John McCain - Surprisingly Liberal

Mike Huckabee in CNN Debate - Jan.30

“Would Ronald Reagan endorse your candidacy?”

Schneider: The night’s big winner: Huckabee

Bill Schneider with CNN declaring Huckabee the winner of tonight’s debate:

Huckabee, I think, stood out in this debate as the one who made sense, talked as ordinary people do, and rose above politics. They may have scored. He connected. And that’s a problem for Romney, who would like to become the alternative to John McCain among conservatives who oppose the Arizona senator. But he has very tough competition from Huckabee, who’s forcing people to re-think his run at a time when he was supposed to be out of the game.

But this has always been the way he’s worked: Romney uses money to stay competitive. Huckabee has debates.

( … )
All in all: Huckabee gained ground …

 

Fredheads on RomneyCare

Here’s Todd Harris,  Communications Director for Friends of Fred Thompson, on RomneyCare:

Mitt Romney says his government-mandated health care plan is one of his most important accomplishments as governor. But what does his plan really accomplish, and is this the kind of health care plan YOU would want to be forced to pay for? Today, November 15th, Massachusetts residents who fail to register with the government and show proof of health care coverage will be slapped with a tax penalty for this year! For individuals, the amount will be on average $219 this year and they will receive a punitive fine as much as $2,000 over the next year. Small business owner? It’s even worse; you’ll be fined $295 per employee who isn’t enrolled in Romney’s government-mandated health care plan! So what sort of services does Romney’s health care plan provide?

Per the state website: $50 co-pay for abortions

While court mandate requires Massachusetts to cover ‘medically necessary’ abortions in state-subsidized health plans, Mitt Romney’s plan covers ALL abortions - no restrictions. After it passed, Romney vetoed dental care for Medicaid recipients from his health plan, but did nothing to prevent coverage of abortion on demand for a mere $50. Romney has tried to distance himself from his Hillarycare-type plan, but you can watch the video where he takes full credit.[Video is here.] There’s nothing conservative about Mitt Romney’s health care plan. It’s a government subsidized health care plan that requires citizens to register with the state, slaps working people with tax penalties, and provides $50 abortions on demand.

More on RomneyCare

Here is Human Events, Liz Mair, on RomneyCare (Read the entire post here):

RomneyCare has not even been fully implemented yet, and a cost overrun of $151 million in 2007 alone is already in the cards, perhaps because the RomneyCare financial model assumed the wrong number of uninsured in Massachusetts (the Census Bureau puts it at 748,000, but RomneyCare assumes only 500,000). But any needed hike in taxes won’t be pushed through by Romney—he’ll be out of office when the bill comes due, and when extra federal dollars will likely have to be allocated to Massachusetts to help cover the shortfall between RomneyCare’s cost and its budget.

Yes, RomneyCare is reliant on federal funds. So imagine if, as Romney hopes, it is replicated in other states. Even if we do not have federally-mandated universal healthcare a la HillaryCare, we could easily end up with that option’s badly behaved little brother—”state-specific” universal healthcare, funded in large part, and at greater than current levels, by the federal government.

That matters because it means more government intrusion into personal healthcare choices. Government will end up funding healthcare at a higher level, and in exchange, making mandates about the kind of coverage you must have, and who may treat you (RomneyCare mandates that individuals must purchase HMO coverage; PPO coverage, often better and more flexible, is not allowed). Moreover, government will end up dictating to businesses and requiring them to incur potentially great costs: RomneyCare mandates that employers with more than 10 workers must assume ultimate financial responsibility if employees or their immediate family members need expensive medical care, and that if such businesses do not insure their employees, they must pay a $295 per uninsured employee fee to subsidize healthcare costs. This threatens employment levels and discourages small businesses from growing.

Ultimately, the entire specter of government engagement in the realm of healthcare hits at a fundamental question. Is healthcare and health itself primarily an individual responsibility, the product of individual choices made in consideration of private matters, or is it a benefit to be assured by the government, without regard to the wishes of the individual?  [ FULL POST ]

… and the WSJ opinion may be read here.

Mitt Romney: Champion of Big Government

Mitt Romney likes to throw the liberal label at other candidates. But, his own record as Governor of Massachusetts could easily wear that same name tag. He claims to have not raised taxes, only government mandated “fees.” In reality, these fees are nothing but taxes and Romney raised them to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. His liberal agenda didn’t stop with taxes, though … here is The Center for Small Government on RomneyCare:

His grande finale was the worst of all: RomneyCare, Mitt Romney’s version of socialized medicine.

By his own admission, he didn’t plan his socialized medicine scheme until after the 2002 election.

During Romney’s governor campaign, he convinced voters that his Democrat rival would be worse – because she would saddle us with socialist tax and spend policies, he said.

But soon after he was elected, Romney started the drumbeat for socialized medicine. Three years later, he signed RomneyCare into law.

Voters of Massachusetts did not vote for RomneyCare. Mitt Romney foisted the granddaddy of Big Government expansions upon them without warning. He championed it from the beginning. Again, without any prodding from his Democrat rivals.

When Romney ran for U.S. Senate in 1994, his campaign popularized the derogatory term “Kennedy country” to describe the devastating effects of Ted Kennedy’s “liberal social programs” on poor neighborhoods in Massachusetts.

Yet Mitt Romney stood proudly with Kennedy while he signed RomneyCare into law.

Ted Kennedy has pushed for socialized medicine for decades. Romney fulfilled his dream. Kennedy lobbied the legislature hard to get Romney’s bill passed. It was a Romney-Kennedy alliance.

Welcome to Massachusetts: Romney-Kennedy country.

Romney’s socialized medicine law mandates everyone who doesn’t have insurance to buy it - or suffer income tax penalties. There’s yet another “off budget” Mitt Romney tax increase.

If you look closely at Romney’s sweeping, socialized medicine law, it’s as scary as anything Hillary Clinton ever put on the table. It creates or expands twelve state health care bureaucracies. It gives a seat on the boards of these bureaucracies to groups that expressly advocate socialized medicine such as Health Care For All. Thanks to Romney, the hard-earned money of taxpayers is funding socialist organizations who are now on the government dole - and who will soon be in control of the health care of every Massachusetts citizen.

Romney’s mandate will cost individual taxpayers many thousands of dollars every year in health insurance premiums for unwanted, lousy, over-priced policies - loaded with co-pays, deductibles and exclusions – or force them to pay thousands of dollars every year in new income tax penalties.

The total cost of RomneyCare in mandates and new spending? At least several billion dollars every year – to start. It will rise from there, as socialized medicine programs are wont to do. The current governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, predicts that “healthcare costs are likely to take up half the state budget within the next 10 years.” (Boston Globe 9/29/07).

Romney’s law goes into full effect in 2009. Unless it’s repealed before then, the loudest screams of protest from Massachusetts won’t be heard until after the 2008 presidential election is over. Romney’s time release tax increase.

 

John McCain vs. Gun Rights and Second Amendment

Outside of McCain’s military service, I fail to see what other veterans are seeing in him.  On a myriad of issues, he not only lists left … he anchors there.  His record on gun rights and the 2nd Amendment is no exception.

Gun Owners of America pulls no punches:

Arizona Senator John McCain is running for President (again). He has been courting various conservative leaders in his quest to secure the Republican nomination. McCain wants voters to believe that he is a conservative… but his record would certainly suggest otherwise.

Take, for instance, his record on gun rights and political speech affecting Second Amendment activists. Abysmal, wretched, and pathetic are words that come to mind.

Then … here is John Lott, writing for NRO, discussing McCain’s attempt to sell Conservatives on his gun rights credentials:

Let’s consider just one of these issues: McCain’s claimed pro-gun record. This was true a decade ago, but since then, on issues such as regulating gun shows, banning less expensive guns and so-called assault weapons, and requiring gunlocks, McCain has supported central portions of the gun-control agenda. Indeed, in a couple cases, McCain authored the proposed legislation himself.McCain’s gun show regulations, instead of simply requiring background checks on sales at gun shows, would make it extremely difficult for gun shows even to function. A special license would be required to operate gun shows. Licenses could be denied without the federal government even having to give a reason, and no time limits would be placed on how long the government had to make its decisions.

While gun-control groups have tried for years to register the names of gun owners, McCain’s legislation helps accomplish this by effectively requiring the registration of all people who attend a gun show. Gun show operators would even face criminal penalties and imprisonment if any unregistered attendees were to trade a gun after the show if the gun were discussed in any way during the show. The only option to operators would thus be to register everyone.

McCain acknowledges that these regulations could be abused, but, according to him, the goals are too important to compromise, and McCain assures us that we should trust the regulators. Yet, it was not so long ago that the Clinton administration constantly halted gun sales nationwide as background checks broke down and kept records long after the law explicitly allowed.

Most troubling are McCain’s extreme measures for what is essentially a non-existent problem. The Bureau of Justice Statistics under Clinton conducted a survey of 18,000 state prison inmates in 1997 — the largest survey of inmates ever conducted. Less than one percent of inmates (0.7 percent) who had a gun obtained it from a gun show. The vast majority of criminals — 40 percent — say they got their guns either from friends or family, and 39 percent got it on the street or from other illegal sources.

Of course, like with many gun-control regulations, this call for more regulations rests on distortions. Despite the “gun show loophole” term used by McCain and others, there are no special exemptions for buying a gun at a gun show. Dealers must perform the same background checks as in a store. What gun-control groups refer to is the non- regulated private transfer of guns. Eighteen states regulate the private transfer of handguns, with some having regulations going back more than several decades. However, not surprisingly, just as with the semi-automatic gun bans, there is not a single academic study showing that these regulations reduce any type of violent crime.

Click the following link to see Huckabee’s record and stance - Mike Huckabee: Standing Tall For The Second Amendment

Duncan Hunter Endorses Mike Huckabee

CNN has the story here:

California Rep. Duncan Hunter, a former presidential candidate, announced Wednesday he is endorsing Mike Huckabee’s White House bid.

“I got to know Governor Huckabee well on the campaign trail,” Hunter said in a statement. “Of the remaining candidates I feel that he is strongly committed to strengthening national defense, constructing the border fence and meeting the challenge of China’s emergence as a military superpower that is taking large portions of America’s industrial base.

“Along with these issues of national security, border enforcement and protecting the U.S. industrial base, I see another quality of Mike Huckabee’s candidacy that compels my endorsement,” he added. “Mike Huckabee is a man of outstanding character and integrity. I saw that character over the last year of campaigning and was greatly impressed. The other Republican candidates have many strengths and I wish them all well.”

I’m not sure of the end effect of this … it certainly will not hurt.  But, can you hear that explosion in the distance?  That’s the sound of the collective head of HotAir commenters coming apart at the seams.  Amusing … if nothing else.

UPDATE from Mike Huckabee:

A quick note from the road. I’m honored to have the support of Duncan Hunter. Over the past year on the campaign trail, I have come to admire him on a personal and professional level. We share many of the same positions on the military and immigration, and I look forward to having his support as our campaign continutes surges ahead to Super Tuesday.

John Linder: Huckabee presents the best choice

Column by John Linder:

I was first elected to the Georgia House of Representatives 34 years ago. I have watched this party change for a long time. Some changes have been better than others.

Two years after that first election, I went to work on the Reagan campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. I was one of the leaders of that campaign in Georgia, and my friend, Paul Coverdell, led the establishment’s efforts to nominate President Ford.

It was the typical establishment-versus-interloper campaign. Most of the friends I had made in the party were in the establishment. Most of them thought the nomination of Ronald Reagan was not only impractical, but would destroy our party.

Reagan had just served two terms as the governor of California. His record was not all that conservative. He signed the biggest tax increase in the history of the state. He got the best he could get with a Democrat-dominated general assembly. He signed a bill legalizing abortion. But governors have different challenges than presidents.

Frankly, most of the establishment couldn’t have cared less about abortion. They thought the discussion of it was, well, tacky. But we were, at the time, the party that Barry built, and the new foot soldiers cared about abortion.

Their concern with Reagan was that he just wasn’t up to it. What did he know about foreign policy? How could he stand up to the Soviets? Did he understand detente?

During that campaign, as in all campaigns, the establishment sat at the head table, and the rest of us milled around the small round tables below.

Coverdell approached me, after Ford had won the first several primaries, and urged me to switch sides. Paul was convinced that Ford had the best chance of winning. Paul recited all of the reservations mentioned above and then said, “John, Reagan cannot win. No one will take him seriously.” That was also the consensus of the Republican writers and commentators.

I said, “Paul, I think politics is all about what you believe. I know what Reagan believes. I have no idea what Ford believes. But you need to watch Reagan connect with the people. He is the best communicator I have ever seen. He is bringing new people into the party. And these are folks you won’t be meeting at the club for lunch. They carry a lunch bucket to work. Or a brown paper bag.”

Four years later, I worked again for Reagan and Paul worked for George H. W. Bush. Again, the Wall Street crowd sat at the head table, and the Main Street crowd sat at the small round tables on the floor.

The same arguments came from the establishment. His tax cut idea was a “riverboat gamble.” In fact, his tax cuts doubled the size of the economy and doubled revenues to the treasury. Unfortunately, they spent that and more.

Reagan didn’t understand that the world is a dangerous place and dealing with the Soviets required a more “understanding” policy. It also required a willingness to sign more treaties. They didn’t know that Reagan had no interest in understanding the Soviets. He wanted communism consigned to “the ash heap of history.”

It was a neverending series of put-downs until New Hampshire. Then it was over.

Reagan won that election with the support of Larry Lunch-bucket and Betty Brownbag. They were called the Reagan Democrats. When we celebrated that victory, I asked some of them why they chose to join us. They said, “When he talked, we felt that he was talking to us.” The Reagan Democrats believe they have been ignored since 1988.

The establishment doesn’t like change. They have always felt that their seats at the head table were threatened by those new to the club. The establishment that so ardently opposed Reagan’s nomination in 1980 crawled all over each other to chair his 1984 race.

Today they now see themselves as those who put Reagan in power. His presidency was their presidency. They believe they are the keepers of the flame.

Today’s establishment includes elected officials, consultants, lobbyists and even conservative writers and commentators. Unless you allow them to write the rules and approve of your positions you are unwelcome. Anyone who does not genuflect before their altar is “not conservative.”

When you look at the many fine candidates seeking the Republican nomination for president, who do you believe can best speak to those Reagan Democrats?

I believe that candidate is Mike Huckabee.

When Reagan became president, one of his first moves was to reduce income taxes from 70 percent to 50 percent and ultimately down to 28 percent. As pointed out above, both the size of the economy and the federal revenues doubled in eight years.

Huckabee doesn’t want to lower income taxes. He wants to abolish them - along with the IRS, the most intrusive, coercive and corrosive federal agency ever. Mike would replace those taxes on income with a sales tax - the FairTax. Every American will become a voluntary taxpayer paying taxes when you choose, as much as you choose, by how you choose to spend. How conservative can one get?

Rep. John Linder, R-Duluth, has served in the House of Representatives since 1992.

American Thinker - Mitt Romney: A Massachusetts Liberal for President

While searching for information on Romney’s time in Massachussetts, I ran across an interesting post today.  Don’t fall in love with this blogger, he has much worse to say about Mike.  Nevertheless, intriguing thoughts on Mitt Romney over at the American Thinker:

Enter Mitt Romney.  Inching ever closer to a presidential run, the former CEO and outgoing Governor of Massachusetts is emerging as the Barack Obama of the GOP.  And the analogy is apt.  He has the resonant voice, the good looks, the statesman-like bearing and, going Obama two better, great hair and unobtrusive ears.   

But Romney shares another commonality with Obama: He’s a liberal in his party masquerading as something more palatable.  Yes, sugar and spice and dealing the deck twice, that’s what little politicians are made of.

As to this point, another politico he can be compared to is Al Gore.  Like Gore, Romney has flip-flopped on abortion, only in the other direction.  While he now claims to be pro-life, he supported legalization of the “morning-after” abortion pill, RU-486.  Moreover, as recently as his 2002 run for governor his platform stated, “The choice to have an abortion is a deeply personal one. Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not the government’s.” 

Of course, Romney says that his views have “evolved.”  But I strongly suspect his adaptation relates more to the evolution of political ambitions than that of conscience.  Call me cynical, but unless you’ve been cloistered in an ancient monastery for the duration, I’m very suspicious of deep personal growth occurring between ages 55 and 59.

Well said … I agree.  It gets better, though:

Equally damning, though, is that in a very ominous way he can be compared to yet another infamous poseur, Hillary Clinton.  On April 12, 2006, Romney signed a bill into law that creates a universal health system intrusive enough to be the envy of socialists everywhere.  The plan mandates that every Ma. resident must obtain health insurance by July 1, 2007, or face a fine that could exceed 1,200 dollars a year.  Of course, this scheme includes the creation of a new bureaucracy, one that will, using Big Brother’s infinite wisdom, determine how much you can afford to pay.  Wow, thanks for the help, Mitt.  Or, is it “Vinny the Chin”?  I mean, this sounds like an offer you just can’t refuse.     

To justify his socialist brainchild, Romney uses the argument that it is no different from requiring people to carry car insurance.  Ah, speciousness, thy name is Romney.  Mr. Governor, you can choose not to own a car. 

Everyone must have a body.

But remember this when Romney touts his credentials as a fiscal conservative.  While he may boast of his steadfast refusal to raise taxes, it rings hollow when he turns around and mandates citizen expenditures and levies fines.  But liberals are adept at revenue-raising sleight-of-hand; when another tax increase would raise voter ire, they simply deem it a toll, fine, fee or, I love this one, a “surcharge.”  I prefer honest theft myself.

Here, here … nice to see a good Conservative blog actually examining Romney’s record.  He seems to be getting quite the pass by the likes of Hannity.  Governor Huckabee can hardly utter a word, much less a sentence, without everyone from the MSM to Talk Radio dissecting and testing it in every context imaginable until they find an angle that works.