This Christmas Will We be Singing "Santorum's Cause is Coming to Town"

On January 20 2013 the United States will be well on its way to determining who we will be as a country. On that day we will either be affirming the vision of the founding fathers of a nation following Judeo-Christian principles with a hope for life , liberty , and the pursuit of happiness or we will be a nation affirming that we want to replace a Sovereign God with a sovereign government. We will have realized our national slide away from its roots or we will sign onto a world view that is already crippling Europe and will do the same to us. On that day we will inaugurate a President for the next four years. If that President is Barack Obama then ideas planted in the last four years will be given roots so strong that it will be next to impossible to uproot them.
Readers of this blog know which vision I hope to see affirmed on that date. It is my dear hope that we will again be a country that acknowledges that every life is valuable because God created it and we will acknowledge that we are a free people whose freedom comes not from the consent of the government but from the grace of a loving God. I believe the ideological viewpoint, policies, and Supreme Court appointments of Barack Obama would be tragic for our country, not just for the next four years but for the entire future of the United States.
The question then becomes who should take the banner to lead us in this more historically consistent and positive direction. Once again readers of this blog will know that I have worked hard for the last 5 years to champion the cause of Mike Huckabee for that role. I do believe in miracles and would be thrilled if a brokered convention turned to the person who was leading in most major polls when he decided not to run. But politics being what it is, that would indeed be a miracle.
So in this primary season I have spent a considerable time, effort and research to explore each of the candidates that are currently in the field for the GOP nomination. I have sought to find the candidate with the character, experience and leadership qualities best suited to the enormous job at hand. In addition I have considered the factor of which candidate could most effectively go up against President Obama. I think using electability as the sole argument has brought us very poor candidates in the past and has rarely been accurate in terms of who in fact would be elected. John McCain was thought of as the maverick that would bring the independents to the cause. How did that work out?
However the issue of electability has been a major thrust of the talking heads for some time and what I consider the folly of their reasoning has brought me to this post. It is generally assumed that the candidate most to the center of the political spectrum will most likely garner the votes of the independents and thus win the election. With that rubric they have annointed Mitt Romney as the most electable. I believe rather that the independent voter who will tip the balance in the election will more likely turn to a candidate who is seen as competent, trustworthy and possessing a sincere personality than they will to someone who zigs and zags trying to appear to have a belief system appealing to whatever grtoup he is talking to in that given moment. I believe that the democrats would use the same argument that Romney's GOP rivals have used against him and would paint him as a flip-flopping out of touch rich guy who could not be trusted by either the right or the left and certainly not by the centrist looking for someone with a clear moral compass. They would have ample evidence to make the charge stick. Romney and Gingrich have bloodied themselves so much that their negatives have risen and the Obama team would certainly put a magnifying glass on those negatives. And Rick Santorum ? The charge is made that he would take away the freedoms and rights of all Americans in the name of his religious convictions. The truth is that his public record indicates that he has not done that. Rather he has made a bold public stand for what he believes in terms of issues such as the right to life and religious liberty and he has said that the government should not seek to meddle in such affairs by such practices as forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions.
Of the four candidates in the race I believe Rick Santorum is the most trustworthy of the group, the most likely to champion the cause of the sanctity of life, and the most electable Republican. Rick Santorum has earned my endorsement for President of the United States in this year's GOP primary. I hope January 20, 2013 will be a day we can all celebrate not only a new President but a renewed vision of America, a vision like that of our founding fathers.

I Still Believe in Hope and Change

I have a good friend who, when being pursued by a certain young man, declared that she was “not interested and would never be interested” in this young man. The young man didn’t give up and today my friends have been married for over 30 years and are very much in love. Timing is everything. What once seemed impossible ultimately turned out to be the very best course of action for everyone involved. God had His reasons for the delay of that union and He had his reasons for bringing it ultimately to success. It had to be the right time.
It was an exciting May evening when many of us watched “Huckabee” to hear what we thought would be Mike Huckabee’s announcement that he would run for the presidency. Polls had the governor in the lead both against his GOP opposition and in a head to head match up against President Obama. Yet we were shocked by his declaration that “His heart says ‘no’”. Many of us struggled with that determination while respecting the fact that Mike sought to obey and follow God. But the truth is this: sometimes what seems like a “no” turns out to be a “Not yet”. It has to be the right time.
Since that day in May we have seen many come to the front of the GOP line and make their case. As I have viewed the GOP debates I have seen some good people give some common sense answers, I have also seen some glaring weaknesses. I do not want to spend my time in this blog tearing down all the current candidates, the fact is, in the end I could never vote for President Obama so if Mike Huckabee doesn’t run, I’ll have to be supporting one of these candidates . However looking at the two front runners shows me why I believe the debates have had a huge Huckabee-sized vacuum in them.
The trials of our nation can be seen like a street filled with hot coals. We have as a nation turned our eyes to money and to government to rescue us. President Obama decided to throw the gasoline of vastly greater government spending , debt, and control on the coals and the path became impassable. Mitt Romney with his changing views with every election (“I will always be pro-choice” when running for Massachusetts governor etc etc.) would have us run across the coals with flip-flops on. Not very safe, not very successful. Rick Perry says he is a conservative and yet supported Rudy Giuliani, a pro-choice candidate in 2008. Can he be trusted? Perry has the cowboy persona but I think he might just charge across those flaming coals and get himself and the horse he rides killed in the process.
We need someone who will get the heavy equipment out and clear the road of the coals. We need a road paved with the principle in the Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. All life is precious from conception to natural death. We need someone who can be trusted to protect and defend all life in this country and to promote freedom and liberty for all. We need someone with authentic principles and not mere rhetoric.
Four years ago then-candidate Obama ran on a theme of hope and change. Here we are four years later, hope is almost gone and the change has been for the worse. The “accomplishments” or lack thereof of the Obama administration hardly have to be chronicled. His philosophy of government spending and government control being the panacea for our society are clearly an abject failure by any measure. But it is clearly not enough to fire the current occupant of the oval office. We need to have someone else to replace him that is competent, experienced, and has a rock solid foundation of belief that will carry him and those he leads to success.
I still believe in hope and change. I still HOPE Mike Huckabee will CHANGE his mind and run for President of the United States in 2012. Timing is everything. The time is now.

Healing Huckabee Heartbreak

I don’t listen to country music very often and I sure wouldn’t want to get my theology from a Garth Brooks song but Garth had a good point in his hit “Unanswered Prayer” that applies to what many of us feel in the wake of Gov. Huckabee’s announcement that he will not run for President in 2012.
The thrust of the song is that a guy sees his high school sweetheart at a football game and a flood of memories comes back . He thinks of his hopes and dreams and how very much he wanted the relationship to happen. But then he looks at his wife and realizes how happy he is that God didn’t answer those prayers back in high school. He recognizes that God gave him something far better and he reflects his joy in the words “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers”
Now I should correct the record that God doesn’t give us unanswered prayers. Sometimes he gives us a “yes” sometimes a “no” and sometimes a “wait and see”. But Garth makes a very valid point that when God says “no”or “not now”, he is not being mean or capricious, rather he’s being the sovereign God of the universe who keeps his own counsel and who knows just what is right for us.
Many of us had hoped, prayed, planned , donated, worked, and dreamed towards a Huckabee run in 2012. We saw a man who had a God centered world view , was passionate in his defense of the unborn, courageous in his stand for marriage, articulate in his admiration of those who serve in the military, staunch in his defense against our over-spending ways and the list goes on. With the polls showing the governor on top, many of us were growing increasingly excited about his prospects for 2012 and had put heart and soul into a prospective campaign while keeping our powder dry for the big explosion of time effort and finances that would come on the day he would formally announce.
When word went out that he was going to make his announcement last Saturday many of us assumed this was the moment we were all hoping for. We planned parties and started thinking about where we would go and what we would do in the campaign. My brother-in-law had become a Huckabee fan in Canada so we wanted to keep him in the fun so I pointed my computer at our TV and skyped him so he could share in the exhiliaration of the announcement.
Then came the words I never thought I’d hear “The factors say go, but my heart says ‘no’”. The Governor first shared his faith in Christ and that this faith was more important to him than any political office. He explained that while many including his family were encouraging him to run and that while the polls and even financial backing were encouraging, in his quiet contemplative moments, alone with God in prayer, a decisicion to not run is what gave him a “peace that passes understanding".
If I didn’t know Mike Huckabee as I do, I am certainly cynical enough to doubt his reasoning. To say the news shocked me would certainly be an understatement. I’ve gone from shock to sadness to grief to anger to denial, pretty much the gamut of emotions. But here is what it come down to for me. While I am dismayed at the decision that Mike made, I’m not responsible for it. I am however responsible for my response to it.
I began supporting Mike Huckabee with a great deal of my effort and heart when I heard him speak at the Values Voters Summit in Washington DC in 2007. When he said "Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for those of us who call ouselves "values voters" to pledge our lives, our familiies, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to that which is true, which is right, and which is eternal". I felt a stirring , a call from God that I should do everything I could to help this man become President. The values he represented I wanted passed on to my grandchildren and beyond. For the next four years I would answer that call. Ironically my calling ended, at least for now, when God gave Mike a call not to run. Do I regret the money spent, the trips taken , the blogs posted, the positions defended, the radio stations called, the internet political apologetics, the campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina? No! Not for one minute! These have been some of the most wonderful times of my life. Why? Because I was being obedient to God. God doesn’t call us to succeed, He calls us to obey. I was doing what I could. The results were up to God. And Garth Brooks was right, some of God’s greatest gifts are “unanswered” prayers. If God doesn’t want Mike Huckabee to run for President in 2012 then God has something better, more appropriate for Mike and for our country. I cannot conceive of another candidate who would be a better fit or who would ever gain the degree of support that I gave Mike, but its not about candidates- though I’m sure I'll find someone to support for POTUS. Its not about winning. Its about obeying and trusting that if God says “No” or "Not now", I can trust Him for whatever he will bring.
Mike Huckabee is not God. Anyone that we lift up to that position can never wear the mantle and will always dissapoint us. But Mike Huckabee is a Godly man. He is a man who I am proud to have supported and who I still hope will be our country’s leader. But whatever Mike Huckabee does, I know this for sure, my God the Lord Jesus Christ, will never leave me or forsake me. He has plans for a future and a hope and not to harm us. He has loved me enough to answer my prayer that Mike be our next president with either a “no” or a “not yet”. And that’s OK with me because while I love Mike Huckabee, it is Jesus Christ who is the keeper and the healer of my heart. God could yet direct that Mike run in 2012 or 2016 or 2020 or never but I trust the Lord for His good will. Whatever He directs is better than anything I could have hoped or even prayed for. Indeed one of God's greatest gifts is "unanswered prayer". Mike Huckabee20?? …. Jesus Christ ..Forever!

Taking the Ball to the Mitt

I am a Mike Huckabee advocate. Starting with his consistent stand for the unborn and the sanctity of human life to his biblical world view, I support Gov. Huckabee and use this blog to promote his candidacy. Generally I speak of his qualities rather than the drawbacks of others but today, I find myself very much identifying with Mitt Romney.
When I was in high school I still had dreams of being a major league baseball player. I joined every team I could and played almost non-stop but there came a point when I realized I wasn’t major league material. It came at the hands of an all-state quality pitcher named Greg Archer. Coming up through little league and senior league etc. I had seen curve balls and experienced fast balls. I could hit a fast ball and generally could time my swing for the hook. But Greg Archer knew how to throw the curve ball as fast as the curve and make it look like he was throwing the same pitch. I’ll never forget the game I realized I wasn’t going to make it to the big time.
As I stood in the batter’s box, Archer launched a pitch that looked like it was a 90 mile an hour bullet heading straight for me. I bailed to the left as the pitch curved over home plate. Strike One! Undaunted, I got back in the box and purposed not to let that happen again. But once again the ball was headed right toward me and I valued my body so I bailed to the left. You guessed it, the pitch curved right over the plate, “Strike two” called the umpire. This was not going to happen again, as the third pitch came in heading straight toward me I said with all the courage I could muster “I’m not moving, I’m hanging in there, it doesn’t matter what it looks
like , I’m not moving!” And so it was . I didn’t move and the fast ball banged against my elbow forcing me out of the game and introducing me to a lot of pain and a bag of ice. It was clear. Unless I learned how to respond to the different pitches my major league dreams would have to end.
Which brings me to Governor Romney. Gov. Romney has been bailing on issues for years. On abortion he said in 2002 that he would “preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose”. He claimed to be more pro-choice than Ted Kennedy. Then when running for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2008 he said he was an abortion opponent. The list goes on from there and includes such issues as gay rights, gun control, campaign finance control and immigration. Each time Romney would change his position to accommodate the new political landscape in which he found himself. For all of this he widely received the reputation as a “Flip-Flopper”. He knows the perception but he still wanted to make it to the big time so yesterday he took his stand. Widely acknowledged as the precursor to ObamaCare, his Massachusetts healthcare dubbed “RomneyCare” is one of his biggest obstacles to getting the 2012 GOP nomination. He could have said “I tried it. It didn’t work. I see that forcing people to buy insurance from the government is wrong. $50 co-pays for abortion are wrong. I’ve learned my lesson and I now oppose Obamacare”. But he didn’t do that. He didn’t want to bail out one more time and have everyone call him the flip-flopper again. Instead he hung in there talked about how proud he was of his achievement and he’s taking the fastball right on his elbow. This was the time to acknowledge a mistake and adjust. Instead he did not apologize but presented the argument that the plan was good for Massachusetts but shouldn’t be forced on the country. How is the philosophy of an individual mandate different in Massachusetts from anywhere else in the country? Why is a $50 abortion OK in Massachusetts but not acceptable for the whole country? The explanation does not satisfy. The pitch came right at him. Romney hung in there. And now he will be out of the game. His dreams of making it to the big time will have to be replaced.
Today I am not a major league player but I enjoy watching the professionals play. I am a very happy person and know that God has blessed me far beyond my teenage dreams. Mitt Romney will land on his feet and hopefully he’ll enjoy rooting for the real professional soon to be in the race, Mike Huckabee.

No Haley to the Chief- That'll Be Huckabee's Song

Haley Barbour made a principled decision today not to run for President. He said that "A candidate for President today is embracing a ten-year commitment to an all-consuming effort, to the virtual exclusion of all else. His or her supporters deserve no less than absolute fire in the belly from their candidate," he added. "I cannot offer that with certainty , and total certainty is required."
Gov Barbour could have made a run or it in his home state of Mississipi. Without him in the race, it is just one more positive step for the soon-to-be Huckabee campaign. Without Barbour on the ballot, Mississipi should easily complete the solid south for Huckabee.
If Gov. Barbour would now throw his support to Gov. Huckabee, that would be another great step as he is well known for his fund-raising prowess. Pairing that ability with Huckabee's personality and positions and you have a very strong force indeed.
I hope many of his supporters will join in the grass roots movement to see Mike Huckabee elected. I hope Gov. Barbour will support another principled candidate in Mike Huckabee... oh and if he wants to bring his rolodex, that would be fine too! :)

Huckabee Not at Pundit's Beck and Call

Ah Glenn Beck... Sometimes he sounds so right on but then there are those other times... The conspiratorial mindset is helpful to make a story interesting, to keep it exciting, to make our red meat lusts fire up and yes it sends the ratings through the roof but its not the kind of thinking we should rely on for accuracy or fairness. And it certainly isn't the way one should think if one wishes to govern. When Beck took his shots this week against Huckabee as being a "progressive", something Beck equates with cancer and Adolph Hitler, it was really no surprise.
Beck has long had it in for Huckabee. In a January 3 You Tube video in which Beck laments Huckabee's Iowa success he says "Huckabee portrays hinself as an angel and then does the devil's work" He goes on to call Huckabee "Evil".
Its hard to know why Beck seems to hate the most attractive GOP candidate for 2012 but it doesn't really matter. Beck's vandetta says much more about Beck than it does about Governor Huckabee. As we look forward to a 2012 election process it is important that we look at the kind of approach each candidate has to issues in terms of philosophy, demeanor and courage and Gov. Huckabee's approach to this latest Beck attack tells us much about how he would handle the Presidency.
First, in terms of philosophy clearly Huckabee is a conservative. He is pro-life, pro-small government,and on and on down the list. He holds these positions consistently and strongly. Because he doesn't hold these positions with a hateful spirit some have questioned his strength. Make no mistake it is the grandstanders and the phoney conservatives who have to shout their positions with hatred. Think of it this way : Who is the better parent- the one who only yells and screams and belittles or the one who confidently and with assurance leads his family? Mike Huckabee is a leader in the mold of the latter rather than the former. Glenn Beck would prefer to call names and undercut.
Second , in terms of demeanor, I think Gov. Huckabee should be applauded for being a consistent conservative not a knee-jerk conservative. He actually takes the time to examine each issue rather than give an automatic push back. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Huckabee’s point here (Beck's recent charge was made because Huckabee supports in principle Michele Obama's fight against obesity), one should see that he is a thoughtful leader- not just a political opportunist. He actually grasps the notion that our side is not always right and the other side is not always wrong. Certainly he has consistently been a strong advocate and leader against many, yes most, of the Obama policies but that doesn't mean because the President or his wife have an idea that it is automatically wrong. On his web site the Governor says "I’m no fan of her husband’s policies for sure, but I have appreciated her efforts that Beck misrepresented—either out of ignorance or out of a deliberate attempt to distort them to create yet another “boogey man” hiding in the closet that he and only he can see. The First Lady’s approach is about personal responsibility—not the government literally taking candy from a baby’s mouth. He seems to fancy himself a prophet of sorts for his linking so many people and events together to describe a massive global conspiracy for pretty much everything. Sadly, he seems equally inept at recognizing the obvious fact that children are increasingly obese and that we now see clinical evidence of diseases in children that as recent as 20 years ago were found only in adults, such as Type 2 diabetes. The costs to our nation are staggering in increased health care expenses, but it even effects national security with now 75% of young men between the ages of 17 and 24 are unfit for military service primarily due to obesity!" Certainly these are some strong arguments and I believe the Governor should be applauded for his thoughtfulness. I want a President who doesn't just know how to react. I want one who can wisely respond.
Thirdly, I think this dust up shows that Governor Huckabee is a leader with courage and who will speak out regardless of political consequences. Beck is certainly popular among many conservatives. Huckabee the politician would want to say nothing but pleasant things about a man who has so many supporters. But Huckabee the leader knows that the truth matters and he steps up and calls out Beck as he has at mikehuckabee.com. Ironically, Beck accuses the Governor of being a weak "go along to get along" kind of a guy. Huckabee's response to Beck shows he is not weak but courageous. He knows that there is a time to negotiate and "get along" but there are times when you say this is the time not to appease but to stand your ground. If I were Mahmoud Ahmadinejad I wouldn't want Mike Huckabee to be President.
Glenn Beck will be gone soon from Fox. I hope Mike Huckabee will be as well- but not for the same reasons. I believe that while Mike Huckabee has served his country well though his informative and inspirational and highly rated television show, he is of far more value as the President of the United States. The times we face are frought with unparalleled urgency from a tetering economy to world wide Islamic extremism to the very perception of who we are as a country- a nation built on Judeo-Christian principles or the next European socialist state. We need the right leader to take up that cause, not a Beck-like bomb thower but a strong principled conservative who courageously takes on the issues, I believe that leader should be Mike Huckabee.

Just In! Exclusive Video of Recent Government Shutdown Debate !

I'm happy we have a candidate in Mike Huckabee with governing experience who knows how to get a job done and not simply grand stand. I look forward to his wisdom in governing our great country.