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

February, 2008 - Campaign Update

THE PRESIDENCY AND CONGRESS

MIKE HUCKABEE KEEPS ON GOING

TWO INCUMBENTS LOST IN MARYLAND

All of the pundits proclaim that Mike Huckabee does not have a chance and that he cannot “win” enough delegates to beat Senator John McCain. They point out that Mike has to get 120% of the remaining delegates to “win.” But there are two sides to every coin. While he may need 120% of the remaining delegates to win, he only needs 60% to stop McCain from winning. Everyone forgets that Mitt Romney and others have delegates as well, not just McCain and Huckabee.

Mike Huckabee has won more actual primary elections than any Republican other than John McCain. Mitt Romney did win more caucus states where he could use his vast wealth to bus in delegates, but that is why he dropped out of the race. Romney won only two actual primaries and he had an overall favorable rating of -24. (Yes, that is minus 24 points.) Most voters viewed him as contrived and phony. But, Mitt Romney spent over $100 million dollars sapping votes from Mike Huckabee. The real conservative, the real 21st century thinker is Mike Huckabee and that is why he outlasted the other candidates.

On Super Tuesday night I was at Mike Huckabee’s headquarters at the Clear Channel Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. When the first numbers came in from Georgia cheers went up from the crowd that had gathered. As time went by it became apparent that Mike Huckabee was going to win every state that he had the funds to campaign in. Even in states he was unable to visit he was receiving double digit support and claiming second place in others.

At about nine o’clock, individuals close to the campaign including myself were escorted onto the stage in preparation for a statement by Gov. Huckabee. When he came onto the stage the crowd went wild shouting “Mike is back, Mike is back.” It took some time before Mike Huckabee was able to settle down those gathered and make his statement.

In typical Huckabee fashion he said, “The media said it is a two man race and it is; they just got the wrong two men.” With that the crowd once again began to chant. In his usual manner Mike Huckabee was gracious not only to his opponents but to all those who had continued to believe in him even when the pundits and press had declared his campaign dead.

In my home state of Virginia, Mike Huckabee was 30 points behind one week before our primary and yet almost won, carrying more than half of all counties. In just three days of campaigning he closed the gap by 25 points. When people have the chance to hear Mike Huckabee, they wind up voting for him.

THE HOUSE

In the middle of the presidential primary people forget that there are other candidates on the ballot. In Maryland there were both Democrat and Republican primaries for Congress as well. And two incumbents lost their seats. Both were defeated because they had run afoul of the party’s activist base.

Reps. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) and Albert Wynn (D-MD) are from different parties. Neither had been involved in a scandal, and there had not been recent redistricting. Both lost because they were not ideologically in sync with their party’s base.

Congressman Gilchrest, the Republican, voted with Democrats more often than with his own party, and his constituents had enough. Groups such as the Club for Growth spent nearly $1 million to dump him. He did not vote with social conservatives and I am glad to see him go. Wynn, the Democrat, had the opposite problem, having sided with business more often than with his left-wing constituency. More goes on than just the presidential race, and GING-PAC will be involved

One of the upcoming races that is important to us is in Louisiana. Although the presidential primary is over, a special “snap” election is being held on March 8th to fill the seat of Congressman Bobby Jindal (R-LA) who was just sworn in as the Republican governor. The March 8th race is a party primary with a run-off on April 5th if no candidate gets more than 50%, and then there will be a final election between the Democrat and the Republican on May 3rd. All this, and the winner will have to run again in November!

Our candidate in the race is my old friend, former state legislator Woody Jenkins. Woody was cheated out of a US Senate seat by current Senator Mary Landrieu in an election in which van loads of Democrats went from polling place to polling place to vote over and over again using the names of the dead. The election was shamefully dishonest.

As a legislator Woody Jenkins authored more than 300 major bills including one to protect home schoolers and deregulate state control of private schools. He is a pro-life champion!

There are now 29 Republican congressmen who have either outright resigned or announced that they will not run for reelection this year. (This includes Bobby Jindal who resigned to become governor of Louisiana.) With that many incumbent Republicans leaving, we need as many good conservatives as we can find to fill the slots. Woody Jenkins will not be a McCain Republican; he is solidly one of us, a true social conservative who will fight for the Christian values this nation was founded on.

Slowly but surely, we are replacing “moderate” Republicans in Congress who do not vote with social conservatives and we are replacing them with men like Woody Jenkins. In December GING-PAC won two major victories in special congressional elections by helping to elect Rob Wittman in Virginia and Bob Latta in Ohio. I have mailed Woody a GING-PAC check and with your help GING-PAC can help him win and make it three special election victories in a row for us!

PLEASE HELP TODAY: Make a secure on-line contribution to GING-PAC to help us elect true social conservatives such as Woody Jenkins to Cobgress.

OUR NEW INTERNET SITE

Government Is Not God - PAC has a brand new state of the art Internet site. and we hope you are enjoying it! This update is also posted at www.gingpac.blogspot.com and comments can be left at the blogspot! My weekly legislative updates can be read at www.murrayonthehill.blogspot.com .

William J. Murray, Chairman