Michigan Huckabee Coalition: "Only Huckabee Can Mobilize GOP Base!"

The following is a press release that has been composed by the Mike Huckabee Grassroots Coalition of Michigan. I am in full and total agreement with it and this I will share and spread its contents:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, August 18, 2008
CONTACT: Debra Mantey 989-551-7493

Backers point to Rasmussen, Zogby polls

Michigan Supporters tell McCain Camp
only Huckabee can mobilize GOP Base

Michigan supporters of former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s presidential candidacy Monday said they have delivered a statement to Sen. John McCain’s campaign urging McCain to select Huckabee as his vice presidential running mate.

The Huckabee supporters and other social conservatives in Michigan and nationally last week were shocked by the McCain camp’s serious discussion of selecting a running mate who favors legal abortion on demand.

The statement — delivered by e-mail and fax Monday to McCain’s Michigan and national campaign headquarters — reads as follows:

1. It is our belief that a large number of Christians do not currently plan to vote for Senator McCain because of his past positions and statements on issues of concern to Christian voters. This includes many voters who were not previously involved politically but were activated to support a Republican presidential campaign by former Gov. Mike Huckabee.

* A poll published earlier this year by the Christian Post found that Sen. Barack Obama and even Sen. Hillary Clinton outpolled McCain among Christian conservatives. (Notably, former Gov. Mike Huckabee was by far the most popular candidate among those polled.)
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20 … linton.htm

* Newsweek reported Friday that “a new poll from the Barna Group, a Christian research firm, shows Obama leadingMcCain 43 percent to 34 percent among likely Christian voters, with advantages among non-evangelical born again Christians (43% to 31%); notional Christians (44% to 28%)…Catholics (39% vs. 29%); and Protestants (43% to 34%). The only Christian subgroup (Obama) isn’t winning? Evangelicals.” http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/ … reads.aspx

2. We strongly believe that if Gov. Huckabee is part of the Republican Party ticket, many, many more of these Christians and Huckabee supporters will not only vote for the McCain ticket but will do something far more important: actively and enthusiastically work for its success.

3. The coalition supporting Gov. Huckabee has only grown in recent months, as evidenced by the Denver Letter to Sen. McCain signed by Christian activist leaders nationally.

4. Of all possible vice presidential candidates who would be acceptable to pro-life, pro-family voters, there is little question that Gov. Huckabee has the highest name identification and recognition nationally. We believe his selection would overnight give the McCain ticket something it currently lacks and most likely cannot win without: a national network of values voters and volunteers passionately committed to the values and message brought forth this past year by Gov. Huckabee.

5. Thus, this statement does not reflect merely our personal preference for the candidate we supported during the primary election contests. It reflects our political judgment that selecting Gov. Mike Huckabee as the vice presidential candidate is the quickest and surest way to exciting, activating, and mobilizing the socially conservative base of the Republican Party nationwide, the very coalition Sen. McCain recently said no Republican could win without. [Detroit News: “(James) Muffett said Friday that during the meeting, McCain (said) he respected social conservatives’ views (and) believed that Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan on could not have won without them.”] http://info.detnews.com/redesign/blogs/ … blogid=438

6. Further, two recent professional public opinion polls validated not only our political judgment but Gov. Huckabee’s appeal to all voters, not just social conservatives.

* A Rasmussen poll three weeks ago found that among all general election voters, Gov. Mike Huckabee had the highest favorable ratings among all possible vice presidential candidates included in the survey. (Notably, the same poll found that former Gov. Mitt Romney had the highest unfavorability rating of all possible candidates included.) http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_ … 25_27_2008

* A Zogby poll four weeks ago found that “among likely voters, 27% would be more likely to support McCain with Huckabee on the ticket,” the highest percentage of all possible vice presidential candidates included in the survey. http://zogby.com:80/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1530

7. Conversely, it is our judgment that the quickest and surest way Sen. McCain could alienate, demoralize, and deactivate social conservative activists and voters nationwide would be to select a vice presidential candidate who they believe does not share their values and worldview. Those would include former Gov. Mitt Romney, former Gov. Tom Ridge, Gov. Charlie Crist, Sen. Joe Lieberman, and others

8. While other possible vice presidential candidates are believed to share socially conservative values and would thus be philosophically acceptable — Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Gov. Bobby Jindal, Rep. Rob Portman, Gov. Mark Sanford, Gov. Sarah Palin, and others — none of them has national name identification and a national organization of volunteers committed to their support comparable to Gov. Mike Huckabee. For example, the same Zogby poll which found that 27 percent of likely voters would be more likely to vote for McCain with Gov. Huckabee on the ticket, found that putting Gov. Jindal on the ticket would move only 5 percent to be more likely to support McCain, while Pawlenty motivated only 3 percent.

9. In summary, Gov. Mike Huckabee’s selection as Sen. McCain’s running mate would motivate more American voters to support Sen. McCain’s candidacy than any other possible running mate, and it would mobilize a pre-existing grassroots network of social conservative activists and volunteers that no other potential running mate could match, not even those philosophically acceptable to the Republican base.

10. The election of Sen. Barack Obama is unthinkable. Because we want Sen. McCain to succeed, and because we believe his vice presidential selection may be determinative in whether he has the grassroots volunteer support required for a Republican victory, we strongly and respectfully urge Sen. McCain to help us help him — and make iteasy, not hard, for us to persuade others to support and work for his candidacy — by selecting former Gov. Mike Huckabee as his vice presidential running mate.

Respectfully submitted,
Huckabee’s Michigan Grassroots Coalition

Things Are heating Up!

The latest E-mail from Mike Huckabee and HuckPAC:  

Well it’s summer and things are predictably heating up.  Not just in your backyard but on Capitol Hill as well.

Republicans in the House and Senate are fighting for a balanced energy plan to bring relief to families everywhere.  All week Republican legislators in the House have staged a rally demanding Speaker Nancy Pelosi call back the Congress for a special session and an up or down vote on a comprehensive energy plan that includes offshore drilling.

In the Senate, Republicans have gone to the airwaves with a simple but powerful message demanding action on a balanced energy plan.  You can see their video here.  I am proud to say it includes two Huck PAC endorsed candidates:  Lamar Alexander and Elizabeth Dole.  After you watch the video I encourage you to share it with family and friends.

Second, please help us close the gap on our goal of 2,000 contributions by August 20.  Since last Thursday we have had 485 individuals make an online contribution towards our goal.  If you haven’t made a contribution yet, please consider doing so today.  With a contribution of $10 or more we will count your contribution towards our goal.  If you are willing to match the average contribution of your fellow supporters, it is $65.  Regardless of what you contribute, what is important is that you participate.  Huck PAC is fully funded by individuals like you. 

Finally, and this is something we are all excited about, I wanted to share an idea we had and get your feedback. Everyone knows how committed our supporters were during the campaign.  Time after time we overcame long odds to shock the pundits because of the hard work of our volunteers.  In September we want to launch a campaign to mobilize Huckabee supporters once again, this time in support of our favorite candidates.  With your help, we will set a goal of X hours and then track the hours on our front page like we used to track dollars raised online during the campaign.  Participating volunteers can help any candidate of their choosing.  All they need to do is tell us who the candidate is and then login on our website the number of hours they volunteered for (so they are counted towards our total).  The candidate you help does not have to be a Huck PAC endorsed candidate.  If this effort is successful, we will launch it again in October and set a higher goal for our team.

Do you like this idea?  Please vote here.

And if you do like it, please help us set our goal of “Volunteer hours” for the month of September by voting here.

To recap, if you have a moment please do three things for me today:  watch this video, make a contribution towards our August online fundraising goal and tell me what you think about our Volunteer idea in September.

Fighting for our values,

Mike Huckabee

Thank You Texas Volunteers!

I’d like to take this time to say a special thank you to all the wonderful volunteers in Texas, and who traveled to Texas to help out the Huckabee campaign. Also I don’t want to forget all the hundreds of rangers who made calls into the state and those who sent their leftover supplies and sent them off to Texas. Every vote and every delegate earned today down there is a testament to your hard work!

THANK YOU!!!

More OTS Updates

I have some more updates from Operation Texas Surge. Unlike the last few these are not my own. I am just passing them along. Our first update comes from Oliver, the Meetup organizer in College Station:

Things are going real well. I have a tendency to be a little pessimistic, but am constantly encouraged by other supporters in College Station. I’m giving away the last of the Huckabee signs tonight, and all the fliers are gone too. I know one woman is hitting up 8 polling places tonight, 1 guy hit up 5 yesterday and some along the major highway, another woman is getting about 6, so things are really going well. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens on Tuesday! -Oliver

Next up is an update from the group handling operations in Lubbock:

Coming at you from the second most conservative city in the United States, according the VotingResearch.org: Lubbock, Texas where OTS is out in full force!

Our team included two from Southern California and one from New Mexico. The two of us from Southern California flew into Albuquerque, New Mexico where we met up with the New Mexico Huckabee Meetup State Coordinator. Together, we drove into Lubbock.

The city of Lubbock has 200,000 people. According to VotingResearch.org, seventy five percent of it’s population votes conservative and twenty five percent votes liberal.

According to the local Meetup coordinator, Andrew Vaughn, there has been very little media coverage prior to Mike’s rally in the city on Friday. The locals selected a venue that held 100 people and at the last minute decided to move the rally outside to accomodate more people. Good thing, too! Three hunded people came!

The next day the rally was the lead story in the city’s only newspaper on the front page with a full color photo of Huckabee playing his bass at the rally. Great press!

Saturday night we caught up with the Meetup to plan strategy for each day all the way through the day after the primary!

Here is what we did / are doing:

Sunday
– Morning sign wave
– Voter guide distribution on car windshields at major chuches
– Afternoon sign wave

Monday
– Discover Huckabee Issues Roundtable – Invited

Tuesday
– Precinct coverage
– Watch party

Wednesday
– Gather materials and drive to New Mexico

This is just Lubbock! We also campaigned in Albuquerque before we left for Lubbock. More to come…

Here’s an update from the folks from N. Florida who are on the ground in Houston:

Groggy report from the ground in Conroe/Houston. I did manage to stay awake during church. It was so heartening to hear the pastor their inform his church of who he would be voting for! Mike Huckabee!!! It was really nice to see a man of God take a public stand for the right candidate for a change. Mike spoke briefly as he introduced Tim LaHaye. We left the church and headed to the gun show in Pasadena. Only in Texas can you leave church and go shop for guns! LOL.

We got a really good response from the patrons there. Many had bought the theory of McCain’s inevitability but we’re eager to learn of the brokered convention’s history. We gave away several signs, lots of buttons and bumper stickers and sold a few of bpassmore’s shirts!

Then the menfolk headed off to put up the ginormous signs we brought. We took miracleshappen and her children and headed to Huntsville to visit the statue of Sam Houston. I will post pics tomorrow after I find a way to resize them! That is one big statue!

When we got home we were reminded that today is a very special day. Yes, it’s my DH’s birthday (thanks for letting me be away!), but it is also TEXAS INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!!

If the Texans I met today are anything like their neighbors, we won’t need to worry about those silly polls come Tuesday! There are a lot of enthusiastic Huck supporters here. I met several people that told me they were going to vote for him even though they believed he couldn’t win! They are not going to continue to vote for the lesser of two evils and they aren’t going to let a pundit tell them how to vote!

I’m nearing comatose levels now, so I’ll post more tomorrow. Jerod and I are headed to San Antonio to help set up for the rally and then to work the polls on Tuesday. Erin will be taking a much needed mini-vacation with friends.

Remember San Jacinto, folks!

We have a lot of great people o nthe ground giving their all for Huckabee in Texas! Way to go!

Operation Texas Surge Updates

The following are updates I have been posting over at Huck’s Army for Operation Texas Surge Team One: the first update was posted yesterday:

This is BDBopper Reporting for HNN….THE HUCKABEE NEWS NETWORK….and our live team coverage of Operation Texas Surge YEEE HAW!!! (Can you tell I am enjoying writing these reports?)

On to the update! When we last left our heroes, They were headed out of College Station and on to Houston. It took them much longer than they wanted because the traffic in H-Town is an absolute nightmare! That didn’t stop them one bit and they arrived at the Passmore’s at about 6 PM Friday evening. What a wonderful family and team of volunteers Brett has! After hugging and twenty minutes of verbally catching up (if allowed they really could have talked and spent time forever!) the trade was made. Brett & Co. got a bunch of bumper stickers while Shawn (Trox) and Jack were given over 300 signs. As I said they could have spent time together forever but it was time to saddle up and get a move on. Off to The Alamo! WESTWARD HO!!!

In About 4 hours (around 10 PM) our heroes arrived in San Antonio to meet with Chris (TexasAggie4Mike or something like that…can’t remember off the top of my head) and his lovely wife. Shawn and Jack gladly dropped off 100 signs (after some hugs) with Chris for his meetup to use in sign waves and setting up near polling locations.

Our fearless twosome were hoping to get back into Waco at a decent hour but unfortunately it just wasn’t going to happen So they made a decision. They got on the horn as they were leaving San Antonio, and talked with Jason West of the Austin Meetup group. Jason is currently serving in OTS in Abilene and doing one heck of a job over there! They asked Jason if his group could use some supplies and if there was someone that might be willing to meet them near the highway in Austin. Jason called back and our heroes met with a couple from the Austin group at a Austin McDonald’s who were in desperate need of supplies at about 1 AM this morning (Saturday). The Austin Volunteers were really overjoyed and pumped to get these signs and some other materials!

Our weary travelers had some good news. They made it back to Home Base in Waco 45 minutes earlier than they did after yesterday’s (Thursday’s) operations. Not only that but they had no morning commitments so they were able to sleep in! Yippee!!

Shawn (Trox) & Jack (Whose pet peeve is whistling…yes they have spent to much time with each other to find that one out) enjoyed a well deserved night’s sleep. They actually got to sleep in! After waking up they split off. Jack headed into Waco to join Blake (the Waco Meetup Organizer). Shawn headed up to Dallas.

Jack and Brent started off the day sign waving and hading out materials to the crowd gathering for the Baylor basketball game. Afterwards they placed about 100 signs in strategic places all around Waco. They have more signs for Blake’s group to place around polling places on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Shawn headed to up to The Metroplex of Dallas-Ft.Worth and is there currently. He will be meeting with our wonderful Andysprite and Mike (from a group of Oklahoma volunteers). They will be placing 300-400 signs around Dallas and Fort Worth in strategic locales.

Speaking of Andysprite – For those of you who don’t know – Her son, Carson fell and needed stitches yesterday. They were to go to the Fort Worth Stockyard rally to cheer on Mike and Carson was very excited to have the chance to meet Chuck Norris. Unfortunately this incident did not allow that meeting to occur. However there was a surprise resolution in store for our Airborne Ranger and her son. Andrea received a call from our awesome Governor Huckabee! AND GET THIS – Chuck Norris will be sending a personal card to Carson! WHAT CLASS AND GRACE WE HAVE IN OUR CANDIDATE!!! We should all be proud!

Hopefully our Heroes will make it back to Home Base at a more decent hour tonight. Tomorrow it is back to Dallas-Fort Worth. As for Andysprite she is off to Tyler to drop some supplies to Huckabeliever and her meetup group.

Y’all should be very proud. This is a total team effort. Out of all the supplies, only 10 percent were newly bought. That means that the vast majority of the supplies were donated by Huckabees all over the country. WE are all apart of this Team Effort. WAY TO GO!! WE are giving it all we’ve got…nothing will be left on the playing field when all is said and done!

And this is the update for tonight that I just posted:

HNN Reporter BDBopper with another OTS Update!

When we last left OTS Team One Jack was still in Waco with the Meetup group there and Shawn (Trox) was on his way to Dallas. Shawn made it to Dallas with about 400 signs that he needed to find places for (the signs were given to him by both Andrea and Mike of the Oklahoma group). In addition Mike Ford and his Oklahoma Meetup group had more signs. Luckily they found to dedicated volunteers, Kelsey and Scott (Husband and Wife) who knew exactly waht to do. So everyone (including Andrea) met at Huckabee HQ in Dallas for a confab to make plans for the next phase of operations. First was a sign wave at Prestonwood Baptist Church, and after that they marked out precinct locations and other strategic localses for signs to be placed.

After that it was back to Home Base in Waco for Shawn. He arrived back at 2:45 AM (30 minutes earlier than the day before!). Then it was back up to The Metroplex for Jack and Shawn. The locations to meet was outside of Prestonwood Baptist Church where a group of 15 volunteers ended up waving signs for about three hours. During that entire time there were nonstop horn honming and the reception was tremendous for Huckabee! VERY ENCOURAGING NEWS! Not only that but 250 bumper stickers were given out and placed on the bumpers of cars right on the spot! Jack and Shawn didn’t arrive untl near the end of the sign waving but it was still amazing. After the end of the sign waving everyone went out to lunch. At this point the Oklahoma group had to head back home. After dropping some more materials and placing signs it was time for our Heroes to head home as well. However Jack decided to stick around in Texas for the next few days and take the bus home. So he’ll still be around for the rally tomorrow and operations on Tuesday. Shawn is now headed back to Memphis very exhausted but looking forward to sleeping in his own bed!

There are more people involved with OTS than you even know. Almost miraculously a volunteer who had driven all the way from Georgia ran into Shawn this afternoon. That volunteer was trying to find out what to do and where that person’s services were needed. Fortunately Shawn knew exactly what to do and got that volunteer in touch with Kelsey and Scott. That person will be helping out operations at the rally tomorrow and with Get Out the Vote on Tuesday! Shawn and Jack also met with other groups holding sign waves who were definitely pumped up when they found out about our operations.

Everyone should be very proud of our efforts. Everyone who has pledged to chip in and help has done so. Whether it be to donate signs and other materials, to all of our boots on the ground. All indications are that the Florida group in Houston and the Southern California group operating in Lubbock are also having successful missions! The locals are absolutely pumped gang! They are ecstatic to see troops from all over the country helping them out with their efforts. It’s a total morale booster!

This will probably be my last report on OTS for HNN. Thanks for reading. I’m Out!

There are tons of pictures from Operation Texas Surge and you can find them HERE.

From Mike Huckabee: "Working Overtime"

Many of you are working overtime for our campaign. I can’t tell you how moving this is for me personally and for our campaign team. We have always said we are running this race as a team and the last few weeks have proven that time and again. Next week is a big hurdle for every campaign: Super Tuesday. We don’t have to win every state, but we do have to do very well in a number of states to help fuel our momentum heading into the Texas primary on March 4th. Millions of voters will cast votes on Super Tuesday and no campaign has the resources to compete in every state. Super Tuesday is about each campaign’s volunteers and I feel confident in saying we have the best volunteers. Let’s show everyone! Before Super Tuesday, we need to raise an additional $1,000,000 minimum in the mail and online. We finished last week having raised over $1.1 million dollars in seven days. Lets match that effort this week. If you can afford it, please make a contribution of $25 or more to our campaign and find two people, friends or family that are willing to do the same. After you make a contribution, please sign up to make calls contacting voters on our behalf. Over 70,000 calls were made in Florida by supporters (35,000+ from our online phone bank!). That is a remarkable total considering we did so in less than a week. Looking ahead we are hoping to contact a similar number of voters in Georgia, Missouri, Alabama and many other Super Tuesday states. Obviously this is going to take all hands on deck. So each day if you could make time to place least 5 calls for our campaign starting tomorrow we would greatly appreciate it. Please email your friends and family and ask them to join our team. We need everyone off the sidelines and working towards victory. We have worked so hard together as a team. Lets not stop now. With deep gratitude,

The Reports of Huckabee’s Demise Are Not True!!

Over the last day or so the media and opponents are gleefully reporting on the demise of Mike Huckabee and that he will be the next to drop out of the presidential race. They cite that he has no money left. Folks that is definitely not the case. Let’s do some quick math.

On Sunday there was the BBQ at the Chuck Norris ranch. Attendees to that event paid a $1,000 donation each. It was reported that over 200 attended the event. That’s $200,000 right there alone. Since that point there have been at least four other fundraising events in Florida and Georgia. Add to that the nearly $300,000 we have raised (almost $170,000 and climbing since Fred dropped out yesterday around 1 PM) that puts a total of online and offline fundraising at an estimated $500,000-$600,000 in 4 and a half days!

There is a big buzz around the Huckabee camp. They were planning updates to the website but high traffic after Fred’s announcement has forced them to move slower on those updates or the site would crash.

Took us a little longer than we thought. We will make the changes live tomorrow. Website was hopping with traffic today. Lots of energy building. Keep it coming.

UPDATE – Also the return of national momentum can be seen in the Rasmussen daily tracking poll. Huck hit a low on Monday of about 15% but is creeping back up to a virtual tie for 2nd with Romney. Currently it stands at McCain 24% Romney 19% and Huckabee at 17%. Rudy is back in the pack at 11%. the past two nights of polling shows Huck with a gain of 2% in the average while McCain and Romney haven’t budged. Last night was the first night that Fred was not in the poll but with it will be a few days until his numbers disappear because the poll is a an average of the past four nights. Fred is at 7% based on the prior three nights before he dropped out. We’ll find out who gets his support. Many elected officials in Georgia that supported Fred and now moving towards Huckabee (not all of them but many).

And while Mike Huckabee may not be spending as much money or time around Florida his grassroots Army will be. So don’t be surprised if Huck does better than expected on Tuesday night.

Message For Anyone Who thought We’d Throw In The Towel….

The following message was just received from Governor Mike Huckabee:

We came so very close in South Carolina last night. I am extremely proud of our team and the effort everyone put in. Thank you! While we would liked to have finished in first place, we will take a second place finish and focus on the next miles in this marathon race. Florida is next on January 29 and Super Tuesday only days later on February 5. We need to re-focus on the primaries ahead and everyone needs to pitch in. Here is what you can expect from us in the hours ahead: 1) A national call for volunteers in Florida. Whether you live in Florida or you are from out of state, we need and welcome your support. We made this announcement on the campaign blog earlier this evening and you can read it here. 2) Launch of online headquarters in every Super Tuesday primary state. We will need bloggers in each state to help organize our grassroots efforts. We will send state specific emails discussing our goals in each state. 3) A national drive to increase the size of our list of campaign supporters. Clearly every vote counts and the growth of our supporter list is critical. We will set a specific goal and encourage everyone to recruit their friends to our team. 4) A fundraising drive to raise money to help fuel our efforts in Florida and many of the key Super Tuesday states where we have a deep base of support. I said last night and I meant it, running for President is a process. Today we reset ourselves, recharged and we are ready to hit the campaign trail with a new burst of energy. Let’s win this together. I will email you soon. With deep gratitude,

CALL TO ACTION!! Phone Calls to Michigan

HEY!! Click the link to check out Phone Calls For Mike. They have a goal of getting 250 volunteers to make 20,000 calls into Michigan this weekend. Are you game? GO VOLUNTEER NOW!!

OPERATION HUCKABOOTS!!!

As our success in Iowa proved having boots on the ground is very key! We’re going to need footsoldiers in Michigan, South Carolina, Florida, and other key states following those on Super Tuesday and beyond. Can you Please help us? CLICK HERE to find out. The first 100 people to donate $25 will get a Mike Huckabee lapel Pin. So what are you waiting for?