Mike Huckabee Joins Fox News - NO VP for Huck?

Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News: Former Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is bringing his political expertise to Fox News Channel as a a political commentator. Huckabee, Arkansas' governor for 10 1/2 years, pulled off a stunning victory in the Iowa caucus and followed with primary victories in seven other states despite running his campaign on a shoestring.The Hope native ended his campaign March 4 after McCain attained the requisite number of delegates to clinch the party's nomination.

Bill Shine, the senior vice president of programming for FNC, calls Huckabee "a great addition" to the cable network's election coverage. Huckabee will regularly contribute to FNC's America's Election HQ coverage. In a statement , Huckabee said:

”I have signed on to be a part of the Fox News Channel family. I hope to bring the unique perspective from “inside the dragon’s belly” as well as to try and speak for the millions of hard-working middle class Americans who really do feel that their voices are not being heard. I saw that on the campaign trail and continue to see as I speak to groups of all kinds around the country as well as campaign for other candidates.

I’m looking forward to what I hope will be a very satisfying relationship not only for the Fox News Channel and me, but even more for the people of America.”

Previously this year, Huckabee launched "Huck PAC." So, Huckabee will both helps provide election coverage and will work to help elect conservatives to office. Although not detailed in by Huckabee's or Fox New's press releases, one wonders if Huckabee would have accepted this position if he was still a contender for Vice President. It appears there is No VP for Huck's near future with the convention being only a few months away. But don't count Huckabee out either in the short term or for future elections as a U.S. senator, U.S. representative or a future presidential contender. Hucks' Army remains ready in the wings!

Clinton Supporters & Battleground States

On my Hillary Supporters for McCain site I wrote Friday evening about a critical group: Hillary Supporters who are strongly leaning toward a vote for John McCain. I call them "MAHHS," standing for Mad-as-heck-Hillary-Supporters. How can you encourage this large group of voters?

I hope you'll do what I did: join the crowd. Specifically, I registered at http://clintons4mccain.com. It's a group of 120o-plus "MAHHS." They are committed to supporting John McCain in the general election. I also contributed $10 to the group.

It's not a site for debating the fine points of Hillary's health care proposals or similar matters. It's a place where we can support people committed to the same goal as us: electing John McCain.

Again, I urge you to join -- and to make a small contribution. Thanks.

Obama's Lacks Support in Arkansas & Oklahoma

Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: John Brummett is an Arkansas political columnist who continually displays a nostalgic belief that Democrats Party still reflects conservative ideals. There may be some conservative democrats in the region, but they are floundering in a party controlled by liberals. Brummett, being pro-democrat and an associate of democrats, appears to understand his local brand of democrats. He appears to find Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to be more conservative than Sen. Barack Hussein Obama. While Obama is a black male and Clinton is a white female, remove their sex and race and they are both equally suited liberals. Hillary Clinton does have more "life experiences" than Barack Obama and is clearly "native born." But being tired of us Arkansans, Hillary kept her beloved ex-president, migrated to liberal-land New York, and walked right into the Senate a full fledged liberal.

Brummett's association with the people and attitudes within the Democrat Party in Arkansas and Oklahoma affords us insight into the region's Democrat backlash against Barack Obama as their presidential nominee. The backlash even seems more strident with the likelihood that Clinton will not be their vice presidential nominee. In a recent article that appeared in The Morning News, Brummett comments:

"I wrote about a palpable lack of fire for Obama among Arkansas Democratic officeholders -- such as Gov. Mike Beebe, who cited a "deep-seated fear" of Obama in Arkansas, and U.S. Rep. Marion Berry, who said his tank of enthusiasm had pretty nearly run dry -- there was a related development in the section of Oklahoma that abuts the western Arkansas border.

"U.S. Rep. Dan Boren is a third-term conservative Democrat representing the 2nd Congressional District of Oklahoma, which starts at the Arkansas line and runs to Kansas on the north and Texas on the south. It's just across the state line from Siloam Springs and Fort Smith and Mena and De Queen, not so far from Texarkana. It bounds our 3rd District, which is Republican already, but it also bounds our 4th District, which has a Democratic congressman in Mike Ross. . . .

"Boren's is a conservative district and one of the largest geographically in the country, owing to the sparse population. It went 66 percent for Hillary Clinton over Obama in the Democratic primary on Super Tuesday and it went heavily for George W. Bush in the general elections in 2000 and 2004. Boren, son of former U.S. Sen. David Boren, can read those returns. He told the Tulsa World that he could not endorse Obama. He said he admired Obama's rhetoric about a new politics, but pointed out that Obama had been rated the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. He said that didn't seem so new to him. He said he had to respect the will of his constituents.

"In a way this means nothing. Obama can't compete in Arkansas without Hillary as his running mate. Obama is going to get pummeled in Oklahoma either way because Oklahoma is Arkansas without those enlightened (or static, if you prefer) Democratic influences. The point is that, for all the talk of a new day and of a race that is the Democrats' to lose, the Democrats find themselves in old and familiar territory. That is to say they have a nominee whose competitiveness seems foreclosed in large sections of the country, primarily ours. . . ."

John McCain DID NOT “Rebuff” Billy Graham

ARRA News Service: Rumors and Lies can be distructive. The real scoop by Gary Bauer: Over the past 24 hours, I have received numerous emails from conservatives reacting angrily to the news that Sen. John McCain rejected an offer to meet with Reverend Billy Graham. Rush Limbaugh reported the story on his show yesterday, as well. The story is false and, to his credit, Rush later acknowledged that. But, e-mails are now swirling around cyberspace alleging that the Republican presidential nominee has spurned one of America’s most beloved Christian leaders. Here are the facts.

Several months ago, Senator McCain’s campaign contacted Franklin Graham’s office directly, letting them know that the senator would be willing to meet with the Graham family. In recent weeks, Texas Pastor Brian Jacobs contacted the McCain campaign offering to arrange a meeting between the senator and Billy Graham. The McCain campaign, knowing that there had already been contact with Franklin Graham, politely declined the offer.

Here’s just the first sentence of a statement released yesterday by a spokesman for Franklin Graham: “The offer to meet with Mr. Graham was extended by someone who is not in an official capacity to arrange such a meeting, nor is he affiliated with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.” The spokesman later added, “We don’t know who this Brian Jacobs is – we had to Google him to find out.” Unfortunately, for whatever reason, certain individuals, whose agenda remains unclear, and who were not speaking for Billy Graham, went to the press to make a story out of a non-issue. One of the individuals involved, by the way, has issued a press release announcing that he is making himself available for media interviews!

My friends, allow me to speak bluntly: This kind of embarrassing nonsense has got to stop. Our movement is on the verge of being totally overwhelmed by the Left, while some on the Right are engaged in petty, self-destructive bickering, doing the Left’s work by dividing and demoralizing fellow conservatives. The primaries are over. Either Barack Obama or John McCain will be president. Period. And there are very clear differences between them. (Click here to learn more.) Now is the time for us to work together to prevent the election of the most radical candidate in my lifetime. If we were serious about winning and serious about defending our values, all conservatives would be coming together to prevent a national disaster on Election Day.

I realize that many conservatives have disagreements with John McCain on some issues. So do I. But in this election, Senator McCain is not our enemy. Yet, as long as our movement remains divided and splintered, we will guarantee our defeat. Remember Ross Perot? Remember Ralph Nader? If Obama wins in November, every conservative in this country will be forced to watch for four or eight years while the values we cherish are attacked and destroyed. I don’t know how many different ways I can say this, but I will continue saying it until Election Day, because too much is at stake for men and women of faith and conservatives of all stripes to sit out this election. As Edmund Burke so rightly observed, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Conservatives who cannot appreciate the differences between John McCain, who suffered tremendously while defending his country, and Barack Obama, who opposes virtually everything conservatives cherish, will, in my opinion, bear considerable responsibility for the judges Obama will appoint, for the continuation of Roe v. Wade, the likely redefinition of marriage in every state of the union and for whatever foreign policy and economic disasters result from the election of such an inexperienced and naïve leftist.

Myth of McCain’s Weakness Among Evangelicals

ARRA News Service: by Steven Waldman, president & editor-in-chief of Beliefnet.com on the WSJ Political Perceptions: Conventional wisdom holds that John McCain is struggling to win evangelical voters. Evangelical leader Mark DeMoss predicted last week that he’d run weaker than any Republican since 1976 . . . Sen. McCain has been criticized by prominent Christian leaders such as James Dobson . . . In the primaries, most Christian leaders backed Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee. More recently, Sen. McCain’s decision to jettison two prominent conservative Christians – John Hagee and Rod Parsely – has sent his ratings plummeting . . . .

But is this conventional wisdom really true? Or to be more precise, Sen. McCain clearly has a problem with evangelical leaders — but does he really have a major problem with evangelical voters? On the contrary, Sen. McCain won the nomination in part because he did far better than expected with rank-and-file evangelicals. . . . For instance, in New Hampshire, among the 21% of the Republican electorate that was evangelical or “born again,” Sen. McCain won 29%, Mr. Romney 28% and Mr. Huckabee 27% — even though Mr. Huckabee is a former evangelical preacher and Mr. Romney had the endorsements of many key Christian leaders. . . .

In a recent Rasmussen poll, Sen. McCain was winning 58% of evangelicals, and . . . Sen. Barack Obama, was winning 32%. . . . Why would Sen. McCain be doing so much better among evangelical voters than evangelical leaders? First, the leadership’s disgust with Sen. McCain stems from the candidate’s treatment of them. His “agents of intolerance” speech was not an attack on evangelicals, but on a few of their leaders. Second, some of the issues over which Christian leaders have chastised Sen. McCain are inside-the-beltway concerns that don’t resonate with rank-and-file voters. . . . Third, though he’s reluctant to talk about his personal faith, in many ways Sen. McCain is substantively in perfect alignment with today’s evangelical voters. . . . Fourth, Sen. McCain’s support of the Iraq war, his war-hero history and his emphasis on fighting terrorism appeals to those Christians who feel that fighting Islam has risen to the top of the list of important issues for Christians. . . . Sen. McCain’s problems with rank-and-file evangelical voters have been vastly overstated. . . . [Read More]