Dr. Bill Frist Addresses RomneyCare

http://myronaldreagan.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/dr-bill-frist-addresses-romneycare/

Another good older Blog Post (Jan 31, 2008) about Huckabee's Solid Economic Plan

The following was originally from the blog, NEW YORKERS FOR HUCKABEE, which can be found at http://nyforhuckabee.blogspot.com

Thursday, January 31, 2008

CNN Debate: Romney Reveals Big Business Bias

Governor Mitt Romney, who has only recently been touting his support of the Second Amendment, is obviously not too experienced in the use of firearms. Am I the only one who noticed him pull that big fat gun out of his pocket and shoot himself in the foot last night?

He was, in fact, being asked a question about his record in Massachusetts re: taxes. Specifically, he was asked to defend his raising fees by hundreds of millions of dollars; to explain why those did not constitute tax increases. To defend his record, he gave as an example increasing the fee for McDonald’s to put a sign on the Massachusetts Turnpike to advertise their restaurant from $200 to $2,000.

Well, that’s just fine and dandy, if you’re a big multi-national corporation like McDonald’s. But what if you’re just a Mom & Pop family restaurant struggling to compete with places like McDonald’s? Forget it, Mom & Pop, says Governor Romney, you have to pay the 900% fee increase! Thus does Romney reveal that he cares about Wall Street, but not Main Street. And I’ll just bet that there were plenty of Moms and Pops out there in TVland who got his message, loud and clear.

Leave it to Mike Huckabee to define the divide between two different strains of economic conservatism with the Wall Street v. Main Street distinction. But since so many people—including Rush Limbaugh—seem not to get it, I’ll expound on it a bit more here. Because Mike Huckabee has the audacity to talk about the proverbial little guy and to criticize genuine examples of corporate greed, conservatives like Limbaugh conclude that Huckabee is a liberal and opposed to business; i.e., he can’t be a real economic conservative. They need to listen a little better to what Mike Huckabee has to say.

What liberal Democrats do is complain that the little guy is being crushed by the interests of big business. Hence, they justify greater taxation, regulation and litigation. And of course, that punishes all businesses, large and small, and drags the whole economy down.

On the other hand, Gov. Huckabee complains that small business is being crushed by excessive government taxation, regulation and litigation, and that this needs to be reversed (and the implementation of the Fair Tax would do it in one fell swoop). But big business can safeguard its profits against big government by outsourcing jobs and moving its capital offshore. This has the same ultimate effect of dragging down the national economy, and with it, ultimately, our national security. This process is, however, more insidious because, at least in the short run, profits—and therefore, tax revenues—keep rolling in, even as whole industries keep moving out overseas.

Mike Huckabee understands that most of America’s industry and most of its jobs are generated by small business—not big business. And just as importantly, he understands that what is good for small business is good for all business, big and small.

Unfortunately, Mitt Romney just doesn’t get it. He obviously believes that if we take care of big business, small business will benefit also. That ain’t necessarily so, as I have pointed out above.

Now how does this all play out in the political calculus of the current presidential election? Hmmm, it seems to me that there are plenty of billionaire industrialists (Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, George Soros come to mind) who are eager to throw in their fortunes with liberal Democrats like Hillary. Ever wonder why that is?

My point here is that if you want a President in the White House who will just take care of big business, you don’t need a fiscal conservative of Romney’s stripe or even a Republican. Hillary will do just fine.

But if you want a President in the White House who is a real conservative—fiscal and otherwise—you need to help elect Mike Huckabee!

(And as for all you guys who want to post, on this blog site, pleas for Mike to withdraw from the race because he’s hurting Mitt Romney’s chances, you can forget that. And if you’ve taken the time to read this post all the way through, now you also know one reason why.)

Posted by Joel Brind at 4:51 PM

An OLD (1/9/2008), but GOOD op-ed in The American Spectator

Another Perspective
Standing Athwart
Huckabee, Yelling Stop
By George Neumayr
Published 1/9/2008 12:08:03 AM

Against an immutable standard of conservatism, Mike Huckabee is hardly impeccable. I find some of what he says silly and unpersuasive (for example, his support for Global Warming theory). But the explosion of snide remarks directed at him from many in the conservative movement strikes me as churlish and baldly hypocritical. How is it that the bar of conservative entry for a presidential nominee lowers for the Romneys and McCains, then rises for the Huckabees?

Okay, he is a heterodox Republican on some issues. So what? Who isn't amongst the leading contenders in this primary race? A few years back I recall these anti-Huckabee purists lecturing California conservatives on the need to support Arnold Schwarzenegger over Tom McClintock. Now that McCain has won in New Hampshire, we will soon see this very flexible definition of GOP conservatism resurface and be told that electability trumps all.

Much of the contempt for Huckabee is confusing, alternating between descriptions of him as a socialist pansy and social reactionary. Which is it? Is he too liberal for the GOP or too conservative?

I suspect that the essential problem for some in the conservative movement (as it was for establishment conservatives pitted against Pat Buchanan in his race with Bob Dole in 1996) isn't that Huckabee takes this or that heterodox position on issues of economics/trade/foreign policy; it is that he's a transparent Christian conservative. That they just can't abide, even as some of these pundits tell conservatives to ignore religion with respect to Mormonism.

Romney attended Planned Parenthood events, used to support state financing of abortion and elements of the homosexual agenda; McCain has derided in the past the Religious Right and taken any number of fashionable liberal stances. But all of this can be quickly excused. Woe to the Christian Republican, however, who talks about the culture war, or -- brace yourself -- rejects Darwinism.

Whatever one thinks of that highly technical debate, that the Wall Street Journal and GOP consultants like Mike Murphy set up adherence to Darwinism as a litmus test for an "acceptable" Republican nominee exposes the degree to which political correctness has crept into the conservative movement. I don't blame rank-and-file conservatives for increasingly ignoring the snobbish sniffings of the George Wills.

Who cares what they think? How conservative are they? What new liberal social innovation won't they soft-pedal? A "conservatism" that involves a lot of pretentious throat-clearing and maybe the recitation of a classical tag or two before coming to some PC conclusion (that feminism is a net-gain for society, that Darwin had it right, that gay civil unions aren't such a big deal, take your pick) isn't worth much.

Run for the hills, Huckabee talked about Christ during Christmas! Well, good for him. One of the reasons for our flailing in the global war against the jihadists is that we have become de-Christianized cowards. Does America need not one but two wholly secularized parties?


HUCKABEE IS A Christian socialist, some say. Really? If he is a Christian socialist, he is surely the first one to call for the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service. Again, it is not at all clear why rank-and-file conservatives are supposed to nod vigorously whenever a McCain or Romney supporter calls Huckabee an "economic liberal." At least he talks about eliminating income taxes and capital gains taxes. Do they?

Romney's support for semi-socialized health care in Massachusetts (which is almost indistinguishable from Obama's scheme for the entire nation) is scarier to me than anything Huckabee uncorked in Arkansas. And then there is John McCain's opposition to Bush's tax cuts. Does that make him an unacceptable economic liberal?

But Huckabee doesn't talk about Wall Street enough, some warn. Good; Wall Street already sups at the government trough. If he cuts off corporate welfare, I would be happy. It is about time somebody talks about getting the ravenous, regulatory Leviathan state off the backs of small businessmen, gun owners, and homeschooling families, rather than waste time on Wall Street talking to fat cats who vote for the Dems anyways.

But won't Huckabee shatter the conservative coalition? That would be a little more persuasive if those saying this hadn't shattered it themselves. The relative success of Ron Paul and Huckabee is not a cause of the coalition's collapse but a reflection of it. An excessively Wilsonian foreign policy has divided defense conservatives; years of big spending has divided economic conservatives; and a tepid, stalling social conservatism has alienated moral ones.

Perhaps Huckabee can't rebuild this coalition. But he isn't likely to weaken it any more than have his critics, and he may even bring some long-disenchanted middle Americans into it.


George Neumayr is editor of Catholic World Report and press critic for California Political Review.

Huckabee in FIRST in Iowa!

Rasmussen Reports Iowa Poll - 11/26-11/27

Mike Huckabee 28%
Mitt Romney 25%
Rudy Giuliani 12%
Fred Thompson 11%
Ron Paul 5%
John McCain 4%
Tom Tancredo 4%
Duncan Hunter 1%

All I can say is "Wow!"

Mitt Romney must be panicking.

Huckabee SOARS in Iowa!

Mike Huckabee soars to 21% in the latest Iowa poll! Romney drops to 27%! Check it out at Kevin Tracy's blog!

*Breaking Poll*

Huckabee withing Margin of Error of Romney in latest ARG poll.

Romney 26%
Huckabee 24%
Giuliani 11%
Thompson 11%
McCain 10%

(Thanks to Huckabee Hound for the breaking news)

I apologize for the infrequent posts lately. Life has been hectic around my home...

The Surge is On

It's here, folks. The Huckabee Surge is hitting the Nation. The latest Rasmussen Reports poll has Mike Huckabee sitting at 13%, tied for 3rd with McCain. Mitt "Moneybags" Romney is at 12%.

All of the latest Iowa polls have the Governor tied for second. Huckabee is in double digits in the latest South Carolina and New Hampshire polls.

There are just TWO more days to complete the OCTOBER CHALLENGE. If you have participated in the Challenge, please leave a comment as to your results. I plan on posting them when I get feedback.

The Huckabee campaign has raised $881,305.80 online so far this month. The goal for October is to raise $1,034,487 online; we're almost there! We need to raise $153,181.20 in online contributions BY midnight of October 31st!

More Polls

NATIONAL; AP-Ipsos Poll, 9/10-9/12

Rudy Giuliani 24%
Fred Thompson 19%
John McCain 15%
Mitt Romney 7% (Statistical Tie)
Newt Gingrich 6% (Statistical Tie)
Mike Huckabee 5% (Statistical Tie)
Sam Brownback 2%

MICHIGAN; Market Research Group Poll, 9/13-9/19

Rudy Giuliani 27%
Mitt Romney 13%
Fred Thompson 13%
John McCain 6% (Statistical Tie)
Mike Huckabee 5% (Statistical Tie)

COLORADO; American Research Group 9/17

Fred Thompson 25%
Rudy Giuliani 20%
John McCain 12%
Mitt Romney 8% (Tied)
Mike Huckabee 8% (Tied)
Newt Gingrich 5%
Tom Tancredo 4%
Duncan Hunter 1%
Sam Brownback 1%
Ron Paul 1%

FLORIDA; Mason Dixon Polling & Research 9/18

Rudy Giuliani 24%
Fred Thompson 23%
Mitt Romney 13%
John McCain 9% (Statistical Tie)
Mike Huckabee 6% (Statistical Tie)
Tom Tancredo 1%
Duncan Hunter 1%
Ron Paul 1%

Note: Huckabee is in a statistical tie with McCain in Florida and Michigan; tied with Romney in Colorado and also a statistical tie nationwide with Mitt.