Huckabee Campaign Post-Mortem

Last night, Mike Huckabee lost the Texas and Ohio primaries, McCain picked up the number of delegates he needed to secure the nomination, so Huckabee graciously conceded and promised to support McCain in the continuing race for the White House. It was an exciting race for several months, but now it is over.

Having spent several months on the inside of the grassroots effort for Huckabee, here is my post-mortem analysis:

It is remarkable that Huckabee got as far as he did. He had no backing from the GOP political establishment, and thus very little money, and a lot of snarky sentiment and hyperbolic criticism directed at him from the opinion leaders and political kingmakers who thought he had no right to be where he was without their anointing. Despite being first ignored and later attacked by the GOP establishment, and despite having negligible resources to get his message out, Huckabee consistently won over roughly 1/3 of GOP voters in the primaries. His ability to win hearts and minds with nothing more than good stump speeches and earned media is truly remarkable.

The downfall of the campaign was failing to reach non-Evangelical voters. As I've said many times on this blog, Huckabee's positions on domestic issues such as economics, conservation, and education are very attractive to Catholics and people of any religious stripe who believe in striving for good, balanced government (as opposed to believing government should do everything for us or government is always bad). This ought to have made Huckabee competitive with the same moderate/swing voters that McCain is hoping to win over. But most of these people never really learned about Huckabee's positions on these issues, because he was stuck in the Evangelical box. In fact, polls suggest he bombed badly with Catholics, who saw him as an Evangelical firebrand instead of a politician fighting for their values.

At least part of the reason this happened, and I hope the main reason, is that Huckabee had to rely on the Evangelical grassroots network to do so much for his campaign because he couldn't afford to have a real campaign organization. Inevitably, the foot soldiers in Huck's Army included enough religious partisans who made comments that were hostile or bizarre to non-Evangelicals to scare many others away. There were a lot of activist Huckabee supporters out there talking about Mike Huckabee as if he were anointed by God to be our political leader, and some of them going so far as talking in prophetic or apocalyptic terms. News flash, folks: we don't live in Ancient Israel. Our political leaders are elected by the free will of the people, so talk about God choosing a political leaders only brings those politicians down.

Now every candidate has some embarrassing supporters. But to be successful in the general population, they have to gently but effectively distance themselves from these people (like McCain distancing himself from Bill Cunningham's below-the-belt attacks on Obama recently, which was not a "slap at conservatives" as Cunningham complained, but smart politics). Unfortunately, Huckabee was not effective at distancing himself from those Evangelical supporters who were an embarrassment because he was too dependent on their free labor and/or had no organization to supplant them. To do better next time, he needs a stronger organization of his own so he can marginalize wacky supporters.

Huckabee also failed to focus his outreach on non-Evangelical groups. It was evident by January or maybe even December that he had the Evangelicals firmly in his camp, so he should have refocused his message on other groups at that point. Unfortunately, he made no concerted effort to reach out to Catholics or moderates. Again, I think a lot of this was driven by desperation for money and volunteers, and Evangelical audiences were low-hanging fruit for these purposes. I hope that it wasn't a lack of interest in reaching out to non-Evangelicals. If Huckabee is to have any shot at the Presidency in the future, he needs to tap the Evangelicals for funds quickly and then, knowing he has already won them over, use those funds to get his message to everyone else. Fewer Sundays before key primaries preaching to Evangelical congregations; more Mondays talking to think tanks, Fridays playing venues with Capitol Offense, and Saturdays appearing at Catholic pro-life and charitable organizations.

To have a shot at going all the way, you need a real organization. When I first got involved with the Huckabee campaign, Washington insiders told me he had no shot because he had no organization and money. I hoped he would be able to acquire those things as his popularity grew, and the same Washington insiders were truly shocked and admired how far Huckabee got without them. But when the local primaries rolled around, I realized how impossible the task was without a traditional political organization. My representative to the Virginia legislature had far more resources to run her campaign for a district of at most 100 square miles than Huckabee had to run a statewide campaign. It was complete chaos in the week before the primary as hundreds of willing volunteers with NO direction or assistance from the official campaign tried to figure out how to get yard signs, what kind of literature to hand out, where to focus their efforts, etc. Their efforts were sacrificial and valiant, and Huckabee did manage to come within single digits of McCain in Virginia. But there was a lot of frustration among the volunteers because no one knew who was in charge. And these volunteers could have done so much more if there was a real organization in place that could have planned ahead and assigned resources where they would be most effective.

Again, for Huckabee to have a real chance at winning the Presidency in a future election, he needs to gather up more resources at the start and then set up a more conventional political organization in key states. We volunteers like Mike, but having realized that an unorganized campaign is a Sisyphean effort, we're not willing to climb that mountain again without the proper gear next time.

Well, that's all folks! Here's hoping for the VP nod and 2012!

Signing off until then,
The K Street Mole for Huckabee

CEO Pay and Abortion?

Speaking of associative fear-mongering, today's article by Jeffrey Lord qualifies as the stupidest condemnation of Huckabee by association yet. Huckabee has said that there's something wrong with an economy where CEOs make 500 times what many of their workers do, often for running their companies into the ground, and advocates pro-global competitiveness policies designed to help raise wages of the working and middle class. He has never said a word about capping wages of executives. But Mr. Lord simply asserts, with no factual basis, that regretting income disparity = government setting executive pay. From there he spins a fanciful Orwellian tale, in which there are no limits on government power, and in that world it makes sense that the government also has the power to declare a right to kill unborn children. This teaches us... the strange way Jeffrey Lord's mind works.

The associations here are astoundingly irrational. In addition to the original, counter-factual leap into government-set executive pay, there's the the complete contradiction that an all-powerful government invents new individual "rights." A government that micromanages everything subordinates individual rights to the designs of the state. The invention of new "rights" such as abortion is the mark of a political worldview that elevates individual rights above all moral considerations and the general welfare of society. These are completely opposite concepts. (Except that both are embraced by the Democratic party--but that's another topic entirely.) In a command and control society, like China, abortion is not a "right" but a mandate, a tool for achieving government control over population.

Mr. Lord ignores the open and obvious true connection between Huckabee's comments on executive pay and his position (unequivocally against) abortion: belief in the inherent dignity of all human life. As persons made in the image of God, we are not to practice the law of the jungle with each other. Every human being has the right to life, and to fair wages for his or her labor. The point is not to envy the wealthy, but to remind the wealthy of their responsibility to treat their subordinate workers fairly--just as parents have the responsibility to provide for their children.

It seems Mr. Lord's perspective has been so narrowed by party-line politics (Republicans are against abortion and for the law of the jungle in economics; Democrats invent "rights" to abortion, gay "marriage" etc. and criticize income disparity) that he cannot conceive of a political philosophy grounded in human dignity. I hope, for the sake of our nation, that few people share this distorted perspective.

While I've Been Preoccupied

I'm ashamed to admit that nearly three weeks have gone by since my last blog post about the Huckabee campaign. In the interim, he has leapfrogged into place as an (the?) undeniable frontrunner in the GOP primary, according to a plethora of polls. Perhaps Huckabee is better off the less I blog? :(

But hoping this unhappy theory has no basis in fact, I apologize to readers for my long absence. I have been extremely busy at work, and Christmas preparations have consumed all my time not taken up by work. It is an unfortunately reality for those in my line of work that Congressmen suddenly decide around now that they ought to be able to tell their constituents they did something this year (particularly certain Senators as the Presidential primaries approach), just as everyone else is trying to get their Christmas shopping done.

Until the troublemakers clear out of town, I don't expect to catch up on the blog. But until then, I highly recommend to my readers interested in Catholic social teaching the following pair of articles on Catholic Online:

Commentary: Huckabee and Catholics
and
Exclusive Interview: Gov. Huckabee Speaks with Catholic Online

Until next time, may you have a blessed Advent! I hope you have done a better job preparing your heart for the coming of Christ than I have.

Living Wages: Moral and Practical

Continuing my series of blog posts on Catholic social teaching, here is another section of Rerum Novarum:

45. Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accept harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford him no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice. In these and similar questions, however - such as, for example, the hours of labor in different trades, the sanitary precautions to be observed in factories and workshops, etc. - in order to supersede undue interference on the part of the State, especially as circumstances, times, and localities differ so widely, it is advisable that recourse be had to societies or boards such as We shall mention presently [i.e., workingmen's unions and mutual aid societies], or to some other mode of safeguarding the interests of the wage-earners; the State being appealed to, should circumstances require, for its sanction and protection.

46. If a workman's wages be sufficient to enable him comfortably to support himself, his wife, and his children, he will find it easy, if he be a sensible man, to practice thrift, and he will not fail, by cutting down expenses, to put by some little savings and thus secure a modest source of income. Nature itself would urge him to this. We have seen that this great labor question cannot be solved save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held sacred and inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners.

47. Many excellent results will follow from this; and, first of all, property will certainly become more equitably divided. For, the result of civil change and revolution has been to divide cities into two classes separated by a wide chasm. On the one side there is the party which holds power because it holds wealth; which has in its grasp the whole of labor and trade; which manipulates for its own benefit and its own purposes all the sources of supply, and which is not without influence even in the administration of the commonwealth. On the other side there is the needy and powerless multitude, sick and sore in spirit and ever ready for disturbance. If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought nearer to one another. A further consequence will result in the great abundance of the fruits of the earth. Men always work harder and more readily when they work on that which belongs to them; nay, they learn to love the very soil that yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them. That such a spirit of willing labor would add to the produce of the earth and to the wealth of the community is self evident. And a third advantage would spring from this: men would cling to the country in which they were born, for no one would exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the means of living a decent and happy life. These three important benefits, however, can be reckoned on only provided that a man's means be not drained and exhausted by excessive taxation. The right to possess private property is derived from nature, not from man; and the State has the right to control its use in the interests of the public good alone, but by no means to absorb it altogether. The State would therefore be unjust and cruel if under the name of taxation it were to deprive the private owner of more than is fair.

In other words, it is both a moral imperative and a practical benefit to the State and society to promote wages that are sufficient for a decent family life and the accumulation of savings for all, though not by means of excessive taxation. Today, the Democrats wish to reduce inequality of income and wealth by means of excessive taxation, but this violates the natural right to private property and also increases hatred between the classes. But too many Republicans do not believe in the "dictate of natural justice" that an employer who fails to pay a diligent full time worker enough to be able to frugally support a family commits a grave injustice. Furthermore, they do not champion a frugal lifestyle and personal savings, preferring instead ever more consumption as "proof" of a healthy economy and driver of increasing wealth for those who already own capital.

Mike Huckabee stands apart from both parties on this issue. He isn't afraid to chide executives for raking in 500 times the income of their low-level workers, and outsourcing good-paying jobs overseas. This type of behavior is immoral. But neither does Huckabee advocate a confiscatory tax on the wealthy to change this situation. Instead, he supports a complete overhaul of our tax system (and health care system) to make our domestic businesses more competitive in the global economy, naturally creating more good-paying jobs. Moreover, he proposes that taxes should be based on consumption, increasing the incentives to be hard-working and frugal, since neither work nor savings would be taxed, but excessive spending would be. Huckabee's tax proposal even includes a "prebate" to make sure that all families would not be taxed on the bare essentials of spending--only on spending that goes above the level of necessity.

I would also note that Rerum Novarum suggests workingmen's unions as a preferable alternative to direct State intervention into unfair treatment of employees by employers. However, Pope Leo XIII recognized even then that many unions are not what they ought to be:

Now, there is a good deal of evidence in favor of the opinion that many of these societies are in the hands of secret leaders, and are managed on principles ill - according with Christianity and the public well-being; and that they do their utmost to get within their grasp the whole field of labor, and force working men either to join them or to starve. Under these circumstances Christian working men must do one of two things: either join associations in which their religion will be exposed to peril, or form associations among themselves and unite their forces so as to shake off courageously the yoke of so unrighteous and intolerable an oppression. No one who does not wish to expose man's chief good to extreme risk will for a moment hesitate to say that the second alternative should by all means be adopted.
...
[Many workers] cannot but perceive that their grasping employers too often treat them with great inhumanity and hardly care for them outside the profit their labor brings; and if they belong to any union, it is probably one in which there exists, instead of charity and love, that intestine strife which ever accompanies poverty when unresigned and unsustained by religion. Broken in spirit and worn down in body, how many of them would gladly free themselves from such galling bondage! But human respect, or the dread of starvation, makes them tremble to take the step. To such as these Catholic associations are of incalculable service, by helping them out of their difficulties, inviting them to companionship and receiving the returning wanderers to a haven where they may securely find repose.

Unfortunately, the Christian unions that Pope Leo XIII called for more than a century ago have never materialized. Nevertheless, Huckabee also understands the forces that drive workers to join unions, even if the unions are terribly flawed and often support causes against our Christian beliefs (such as abortion). This is why Huckabee is willing to talk to union members where other Republicans shun them, and warns that unions will resurge unless wages and economic security for workers are strengthened.

Mike Huckabee is right on the mark: living wages are a moral matter, and good for the strength of the nation as well. But the right way to achieve this is not to "soak the rich" with ever more taxes, but to aim directly at boosting wages and encouraging savings.

Right-Sizing the Government by Christian Standards

I have decided to start a series of blog posts based on the Catholic encyclicals addressing issues of economic policy and the proper role of the State: Rerum Novarum (Pope Leo XIII, 1891), Quadragesimo Anno (Pope Pius XI, 1931), and Centesimus Annus (Pope John Paul II, 1991). I have two purposes: to show Catholics how well Mike Huckabee's political positions fit with the teachings of our Church, and to show other Christian supporters of Huckabee a rich intellectual tradition supporting the positions you are embracing.

I will begin with the earliest of these encyclicals. After discussing property ownership as an inherent human right, rejecting class warfare, and explaining the role of the Church in fostering brotherly love between the rich and poor through charitable giving, Pope Leo XIII goes on to say:

31. It cannot, however, be doubted that to attain the purpose we are treating of, not only the Church, but all human agencies, must concur. All who are concerned in the matter should be of one mind and according to their ability act together. It is with this, as with providence that governs the world; the results of causes do not usually take place save where all the causes cooperate. It is sufficient, therefore, to inquire what part the State should play in the work of remedy and relief.

32. By the State we here understand, not the particular form of government prevailing in this or that nation, but the State as rightly apprehended; that is to say, any government conformable in its institutions to right reason and natural law, and to those dictates of the divine wisdom which we have expounded in the encyclical On the Christian Constitution of the State. The foremost duty, therefore, of the rulers of the State should be to make sure that the laws and institutions, the general character and administration of the commonwealth, shall be such as of themselves to realize public well-being and private prosperity. This is the proper scope of wise statesmanship and is the work of the rulers. Now a State chiefly prospers and thrives through moral rule, well-regulated family life, respect for religion and justice, the moderation and fair imposing of public taxes, the progress of the arts and of trade, the abundant yield of the land-through everything, in fact, which makes the citizens better and happier. Hereby, then, it lies in the power of a ruler to benefit every class in the State, and amongst the rest to promote to the utmost the interests of the poor; and this in virtue of his office, and without being open to suspicion of undue interference - since it is the province of the commonwealth to serve the common good. And the more that is done for the benefit of the working classes by the general laws of the country, the less need will there be to seek for special means to relieve them.

What does that have to do with Mike Huckabee? Follow the links in this annotated version of the Rerum Novarum quote to find out for yourself:

Now a State chiefly prospers and thrives through moral rule, well-regulated family life, respect for religion and justice, the moderation and fair imposing of public taxes, the progress of the arts and of trade, the abundant yield of the land-through everything, in fact, which makes the citizens better and happier. Hereby, then, it lies in the power of a ruler to benefit every class in the State, and amongst the rest to promote to the utmost the interests of the poor; and this in virtue of his office, and without being open to suspicion of undue interference - since it is the province of the commonwealth to serve the common good. And the more that is done for the benefit of the working classes by the general laws of the country, the less need will there be to seek for special means to relieve them.