I’m tipping my hat to OneMom for this. As near as I can tell, everyone else who’s read the article is giving credit to everyone else for pointing it out, but I saw it from OneMom …
World Magazine is carrying an article about a meeting of Evangelical leaders, during which many of them lament their handling of the Republican nominating process. I think that Paul Weyrich’s comment is particularly noteworthy.
Weyrich supported Mitt Romney in the nomination run, but now admits that he should have backed Mike Huckabee.
In a quiet, brief, but passionate speech, Weyrich essentially confessed that he and the other leaders should have backed Huckabee, a candidate who shared their values more fully than any other candidate in a generation. He agreed with Farris that many conservative leaders had blown it. By chasing other candidates with greater visibility, they failed to see what many of their supporters in the trenches saw clearly: Huckabee was their guy.
As one of the grassroots-level Christians who was trying to get Mike Huckabee nominated, I’m pleased to see that some of the leaders are finally seeing what I saw a year ago. I don’t want to be too hard on Weyrich, because he’s a man that I genuinely admire, but the truth is that instead of choosing the candidate who fit his values, he picked a candidate that he thought would win. He’s right — they were wrong.
Mike Huckabee had few big endorsements and even less money. While Gary Bauer, Tony Perkins, Paul Weyrich, the NRLC, and such went after the better-known candidates, Mike Huckabee was winning races with little money and endorsements from Janet Folger, Star Parker, and Michael Farris — not the big names.
They went for Romney, Thompson, McCain, or even Giuliani (in the case of Pat Robertson), the ones who couldn’t be bothered to show up for the Values Voter Debate.
By doing their best to marginalize the candidate who best represented their values … our values … various leaders of the “Religious Right” have managed to guarantee that the next President won’t be one of us.
We’ll see where this goes in the future.
March 29, 2008 at 3:43 am
[...] sufi786 [...]
March 29, 2008 at 8:12 am
You’re forgetting Phyllis Schlafley who did her best to convince people that Mike Huckabee was an evil man and spewing out the same quote in every interview “he left the Arkansas GOP in shambles” – but she never backed that up with any kind of evidence.
March 29, 2008 at 10:58 am
May we learn from this.
God Bless,
Jonathon
March 29, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Here’s what I wrote on my blog:
I have been greatly disappointed in many I once respected.
In much the same way that I can never again enjoy great movies in which actors like Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Barbara Streisand and many others appear. The Huckabee Campaign has brought to light great truth about many whom I have held in high esteem.
What has been so disappointing through this process is the observation of those who I thought stood for the things Mike speaks of. It has been apparent that most are only concerned about maintaining the status quo and making sure their sources of income and fame are preserved.
These political operatives fall into three categories, although those categories overlap to an extent. Three groups seemingly unrelated yet acting with the same motives and the same fears.
1. “So called” Christian Leaders who refused to support Mike. Most of us would think they would have immediately embraced “one of their own”, but Mike is not one of them and thankfully so. They drain the pocketbooks of the unsuspecting with promises to fight for us. They do fight but just enough to keep the battle raging, the money flowing and power expanding. They not only refused to support Mike, many actively fought against him. At first some said if he had traction they would support, yet when he got traction they didn’t support. If they had supported Mike from the start, we would still be on track to the White House. They are unprincipled.
2. Establishment Republicans need to maintain the status quo. Horizontal politics, as Mike calls it. Back scratching and rhetoric. Lots of perks and power. Mike is one of US. He would be a “peoples” President. This threatens the status quo. Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney are establishment Republicans who maliciously and dishonestly attacked Mike with misleading ads. A distortion of truth is a lie. They can never be trusted to lead. They are unprincipled.
3. The Radio Kings. Those telling us so called “truth”; tell us what we believe; they are the true preservers of “true conservatism”; “Anti liberals”; fighters of evil. Yet, they relentlessly attacked Mike with the same misinformation that Romney and Thompson had. They are unprincipled.
Why?
Why not Mike?
Because . . .Mike could have brought our nation back together.
He could have restored the Presidency to an office of integrity, action and decency.
He leads by example.
“We the people” could have finally had a voice.
These three unprincipled groups thrive
from a divided nation,
from the preservation of a deteriorating nation.
They need to be needed but they do not bring solutions.
I became a Republican in 1982 because I thought that Republicans stood for something.
I fear I may have another disappointment on its way.
Thank you Mike Huckabee for giving us a glimpse of a new day.
There will be another election in 2012. Gov. Huckabee has promised to keep up the mikehuckabee.com site for the 3.9 million people who have already voted for him and we hope you’ll stay on board for the next 4 years…because we’ll need you for the next round.
When you are ready to battle again, we will be with you!
Thank you!
Larry Toller
Editor, Illinois4Huckabee
http://www.memoryjournaling.com/
March 29, 2008 at 4:36 pm
[...] to TrueBeliever for pointing me this way, and to OneMom, for finding it for [...]
March 29, 2008 at 9:48 pm
You’re right … “marginalize” was too weak a word. Weyrich, at least, had some good to say about Huckabee. A lot of others, I think, might want to make sure they get their knives back out of Mike Huckabee’s back … you never know when you might need that later!
March 30, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I don’t think we have seen the last of him! It will be interesting to see where he lands next.
Here is a great article from Charisma magazine:
http://www.charismamag.com/display.php?id=16892
April 1, 2008 at 2:34 pm
See, I think that’s part of your problem. You use words like “we” and “us”; mixing up politics and religion – as you can see from history, that’s not working.
If you want to change the culture of our country you should be reaching out across the aisle, making your faith greater than your party.
April 2, 2008 at 9:29 am
Kip, if what you mean is that Christians should be working together without regard for party, then I absolutely agree with you. If you mean that we shouldn’t just regard Christian as a party, then you’re right about that, too.
At the same time, Christians have a duty as part of the public. I think that a lot of us (meaning Christians) have simply taken it casually. Until the recent run, I have said openly that I have little use for the Republican Party. To be honest with you, I think I’m back there.
April 4, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I agree, it’s really a shame that Christians didn’t back Mike. I remember seeing all these “Homeschoolers against Huckabee” buttons on the blogs of Christian homeschoolers, and was really baffled. Now we’ll see how that’s working for those people when they’re stuck with Hillary or Obama.
April 7, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Kip,
A person’s faith if real is part of who they are at their core. I don’t think it can ever be truly compartmentalized or separated.
April 7, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Jennifer,
A lot of people played up the endorsement from the NH-NEA as if it was the same as the national organization, or even Stalin himself.
Huckabee was the best choice for homeschoolers, and he has a record to prove it.
I think Matt’s right, we haven’t seen the last of Mike. It’s just a shame what we’ll have to put up with in the interim.