Campaign 2008 - May, 2008

THE HOUSE

Thanks to the blunders of the Republican leadership, three House seats in a row have been lost in special elections. All three seats were in solid Republican districts that should have been easy victories. The latest seat lost was that of my good friend Roger Wicker (R-MS) who was appointed by the Republican governor of Mississippi to fill out the term of a Senate seat vacated by Trent Lott. The first district includes Pontotoc, which was the site of a law suit against prayer by the ACLU. Many times when he was a Congressman, Roger Wicker and I shared the platform at events defending prayer in the Pontotoc schools. Over and over he had won the first district seat with an overwhelming majority of more than 60% of the vote. In the last presidential election George W. Bush received 62% of the vote in this conservative congressional district.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spent $1.3 million in the first district for Greg Davis, who only received 46% of the vote. The winner, like other Democrats running in rural social conservative areas, championed the same issues as Republicans, claiming to be pro-life, pro-family and pro-second amendment rights. With a Republican president who has an approval under 30%, a war that is not very popular, and a looming recession, the majority vote is going to the Democrat in races where both candidates claim to be social conservatives. In addition, the Republican Party nationally just cannot seem to come up with any agenda other than to point at the Democrat candidates and scream “liberal.” The Republican agenda is in chaos, or maybe non-existent, and that does not bode well for the November elections.

The first special election loss was in Illinois, where former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s seat was lost to a fairly liberal Democrat. In that race the Republicans ran a “moderate” who was not supported by GING-PAC or other social conservatives organizations. (See our March, 2008 update.)

The second loss was in Louisiana, where GING-PAC supported Woody Jenkins. Woody lost in the third and final runoff election for the seat vacated by Republican Congressman Richard Baker. Jenkins was brought down by a well organized ground campaign and lots of Democrat spending. All three of the Democrats who won will have to face reelection in November, but will do so with lots of money and backing. Big business is abandoning the Republican Party and giving big bucks to the Democrats to try to buy peace with them. As of now the House Democratic Campaign Committee has $44 million on hand compared to just $8 million for the NRCC. There are 26 Republican congressmen who have already announced they will not run for reelection in November, making the outlook for the Republicans even more grim.

GING-PAC has had more success than the Republican Party. Of the three special elections we were involved in, we won two out of the three!

In the Virginia special election for the Jo Ann Davis seat, we helped to elect Rob Wittman who is an outstanding conservative and who is doing a great job in Congress for us. In Ohio we supported Bob Latta, also a social conservative who won. Our only special election loss to date was Woody Jenkins in Louisiana.

THE PRESIDENCY

Senator Hillary Clinton is trying to make a come-back despite the fact that the liberal media have declared that their candidate, Barack Obama, has won the primary race for the Democrat nominee for president. She received two-thirds of the vote in West Virginia and about the time you receive this Campaign Update she will have won in Kentucky as well.

The most interesting fact that came out of the exit polls in West Virginia is that 51% of those who voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democrat primary said they would vote for Republican John McCain in November if Barack Obama was the Democrat nominee. This should toss up all sorts of red flags for the Democrat “super delegates” who will actually pick either Clinton or Obama. Other than in Iowa, Senator Obama has only won elections where there are large black population centers. (I am not speaking of caucus states). He is popular with rich radical white elitists and blacks and not with many other groups. Working and middle class Democrats are not voting for him.

Obama has another “Rev. Wright” problem that has not been publicly addressed. The man he described as his “mentor” in his book, Dreams From My Father, was an active member of the Communist Party while it was controlled from Moscow during the Cold War. His mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a poet who titled one of his poems, “Christ is a Dixie Nigger” which declares:

“Remember this, you wise guys

Your tales about Jesus of Nazareth

Are no-go with me

I’ve got a dozen Christs in Dixie

All bloody and black ....”

(NOTE TO CENSORS: This is a poem written by an African-American poet and is not a racial remark made to offend anyone.)

This from the man that Obama says read poetry to him as a young boy, and who was his teacher and mentor. This Communist teaching to Obama as a boy may explain the Global Poverty Bill he has introduced in the Senate. The bill is just straight out of the philosophy of Karl Marx. It calls for a percentage of America’s Gross National Product (GNP) to be sent to “poor nations.” The bill does not take into consideration any domestic conditions, disasters or war. It simply takes a percentage of the economic output of Americans each year and gives it away.

ROBERT NOVAK’S WARPED VIEW OF EVANGELICALS

In his May 12, 2008 column in the Chicago Sun Times, aging political columnist Robert Novak once again attacked evangelicals. This time he accused former Huckabee supporters of wanting a Barack Obama victory in November to “punish America” for not electing Huckabee. His claims, which have gone past ridiculous and now border on the bizarre, specifically mention my good friend Mike Farris, who is the head of the Home School Legal Defense Association.

At the urging of Governor Huckabee most of his strongest evangelical supporters, including myself, have offered to assist the McCain campaign. None of us want Barack Obama with his Communist “mentor” as our next president.

GING-PAC, which supported Mike Huckabee, has already contributed funds to the McCain campaign. I have personally recruited donors for McCain at high dollar events, and the evangelical leaders that were behind Huckabee have indeed offered to work for the McCain campaign. Unfortunately, the McCain campaign is disorganized, under-funded and suspicious of all offers of help from the Huckabee camp. The McCain problem is not evangelicals such as Mike Farris and me; the problem is Nixon era Republicans such as Robert Novak, who fear anyone who goes to church weekly. Novak is creating a situation inside the McCain camp that will only hurt the candidate in the November election. Do I love all that McCain stands for? No! But I would rather have him than a Frank Marshall Davis protégé.

William J. Murray, Chairman

Government Is Not God - PAC