Should we organize a "truth about Huckabee" ad in Iowa?

[davidhperry]

As many know, Mike Huckabee is gaining traction in Iowa since his message seems to play well with the conservatives there. Thankfully, that's pretty much the only place he's gaining traction. Given his fundraising numbers, he can't really afford to do much else anyway.

With that said, Huckabee placing high in the Iowa caucus will give him more notoriety since it's so early in the process. His people will, of course, spin that by implying that he has a lot of support across the country, yada, yada, yada, etc.

We all know that Huckabee talks a good game but if you research his positions more than 10 seconds you soon realize that he strongly holds several views that are completely contrary to the conservative base - namely taxes and immigration. He increased the size of the state budget immensely and he's for amnesty.

The campaign HQ is not running ads to point these things out - possibly because they don't want to spend the money or maybe because they don't want to be perceived as negatively campaigning.

The question to the RP grassroots organization is: should we be letting the conservatives in Iowa know what Mike Huckabee is truly all about?

With the all the creativity in this community, I wanted to see what people felt about creating some commercials and we can pool some money to run them on TV and/or radio. Of course, we can also pass around YouTube.com links to folks.

Should this be something we should focus on?

[hawkeyenick]

Do it the grassroots way, word of mouth, blogging, writing in to news stations.

Negative campaigning will piss off the official campaign and turn off potential new supporters, negative campaigning is always the #1 complaint during voting season. The only people who listen to them are those already against him.

[Buzz]

I say yes. Too many people are falling for his act.

[Danny Molina]

Sounds like an excellent idea! One should be put out for every neocon candidate.

[Stealth4]

where is skiingff when you need him

[dsentell]

I actually did this at a gun show. I was prepared for all the "but I support . . ." people with half page fliers of his/her candidate. Huckabee supporters were the easiest to convert. Once they read about Huck, they were turned off . . .

[me3]

No.

[bbachtung]

Just give them this article: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/11/13/huckabee/print.html

[10thAmendmentMan]

Absolutely. Especially if you can make it look like it's a Romney attack.

[Adamsa]

Just show that video of him begging for as many taxes as possible to people.

[Qiu]

Unless you can get Huckabee supporters to turn to Paul, then it would be counterproductive. Huckabee is the only thing keeping Iowa from being a Romney landslide.

[happyphilter]

Yes, we should organize an ad.
We do not have to say we are ron paul supporters, so it wont negativly effect the movment

[Ron Paul in 2008]

The campaign HQ is not running ads to point these things out - possibly because they don't want to spend the money or maybe because they don't want to be perceived as negatively campaigning.

No. I don't like when politicians attack eachother. We should just present Ron Paul's message to show that he is the best on immigration and taxes. There is no need to attack others and it risks turning people off.



The question to the RP grassroots organization is: should we be letting the conservatives in Iowa know what Mike Huckabee is truly all about?

If we can, yes. However, we just shouldn't do it with Ron Paul's name attached. Keep in mind Romney, Thompson etc will drill Huckabee and his phoney voting records will be exposed. The best way to do it is through word of mouth. We should spend the money to present Ron's message and not to attack someone else.

[Menthol Patch]

I like this idea.

1) Huckabee is PRO-WAR!

2) Huckabee is for the war on drugs. He even wants to ban cigarettes!

3) Huckabee does not want to abolish the income tax and replace it with nothing like Ron Paul. He wants to get rid of the IRS only to keep the government the SAME SIZE and put in place a huge 23% sales tax! AARRRGGG!

[Goldwater Conservative]

I think this is a good idea, but I agree that Paul's campaign shouldn't be responsible.

However, I think it's probably even more important to do this for Giuliani, and to a lesser extent Romney. Like you said, Huckabee is Iowa or bust, and I think even a win there for him isn't going to be enough to make him a competitor in most places. Personally, I also don't think he'd be as dangerous for America as Rudy or Mitt.

[Paulitician]

Hopefully Club for Hair Growth or Tax Hike Mike make a smear ad for Huckabee. Let us focus on Ron Paul, and Ron Paul only!

[JMann]

I wouldn't give 'mainstream Republicans' anything from salon.com.

[JMann]

I like this idea.

1) Huckabee is PRO-WAR!

2) Huckabee is for the war on drugs. He even wants to ban cigarettes!

3) Huckabee does not want to abolish the income tax and replace it with nothing like Ron Paul. He wants to get rid of the IRS only to keep the government the SAME SIZE and put in place a huge 23% sales tax! AARRRGGG!

...He wants to create new courts just for drug users. Well the handful of drugs that are illegal not the thousands that are legal.

[adpierce]

I like this idea.

1) Huckabee is PRO-WAR!

2) Huckabee is for the war on drugs. He even wants to ban cigarettes!

3) Huckabee does not want to abolish the income tax and replace it with nothing like Ron Paul. He wants to get rid of the IRS only to keep the government the SAME SIZE and put in place a huge 23% sales tax! AARRRGGG!

Point number three is counter productive. Although Ron Paul wants to replace the IRS with nothing, he has stated that the flat tax would be a step in the right direction, and that he would support it if it came up in the House.

[JMann]

Point number three is counter productive. Although Ron Paul wants to replace the IRS with nothing, he has stated that the flat tax would be a step in the right direction, and that he would support it if it came up in the House.

As he stated on Leno he would want the flat tax rate to be zero percent.

[Menthol Patch]

No, Ron Paul is the true small government candidate. He wants to abolish the IRS and replace it with nothing. Huckabee does not support reducing the size of government. He wants to keep it the same size and just collect taxes via a sales tax. Ron Paul is the only candidate who wants to reduce government so we don't need any type of tax!

[Menthol Patch]

As he stated on Leno he would want the flat tax rate to be zero percent.

Yep! That is true!

[bbachtung]

This thread should probably be in General Politics, but here's another interesting take on Huckabee vis-a-vis Kenneth Copeland Ministries: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1684330,00.html

[LinearChaos]

Yes, we should organize an ad.
We do not have to say we are ron paul supporters, so it wont negativly effect the movmentI'm pretty sure the media would be able to figure it out, when it is being planned in a public forum like this.

[RockEnds]

This thread should probably be in General Politics, but here's another interesting take on Huckabee vis-a-vis Kenneth Copeland Ministries: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1684330,00.html

That was an interesting article.

Something's up with Grassley. Earlier this week, he said he wouldn't endorse a candidate:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071114/NEWS09/711140376/-1/archive

When I saw him at a townhall meeting this summer, he was singing a different tune. He actually stated then that the second-tier candidates were just "muddying the field" for the candidates who had a chance to win. Now, for some reason, he doesn't want to back any of the front runners. :confused:

[DjLoTi]

I say yes!

[ursamajor]

I say no negative ads, please. It is one of the things I hate about politics. Report to news media outlets if you know something first hand. Write an article from other first-hand accounts, but negative ads are very.... negative... and I would appreciate a candidacy built on positive information and debate.

[Johncjackson]

No attack ads. Let the Neocons destroy each other.

[JordanL]

I like this idea.

1) Huckabee is PRO-WAR!

2) Huckabee is for the war on drugs. He even wants to ban cigarettes!

3) Huckabee does not want to abolish the income tax and replace it with nothing like Ron Paul. He wants to get rid of the IRS only to keep the government the SAME SIZE and put in place a huge 23% sales tax! AARRRGGG!

That's the FAIR tax, and it's something I wish Paul supported to be honest, as it's both Constitutional and productive for the economy.

[Daveforliberty]

Hopefully Club for Hair Growth or Tax Hike Mike make a smear ad for Huckabee. Let us focus on Ron Paul, and Ron Paul only!

Or what about Mitt himself? Huck is getting close enough for Team Mitt to be working on their own negative ads.

I'd rather see one or all of the above attack Huck than Ron Paul.

[JMO]

Why would you wish to attack Huckabee in Iowa? the only purpose you would want to do that is if you think you can win Iowa doing that. if you hand Romney a win by attacking Huckabee you have hurt Paul more than helped him, not only that you give Huckabee supporters a reason to attack Paul. I think this is a very bad idea at this point, if Paul was too move up into striking range in Iowa then thats different, but to give Romney Iowa is a very bad idea.

[Micahyah]

Huckabee is Romney's problem. Huckabee could sink Romney's campaign. We need to focus our resources in further building up Ron Paul's name recognition, period. A negative ad against Huckabee only INCREASES Huckabee's name recognition. We don't need to spend our time and energy doing that. A six way race (Romney, Giuliani, Thompson, McCain, Huckabee, and Paul) only helps us because we have widespread grassroots all over the country with people who will actually turn out and vote in primaries.

Also, Paul has the entire antiwar stance to himself, so 5 candidates dividing up the 60% of republicans still pro-war with Ron Paul building his support among the remaining 40% is great for his candidacy.

[Bradley in DC]

No negative ads, we'd only alienate people how like Huckabee.

[transistor]

i think we should forget about iowa... it's a lost cause

[coffeewithchess]

If you do anything, don't do it as a "Ron Paul supporter", do it as a concerned voter. One of the best things you can do is to print out www.TaxHikeMike.com and some quotes from that website and pass that out to people and just say, "Huckabee is not a fiscal conservative. He got an overall grade D on taxes and spending and this website explains a lot more about his "tax and spending" as governor".

[born2drv]

I think we can make a simple flier... comparing Ron Paul, Huckabee and Romney. Like 3 columns just like the FF flier. And we need to organize in Iowa going to all the rallies of all the other candidates, all the debates, townhall meetings, etc, and pass them out.

[Buffalo Bruce]

A variety of articles about Mike Huckabee from a variety of sources. Maybe someone could consolidate the information of a flyer or compare RP's positions and actions with Mike Huckabee's.

Christians Need To Beware of Mike Huckabee by Chuck Baldwin
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20071102.html
An Appeal To My Fellow Pastors by Chuck Baldwin
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20071106.html
Conservative Republicans Have Only One Choice In 2008 by Chuck Baldwin
August 28, 2007 http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20070828.html
A Tale of Two Candidates -American Spectator
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12205
Slush Fund: Huckabee tapped mansion Fund for Himself The Arkansas Times
http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/2007/09/golden_oldie_from_the_huckabee.aspx
Huckabee Begs For New Taxes (on camera) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pLOC4krZI4
How Many Times has Huckabee Fibbed about his Gas Tax? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO-flytX2HQ&eurl=http://www.blogsforfredthompson.com/club-growth-slams-mike-huckabee-video
Tax Hike Mike http://www.taxhikemike.org/
Mexican consulate deal dogs Huckabee campaign World net Daily 10/31/07
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58430
Another Man From Hope : Who is Mike Huckabee? - Wall Street Journal http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010782
Mike Huckabee. The Socialist From Arkansas. - Council of Conservative Citizens about homeschooling http://www.cofcc.org/?p=811
The Huckabee Horror:He'd Shred the Constitution in a Heartbeat
http://www.etherzone.com/2007/raim101207.shtml
The dark side of Mike Huckabee - Salon 11/13/07 http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/11/13/huckabee/index.html

[MozoVote]

Romney will "go negative" on Huckabee anyway and spend his money in the process. Just "be helpful" and keep those links flowing, as news articles appear about these two vying for the top.

[aspiringconstitutionalist]

NO NEGATIVE ADS.

Fred, McCain, and Mitt will be forced to start attacking Huckabee soon anyways since he's passing them up in the polls. Let them do the dirty work.

Our job is to promote Ron Paul, a return to the Constitution, and the restoration of the Republic.

[Jerome]

I think it's completely fair game to make people aware of facts - but don't twist anything into a lie. I think it's important for everyone to see how their pick for pres has voted in the past.

[saahmed]

If you want to do it, it should have absolutely no affiliation with the campaign or Ron Paul. Others like Romney or Thompson may already be planning to do this anyway. Btw, I finally saw a TV ad in Iowa. I didn't see what it was, just caught the end of it. It was on NBC, I think I was flipping around ER time, so it probably got some good views.

[AlexMerced]

it'd be nice if somebody from somebody elses campaign *coughs* Tancredo... would slash the tires on all the romney buses, then we Iowa would be ours :p

[AlexMerced]

it'd be nice if somebody from somebody elses campaign *coughs* Tancredo... would slash the tires on all the romney buses, then we Iowa would be ours :p

for the record this is a very unethical thing to do, but still, it would be funny