Thoughts About Giving This Weekend To The Mike Huckabee Campaign .../About Fred Thompson/About Alan Keyes

There is a lot of encouragement on the Huckabee blogs about giving to the Huckabee campaign as the 3^rd quarter deadline for fundraising approaches, on Sunday. A couple of my favorites have posted links to the Huckabee page where you can donate to the campaign via credit card or a phone call.

MA For Huckabee has a couple of rather large buttons linked to http://mikehuckabee.com, where the donation option is at the top right of the page. But, it seems important to clarify a few points. The media celebrity (less-principled, which is no coincidence) attract donors through that celebrity, but I feel very safe in also making this point:

Speaking as someone who has seen up close how the influence of money works inside the Republican Party (it does in the Democratic Party too, though the major sources may largely differ), I can tell you that well-moneyed sources most often take what we would call a “pragmatic” approach to the distribution of their resources. They want to be vested in the direction that they are most confident will “win,” which they associate with popular/media high profile, in politics as in business Principles can or will tend to be more secondary. Thus, even now with the ill-conceived and ill-named "campaign finance reform" (the fuzzy language is a hint of liberal laxity about constitutional principles – I hope that tells you something about John McCain and Fred Thompson), the maximum $2300 per campaign (in both the nomination and general campaigns BTW, so $4600 total) is more likely to go to those media celebrities.

So, consider that though there has been much talk of Huckabee trailing the frontrunners in campaign funding, we probably should also look at that another way: Huckabee was FAR outspent for the Iowa Straw Poll. But if you look at the votes garnered per dollar spent, Huckabee who finished 2^nd, fairly destroyed the rest of the field in the poll. In winning, Mitt Romney spent at least 20 times (again, not counting his carpet bombing of Iowa with media ads) as much as Huckabee, but didn’t even gain twice the vote.

In the same way, if they simply accounted Huckabee’s fundraising on number of donations instead of number of dollars, his fundraising would be much more favorable. And after all, much as people like to talk about money, a ditch-digger’s vote counts every bit as much as the vote of a corporate CEO or a United States president. With smaller average donations, we must be more aggressive and broader in our fundraising. For every $2300 donation to the “frontrunners,” we need one hundred and fifteen $20 donations from we who vote more out of conviction and principle than out of pragmatism.

What I want to emphasize is: IF YOU THINK YOUR $20, &50, $100 $200. $500 DONATION DOESN’T COUNT, YOU ARE DEAD WRONG! I have given several times, but I won’t max out the donation limit in the nomination or probably the general election. So, whatever you can give, give as much as you care. Consider what Kevin Tracy wrote today in reviewing last night’s Republican candidate debate with Tavis Smiley at a Baltimore historically black college:

“Hands down though, Huckabee carried this one away. On Vertical Day, someone asked him what he does to prepare for a debate. The governor responded, 'My routine is probably very different from everybody else’s. I don’t watch TV, I don’t read papers, I don’t talk to anyone who might tell me what to do or what to say. I go for a 5-mile run in the morning and just try to stay loose so when the time comes, I can answer the questions being asked without having to deliver a memorized speech beaten into my head by advisers in a hotel room the night before.' That alone is why Huckabee is winning these debates and I’m thrilled to be supporting the impromptu candidate rather than the scripted, unauthentic candidate.”

He responds from his convictions and so should we. Just think: If 20 million socially conservative voters (which much of the black population is, by the way) sent in their 20 or $100 dollars, or whatever they can afford for their convictions, Mike Huckabee would be sitting pretty against the others. So, don’t give what you can’t, BUT PLEASE GIVE WHAT YOU CAN! http://mikehuckabee.com .

Larry

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Here’s a post about Fred Thompson, if you think he’s the refuge from the unprincipled/inconsistent Giuliani-McCain-Romney triad:

A Buck For Huck

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As for Alan Keyes, if you looked at the Kevin Tracy post above, you saw mention of the scripting of other candidates’ campaigns and comments. Someone else also commented to me about the maneuvering of the debaters. I feel I should say: I don’t think Ron Paul is scripted or dishonest. I just don’t agree on some important things.

And Alan Keyes is not scripted. He doesn’t even use notes for a 1-hour speech. I guarantee you that Keyes’ words are NEVER someone else’s. But, I can’t understand why he’s gotten into this contest. A fellow former Keyes’ fan suspects it’s just to maintain his profile for speaking and comment. That’s plausible, given that this Harvard Ph.D. in government has been under-utilized and even spurned by elements of The Republican Party. There might be some anxiety and frustration for him at age 57. Alan Keyes is extraordinary thoughtful and educated. But, he doesn’t have Huckabee’s gentle and engaging spirit.

One of my contacts has a history of a substantially more intimate relationship with Keyes. Perhaps he could educate me some on this question? Anyway, my ambivalence about my support for Mike Huckabee for the 2008 Republican nomination is roughly…0!