Final Countdown

I meant to make a post regarding this a long time ago, but now it seems even more timely.

After religiously following election news for the past few months and watching all of the debates and forums, I believe that the best interviews with the candidates occurred at Saddleback Church.

If you missed Saddleback Church's Civil Forum I recommend that you watch it in full. Both candidates had an hour of one-on-one questioning by Pastor Warren and it painted a telling picture of each candidate, their world view, and how they would approach the presidency.

To watch the Forum go here:
Saddleback Civil Forum in full

Life

While I am not Catholic, I still found this to be a very powerful video in regards to the upcoming election.

Many issues are at stake
Some more important than others

Update: Prof. Robert George - "Obama's Abortion Extremism"

Race42008

Check out this news/information aggregation website that I put together for the new freshmen seminar "Race to the White House." Be sure and click on each of the tabs for more pages. Warning, this may be information overload for some.

http://www.netvibes.com/race42008

The Caring Class

The piece below was written by Mo Leverett, a man of Christ who has been working in urban ministry for the past two decades. He used to be executive director of Desire Street Ministries and now he heads a new urban ministry in New Orleans - Rebirth International. I enjoyed his thoughts on the issue of poverty in our nation and the relationship it has with politics and our duty as Christians.

The Incarnation of the Caring Class - A New Social Revolution


Few know that you'll often find me, during my down time, watching or
listening to political coverage. You might call me a shade-tree
political analyst. News shows get intensely interesting for me when
events become focused on an upcoming political presidential election.

Perhaps many would assume that I'm a liberal - in that I've spent most
of my life around the poor who generally vote Democratic. I'm a social
troubadour, singer-song writer and folk artist. I'm one of the later
baby-boomers and early gen X'rs, born in the 60's and idolize Bob
Dylan. I admire Dr. Martin Luther King. I see myself as partly
contributing to his legacy and in part an extension of his vision. For
many, that is enough to make me a liberal.

However, it might surprise you to know that places of poverty are
mostly responsible for peeking my interest in supply-side economics
and social conservatism. Many would assume that as a southerner,
evangelical and Calvinist that I am hopelessly conservative. But while
I'm conservative, I'm not your dyed in the wool Republican. I'm
something quite different and more radical than that. Nevertheless,
I'm convinced that government policy toward the poor has proven itself
at best ineffective and at worst dangerously counterproductive and
corrosive.

"So you are a moderate then…?", one might suspect. Let me say, of any
option in the array of choices, I am moderate - least of all. As I see
it, the gravest sin on the left is careless social engineering,
compassion from a distance and with other people's money. The
insidious sin on the right is that mostly they could care less. Some
have said that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting
poorer. This is true. The rich tend to get richer because they
continue to do the things that made them rich. The poor tend to remain
poor because they continue to do the things that make them poor.
However, through the intervention of the caring class, this does not
have to remain this way. There is a way for those who are poor to
become rich through moral transformation, through industry and
financial literacy. I've seen it happen with my own two eyes.

You might say that I'm a conservative who gives a damn (please pardon
my French). But I passionately believe that what is most needed in
pockets of poverty is an infusion of good conservative family values,
the Judeo-Christian work ethic and empowerment through education. More
importantly I believe that the intervention of the word and work of
the gospel and of the church is God's prescription for what ails
American pockets of poverty.

So who should be president?

If we become what God has designed us to be as the church, an
institution that is truly salt and light, pouring ourselves out in
radically transforming ways, it matters little who is governing. The
church frankly has depended too heavily on government either to
legislate our moral framework (conservatives) or to commission our
enterprise of compassion (liberals). The government's internalization
of our values and social vision are more the outgrowth of our
effective evangelistic strategies and our incarnational community
activism.

However, after 18 1/2 years of front-line urban ministry, I see the
multi-generational impact of the war on poverty and its resulting
degradation of culture, family and individual dignity - in the very
place where those components are the most necessary for overcoming the
challenges of poverty. And so I will be voting conservative. But I
will also be applying and leveraging our rich theological and
educational heritage among the poor to such an extent that through our
common sacrifice we will see the poor become rich - in every way. I
hope you will join me in this.

I love his statement in the next to last paragraph.

It reminds me of one my favorite Mike Huckabee quotes,

"I'm often asked why taxes are so high and government is so big. It's because the faith we have in local churches has become so small. If we'd been doing what we should have -- giving a dime from every dollar to help the widows, the orphans and the poor -- we now wouldn't be giving nearly 50 cents of every dollar to a government that's doing ... what we should have been doing all along."

As the Body of Christ we need to realize that governments may be helpful in solving problems, but that the ultimate solutions will come through the Church and lives that have been transformed by Jesus.

When A Leader Appears

This week both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton spoke on campus and I was fortunate enough to get to photograph them with my new job for the marketing and public relations office.

Surprisingly enough, I found Hillary's event much more enjoyable than Barack's. This is most likely due to the fact that she did a policy speech rather than a flowery speech with little substance. And did anyone else realize that Obama uses teleprompters at the majority of his speeches? You can see them on either side of him below. I always thought he spoke extemporaneously like Huckabee does.



My favorite picture I took - a classic Drudge Report style photo.


I can't make an entry for two democrats without plugging my own party. Advance voting in Georgia begins today. Find your county's special advance polling place here. Below is a great new video made by a Huckabee supporter.

Lock the Doors

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Ahhh...this is more like it. Advertised as a rally, this event at Furman University actually feels like one. The mostly young crowd lined up over an hour before the event. A teenage band helped pass the time, the room bursting with at least 1,500 people packed standing room only. Two walls had to be collapsed to withstand the flow of people and even that didn't seem to alleviate the pressure of people all around. - Joy Lin, CBS News

I had previously posted the flier for Mike Huckabee's visit to Furman. It was all that I had wished for and more. About 5:45 the lobby began to fill and by 6:15 it was full. At that point we opened the doors to the conference room and by 6:45, two walls were collapsed and the room was as packed as the hog farm I visited this past summer.

Gov. Huckabee had been in a private reception with close friends of Congressman Bob Inglis and at 7:00 he appeared and did a little jam session with "Detour", a high school band from Clemson. At this point, the fire marshal made us lock all the doors and bar anymore people from coming in. We directed them to the side doors so they could stand outside and listen to Huckabee's stump speech. The campus police chief estimated 1500+ people were crammed in there - a huge proportion of them being my fellow students and other young people from Greenville. I was so proud and lucky to have the opportunity to share Gov. Huckabee's message of hope for future generations with all of my friends. If you have some free time, watch him outline his vision for America and his policy positions here.

Mother, Grandmother, and political activist Carole Walters attended the event at and I believe she summed it up best in her Op-Ed in the Greenville News today.

Huckabee brings in the young people

The Republican Party is experiencing rebirth! A look around the Furman rally for Mike Huckabee recently was amazing. The majority of the over 1,500 gathered were young and enthusiastic, first-timers to get involved in any politics. Youth respond to Huckabee's creative use of the Internet, Meet Up groups, Face Book site, tongue-in-cheek ads and stories that touch the heart.

I have been involved in politics in varying degrees over the past 20 years. Often I have seen the Republican Party consisting mainly of older, somewhat affluent people. I had truly become concerned as I attended local party events seeing the aging of the party. However, it looks like Mike Huckabee has struck a chord among the young who want hope in the America that they will inherit. That is what Huckabee does best -- instills hope.

Huckabee's message is: hope in leaving Iraq with assurance that the people and country will be better because our soldiers were there; hope that our borders will be secured as we can get a handle on the immigration problem; hope that our failing, burdensome tax system can truly be fixed in a "fair" way; hope that we will see the end of turning our backs on the most vulnerable members of our society: the unborn and elderly.

As a parent and grandparent, teacher and volunteer to women in crisis, the most important thing I can offer others is hope. As the man from Hope (Arkansas) often says, "We want the greatest generation to be the one that is yet to be born." The twentysomethings are listening and coming out in droves. We say, "Come on in and join the party."
Carole M. Walters
Easley

Media about the event:
Hucksarmy.com Youtube shoutout at Furman University by Gov. Mike Huckabee
Greenville News Photos of the Event
Huckabee Rally Really Feels Like a Rally - CBS
Mike Huckabee woos Greenville, Spartanburg voters - Greenville News
Huckabee’s Home Field Advantage - Fox News
Huckabee Is TCB - ABC
Generation Y: Ready to Rock the 2008 Election - Washington Post

Video: Huckabee on the Fair Tax, immigration
Video: Huckabee on the Greatest Generation
Video: Huckabee jams with Furman students
Video: Huckabee's introductory comments at Furman

One step closer

The talented messenger beat the man with the money. The saver of souls beat the savior of the Winter Olympics. The son of a mechanic with crooked teeth beat the corporate titan with a superhero chin.

And it wasn't even that close.

Those great lines come from Time magazine. However, one can not become complacent, the road ahead is long and strenuous. After wanting Governor Huckabee to come and speak at Furman for a very long time, somehow that wish was granted. It was all the doings of Congressman Bob Inglis and now we will all work hard and watch Huckabee win South Carolina. If you're in the area, stop on by.

What Leadership Looks Like

Since I've returned home I've been following Election 2008 news practically nonstop. It began with Romney's "Faith in America" address the morning after I returned, and yesterday the coverage continued as the candidates made statements on the death of Benazir Bhutto. I don't follow sports too much, instead elections are the games I love to watch. Each day brings new chances for candidates to mess up and opportunities for them to jump ahead. The Iowa caucuses are just a few days away, then New Hampshire, and then all the candidates will be in South Carolina for the last early primary before February 5.

Many of you know that I currently support Mike Huckabee for the Republican nomination. After sifting through the candidates his views most aligned with mine and I've been with him since late in the summer. At that point, everyone dismissed him, just as they did until about November, but now he has gained momentum and he has a great possibility of winning the nomination. Please talk to me for more information on why I support him, but here is the short: He has the most executive experience out of all the candidates (10.5 years Governor of Arkansas, Chair of National Governors' Assoc.), he holds consistent conservative views on social issues, he supports the FairTax, he has a realistic plan to solve our immigration problem, he is electable against Hillary or Obama, and finally he will bring this nation up rather than split us apart.

"I'm a conservative, but I'm not mad at anybody about it. I've learned that you don't have to give up your own convictions, but you do need to be willing to have an open mind, spirit and heart toward people who are completely different from you." - Mike Huckabee

It is really an injustice for me to sum Gov. Huckabee up in a few sentences. Please take some time to research his stances on the issues, and watch more videos of debates, speeches, and interviews so you can decide for yourself.

Best of Mike Huckabee Youtube videos
Mike Huckabee's Website

If you're with Huckabee - sign up to Save 08 here.