the fear tactic of reminding these voters of what will happen if someone like Hillary Clinton is allowed to appoint the next three justices to the Supreme Court is trotted out as a reliable weapon against independent thought.

Here Come Da Judges

Linking a strict constructionist judicial philosophy with social issues is a natural mix, since much of the judicial activism over the past 50 years has occurred in cases such as the infamous Roe v. Wade decision making abortion a right protected under the 14th amendment. Ironically, Roe v. Wade is often likened to our generation’s edition of Dred Scott. It is an easy quick reference reminder to SoCons that if they do not toe the party line, someone Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be the next Supreme Court Justice. Justice Thomas was treated brutally by Democrats in his confirmation hearings and the nominations for Justices Roberts and Alito proved just as vicious. Judicial appointments have become an emotional involvement strategy for the GOP to keep the SoCons engaged.

Unfortunately, during the time when tough confirmation processes for Alito and Roberts was getting SoCons engaged, they were also becoming more engaged in learning independently about the process itself, and the players involved. As George W. Bush’s presidency began to draw t a close, SoCons began severing their core values from the bundle called “Judicial Activism” and viewing them as ways of examining the core values of candidates. A candidate such as McCain who claims to be in favor of strict constructionist judges has the added burden of demonstrating that in his voting record and in the core values he has espoused over time. The same is true for Romney.

The Appeal to Authenticity

Without the fear of judicial appointments as an easy, consolidated wedge issue, the GOP now has to present a convincing argument, issue-by-issue, to values voters. This weakness began to show fine-line fractures within the GOP coalition when former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee came in second place in the Ames, Iowa straw poll. The dynamic of money versus values came to the forefront as Romney invested millions in his effort to show up a not so strong first over the lesser known Huckabee who only had his core values and a small army of enthusiastic supporters to carry him to a strong second place finish.

Romney poured even more money into his effort to defeat Huckabee. After outspending Huckabee 20 to 1, Romney’s loss should have gained the attention of the establishment and talk radio, seeking to unpack what was behind Huckabee’s win. Instead, they coalesced around Romney instinctively without giving a second thought to the implications of his Iowa loss. Those in the Commentocracy who did consider Romney’s liabilities recognized something Huckabee had that Romney lacked: Authenticity. More importantly, Romney had no credible connection to values voters concerns about abortion, gay rights, gun control and concerns of the middle class.

This huge disconnect between the establishment candidate and the most critical component of the Reagan Coalition was only amplified as an injured Romney campaign limped into New Hampshire where McCain lay in wait. By now, talk radio talents, led by Rush Limbaugh had already launched their effort in support of Romney, the unintended consequences of which we are only now beginning to assess. They are money smart in everything but politics: Romney has invested more than $40 million in a failed effort to convince values voters he can be trusted. Imagine what that amount of money could have done for a candidate with a credible connection to the party base – it should have been obvious to the Commentocracy, but it was not.

He Called Me a Name

Just before the holiday break, a story was planted in Mark Ambinder’s blog claiming that a “prominent DC-based Huckabee ally” claimed Rush Limbaugh did not think for himself. Limbaugh feigned shock and said he thought it was probably the McCain campaign that planted the quote. Within a day, Limbaugh became “convinced” that the quote was real and that an actual staffer on the Huckabee campaign was the source of the quote. Huckabee maintained his campaign did not have a staff in DC, but Limbaugh now had his justification to begin the month long assault on Huckabee: “He called me a name!” Granted, the name was innocuous – entertainer – but to someone of Rush’s degree of self-importance, anything less than acknowledging his longstanding role as a legitimate political commentator and opinion shaper is unacceptable.

Rush’s tirade against Huckabee did not take into account the suspicious nature of the original Ambinder post. His history of commenting on such issues has always been one of skepticism when “undisclosed sources” are cited. Any objective observer now can see it was a carefully choreographed scenario designed to give Rush a reason to launch the talk radio barrage against their candidate’s opponent.

Limbaugh’s talk radio colleagues kept the story line alive through the holidays and into the Iowa Caucuses.

The Unthinkable: A Conservative Wins

When Iowans balked at the comparative ads offered up non-stop by Romney and the supporting cast of Romney mouthpieces on the radio attacking Huckabee, the former Governor pulled the one negative ad at the 11th hour. Much to the chagrin of media, liberal and conservative alike, Huckabee’s pulling the attack ad was viewed with cynicism and disdain. It only served to amplify the radio assault on Huckabee – which only solidified the support of his followers. He beat the more moderate Romney by 8%.

Talk radio became apoplectic. How could this happen? Even a bunch of hayseed hick Evangelicals could see Huckabee was nothing more than a populist preacher with no experience. Why didn’t SoCons hear their message – what about the judges? Isn’t populism like John Edwards? Do they want McCain to win? On and on it went, driving SoCons further from the Romney candidacy.

The Intolerable: McCain’s Momentum

The Commentocracy made some foolish assumptions in their analysis of the Iowa outcome. Not the least of which was that if they could take out Huckabee, values voters would automatically gravitate to Romney on talk radio’s say-so. It didn’t happen. McCain won New Hampshire because the energy was invested in stopping Huckabee. They furthered this blunder by posing Thompson as a contender to draw votes away from Huckabee. Instead, the votes taken away from Huckabee were more than the margin he would have taken South Carolina and the Straight Talk Express gathered steam going into Florida, a state favorable to liberals and moderates in the GOP. The perfect state for someone like Romney delivered for McCain even though the liberal vote was split between himself and Giuliani.

Having sent Huckabee into the margins by declaring it a two-man race, talk radio now focused their efforts on destroying McCain. In addition to the Romney attack machine’s robocalls and negative ads, Talk radio began a combined 336 hour screed against McCain, demonizing him as being so bad that they would support Hillary Clinton if he won the nomination. Their invective became more shrill and when Huckabee didn’t play ball as the non-factor he was declared to be, they turned their guns on him yet again.

And that was the final salvo in their deconstructing of the Reagan Coalition.

What Values Voters Value

The factor the establishment and the formerly conservative Commentocracy failed to consider is that the appeal of Huckabee was not his background as a Baptist pastor. Mitt Romney is a former Bishop in his church, and that was not a factor either. What they missed, and what values voters have been saying since their convention where Huckabee also scored second in a straw poll is that they want leadership that not only appeals to their values, but that genuinely shares them. Romney’s repackaging did not buy him credibility among these voters.

It’s no longer enough to simply hang up a campaign headquarters sign and declare yourself a social conservative. With the social issues no longer bundled into the judicial activism bromide, GOP leaders now have to prove in some measurable way that they are part of the values voters and that SoCons are not merely the faction we need to pat on the head for our GOTV efforts. Huckabee connected with these people on a level of authenticity that Romney is incapable of because until he declared his candidacy, he had an extensive record of being on the other side.

The more hysterical and shrill talk radio’s assault against McCain and Huckabee became the more values voters realized they themselves were under attack. Resented for not toeing the party line, their candidate was vilified as being in some secret black helicopter conspiracy with McCain. The fact is that Huckabee never exchanged salvos with McCain because the Senator never attacked Huckabee – following a strategy that all but ignored the Governor’s presence in the race.

In the end, SoCons were not supporting McCain, they were opposing Romney. A candidate with no core convictions and who is so malleable on core issues cannot expect their support. Rather than trusting talk radio and the GOP establishment, SoCons, values voters at heart recognized what the Commentocracy and their handlers at the RNC still refuse to admit: The values coalition – much of the SoCon base – is not leaving the GOP; the GOP has left them. Had Huckabee not been destroyed after Iowa, these voters would have had a better alternative to Mitt Romney than McCain.

What It Means

In their fear of a positive populism and core values offered by Huckabee, the Commentocracy joined forces to engage the only candidate capable of holding the Reagan Coalition together and making it stronger. In their embrace of an inauthentic candidate who was essentially only right on the NeoLib issues, they chose the wrong horse. They can only hope that this is not the first of many races where their best horses will fail to come in under the wire.

Liberals will celebrate the supposed GOP Crackup and the demise of talk radio. They’re only half right. Talk radio will long survive the damage they did to their own party. They may have killed the Reagan Coalition, but they’ll have plenty to talk about over the next four years. Listeners will still tune in, but only in the same way they tune in to the all-disco station when they’re overcome with boredom.

Conservative Media: Huckabee is Gay

Romney's surrogates in talk radio and in the establishment Commentocracy are now trying to play to their perception of homophobia among Social Conservatives by implying that former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee is gay. Google "Huckabee Man Crush" and check out the results for yourself.

They've begun inserting dozens of blog topics across the internet with titles like, "Does Huckabee have a man crush on McCain?" and they have bolstered this talking point with leading Shrill Shills, Mary Matalin and Laura Ingraham repeating the charge. It is believed to be an accusation originally leveled by the Weekly Standard's Rich Lowry. However, the concerted orchestration of this very loud whispering campaign has the stink and smear of Romney's campaign tactics all over it. It would hardly be a surprise to the casual observer if it was found that this nasty trick originated from the Romney campaign.

Playing the "Gay" card.

The same accusation was leveled against Bill Kristol when he acknowledged that Huckabee was probably the better nominee for the Republicans in spite of his commitment to vote for a different candidate. The establishment NeoLibs are cynically appealing to Social Conservatives by implying that anyone associated with a defense of Huckabee -- or Huckabee's perceived defense of Senator John McCain does so not based on their core principles, but on the basis of barely submerged gay tendencies.

"Man Crush" seems to be the NeoLib code for closet homosexual, and whenever they've leveled that charge against one of their own, the result has been either immediate compliance or group censure. No doubt, Bill Kristol will be disciplined for his independent thinking. In the establishment mind, Social Conservatives are poor, undereducated, and easily commanded by merely implying that someone is gay or has had marital failings in the past. The former is their attack of choice against Huckabee and the latter is their latest attack on McCain. After all, apart from our obsession with abortion (which they view as also hurting the GOP) we are first and foremost a bunch of 19th century homophobe culture prudes who support traditional marriage and oppose homosexuality (which in their mind is also hurting the GOP).

In their latest assault on Huckabee's integrity, "conservative" talk radio and their print media counterparts have moved from the disgusting to the despicable. Apologies are owed to both Huckabee and McCain. Anyone considering himself a conservative should disassociate themselves from these immoral and unprincipled operatives -- and be sure to email every talk show to let them know what they are doing to their own credibility.

What it means.

Conservatives must stand together to thwart talk radio's undue influence on elections. "Fairness Doctrines" and "Campaign Finance Reforms" are not the answer. We can apply market forces to discipline these information sources to stick with facts and disengage from the character assassination that has become their only defense for Mitt Romney's campaign effort. They are all calling on Huckabee supporters and Ron Paul supporters to abandon their candidates and support a pro-abortion and anti-marriage candidate they handpicked before a single vote was ever cast. Our response must be to remind them that had they treated the candidates fairly and accurately, the result would have been a Huckabee nomination.

Remind your favorite talk show host that they are responsible for the McCain surge -- and could end up handing him the nomination by pushing a candidate Social Conservatives cannot support in good conscience. This is the time to stand up for principle, even if our "third choice", as Bill Bennett calls McCain, is the eventual nominee. In the end, if the McCain Express gathers steam, it will have been the willful choice of "conservative" media. Had their initial reaction to Huckabee’s surge been more supportive of – or even objective toward – Huckabee, we would have a clear frontrunner who is far more conservative than their pick.
Finally, we need to remind them that unless they have any specific credible evidence, they need to apologize to Huckabee and McCain and cease their groundless accusations that one or both of these men are gay.

Romney's "Coming Out" Party

Wading through the sludge of opposition research posing as serious discussion of issues, one would think Mitt Romney was running for president of the local chapter of ACT-UP instead of the more prestigious office he seeks. Much of the information available about Romney is true, and yet often misleading. A case in point is his long standing relationship with the gay community, frequently characterized as one of mutual support.

While it is quietly expected that Romney will re-flip on gay rights and other social issues once he takes office, there remains a certain “trust but verify” mentality among Mitt’s more liberal supporters.

Don't look for a "Log Cabin Republicans for Mitt Romney" bumper sticker anytime soon. While the former LDS Bishop i and one term governor of Massachusetts has had a warm relationship with this right-leaning Republican LGBT group in the past, his sudden lurch to the right on social issues just after his decision to run for president has left the Log Cabin group feeling confused and betrayed.

While the LCR does not officially endorse candidates in the primaries, they have released ads critical of their former crusader based on his frequent flips on other issues. If nothing else, the LCR has been consistent in its support of non-social conservative positions, and they are one of the few Republican groups holding Romney's feet to the fire on his massive tax increases disguised as fees. More detail on such ads can be found on the LCR Website in this article.

Of all the GOP candidates, Romney has had the longest gay-friendly record as shown on LCR's voter guide. Nevertheless, his support from this group, and probably from many gay groups, has dwindled since he began collecting frequent-flipper miles after launching his bid for the White House. If Romney’s fluidity on core principles is disturbing to social conservatives, it is downright frustrating for one of the few organizations seeking to change the GOP's anti-gay image from the inside. ii

Early Beginnings

Romney and the gay community became domestic partners in 1994 when he sent a letter to the Massachusetts Log Cabin Club seeking their endorsement. The October 6th letter states his pro-gay agenda, asserting he would go beyond Senator Kennedy's impressive record on gay issues. Stating it is not enough to merely match Kennedy's record, he believed, "we can and we should do better." He said it was important to help make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream issue, noting that Kennedy could not do this. "I can, and I will," Romney promised.

Romney also promised to co-sponsor the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, (ENDA) and asserted that the "Don’t Ask--Don't Tell" policy was a good first step on the road to allowing Gay service men and women to serve openly and with pride. Asking for their support in the final phase of his failed campaign against Kennedy, he told the Log Cabin Republican group that "by working together, we will achieve the goals we share for Massachusetts and the nation.

One-Hit Mitt

While he won the gay community’s support late in the campaign, it was too late and he lost. But he did not lose his sense of duty to this part of his constituency—at least not yet. They were called to action again when he ran for Governor of Massachusetts and he won. Unfortunately, while he still held to his commitment to support much of the gay agenda, within two years of taking office, Romney began testing the waters for a possible presidential bid. He had to tack right and do it quickly. His first effort was to support a ban on gay marriage.

The gay community pushed back in a very public way. What amounted to an outing party began with attack ads challenging Romney on his clarity of positions. In March of 2004, a Boston Globe article quoted David Rogers, then vice president of the Log Cabin Club in a rant about Romney’s lack of loyalty:

"He didn't say, when we met with him, `I'm sorry, folks; I'm against gay marriage because it's morally wrong.' He didn't say that." Romney told them he did not support a constitutional amendment, then before the Legislature, that would have banned gay marriage and outlaw domestic partnership benefits for gay couples, Rogers said. iii

Kenneth Sanchez, then president of the Log Cabin Club made the first scathing criticism of Mitt's betrayal. He said, “The governor is trying to further his national ambitions by giving in to political expediency.” The Log Cabin Club knew in 2004 what we are only now beginning to realize.

The outing party continued with an even greater intensity as the 2008 campaign loomed. Suddenly, the national Log Cabin Republicans, in order to discredit Romney for his flip-flops on social issues found themselves in an awkward, if not formal, alliance with Social Conservatives. The October attack ad, found in the article linked above, reads like the charges being leveled at Romney by more conservative Republican groups and by John McCain, the only candidate joining Romney in comparative ad buys. Former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee remains neutral in the ad wars -- a sort of political Switzerland -- though in interviews and n his blog, he has also joined the chorus of skeptical Social Conservatives in challenging Romney's flip-flops on their core issues.

What it all means

Is it fair to characterize Romney's turnabout on the gay rights issues as a flip-flop in the sense that he never shared their values in the first place? Is it fair to accuse him of secretly sharing their values and merely posing as a conservative? The maelstrom of political rhetoric that is the 2008 election forces us to consider questions like this. However, it makes much more sense to ask instead, "Is it reasonable to trust a person like Mitt Romney at all when there are other candidates who have not been so fluid in their core convictions?" That's a question many of Governor Romney's supporters, including the entire ClearChannel lineup lack the courage to ask. It is one those of us who have no financial interest in Romney's success must gather the courage to ask.

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i In the interest of being consistent with the Mainstream Media’s reference to Governor Huckabee’s prior experience as a Baptist pastor, we include this information about Governor Romney.

ii Log Cabin TV Ad Campaign Sets the Record Straight About Mitt Romney
LCR Press Release, October 4, 2007

iii Republican gay rights group hits Bush, Romney stances
Rick Klein and Mary Leonard, The Boston Globe - March 11, 2004