The Texas and Ohio primaries are coming up this Tuesday. The Goliath News Media and conservative pundits have all but pushed Mike Huckabee aside in the face of Senator McCain’s accumulation of delegates and poll numbers.

What they discount, however, is the rural vote. Huckabee took the south on Super Tuesday, primarily in rural areas. The big cities went for McCain (why, I don’t know), but the common-sense folks of rural America recognize something genuine, fresh, and new in Mike Huckabee. He is untainted by Washington politics. He does not have a Keating Five scandal in his past. He is a leader who is willing to embrace both sides of the aisle in order to get progress made. America is tired of presidential promises that aren’t kept, of career politicians who say one thing one day and then flip-flop their ideals whichever way the wind blows.

Whatever else you might say about Texas, it is essential to note how BIG the state truly is. Texas is comprised of 262,797.12 square miles of land, most of it rural. Texas has the largest rural population in the country, with over 3.6 million rural residents!

Why do I think Senator McCain would not be good for our country? Let me count the ways:

He cheated on his first wife — the one who waited for him while he was a POW — and married another woman one month after his divorce was final.

Why is that significant? It happened years ago, and since then he’s been married to the same woman. It’s important because a leader needs to have an excellent character. I am not throwing stones at him. The per capita divorce rate as of 2004 was .37 percent — nearly 40% of marriages end in divorce. Infidelity was one of the reasons. American families are falling apart, and as they do, more and more rely on welfare and government assistance to take the place of working moms and dads.

1 Timothy 3 talks about qualifications for leaders in the Christian church. Of course, our nation is NOT a church. But the nature of democracy is that the people get to elect leaders whose values match their own. As Christians, we have a duty to select our choices based not just on a candidate’s stance on the issues, but also on his or her character. An argument can be made, however, that these guidelines set down in scripture for church leadership qualifications can logically be applied to presidential leadership qualifications. In that context, then, take a look at 1 Timothy 3:2:

2Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.

Who among the candidates fits that tall order? Not Senator-Lose-His-Temper McCain. He has been the husband of two wives, frequently uses profanity, and loses his temper. Mike Huckabee, however, is the husband of but one wife, he is temperate and self-controlled, he is able to teach, he is gentle, he is not quarrelsome and is not a lover of money.

He supported amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Senator McCain’s bill on illegal immigration — cosponsored by Kennedy — last year was thankfully defeated. If it had been passed into law, violators would have been allowed to stay in the country, pay a fine, and become automatically legal.

Right is right, and wrong is wrong. I sympathize with those who want to come into our land of opportunity. As Huckabee says, I’m very thankful that people are trying to get in instead of trying to get out! However, we have existing laws detailing the number of immigrants allowed entrance to our borders…laws that are, as of now, a complete sham.

What would happen if I set a “law” in my house that said my daughter was only allowed one sleepover a week with one friend? Instead of obeying my law, she invited fifty friends, and they all converged on our doorstep. Should I allow them all to stay the night? If I did allow them all to stay, I’d have to find blankets and enough food for them all. My water bill would go up with the increase in showers. My daughter would learn that my rules aren’t really rules…they are just guidelines, and she can do whatever she wants. The next time I told her NO, she’d just ignore me and do whatever she wanted anyway. Soon she’d stop asking me permission to go outside and play, and I might find myself standing at the door wondering where on earth she’s run off to.

The point is, we have rules and laws for a reason. If people are allowed to break them without suffering any consequences, they will continue to break them. Why not? Especially if breaking them pays off for them in big ways.

If you’re going to look the other way and not enforce existing laws, then perhaps they all ought to be tossed. Just open the borders up. Let anyone come in, especially if they are from our neighbors to the south. (I’m being sarcastic here!)

The breaking of rules is so blatant that a recent Dallas Morning News article publicly detailed the story of an illegal immigrant who moved back to Mexico and then decided to come back to Texas because conditions there were so deplorable.

“We have nothing to come home to,” Mr. Rubí explained. “What are we going to do here … especially when we know the jobs await us there?”

Watching them mingle near her grandmother’s home is Ms. Arzola, who has worked in North Texas, Houston and Florida. She empathizes with her neighbors.

“There’s something about the water in the United States,” she said. “Once you taste it, you’re hooked for life. You miss it. You crave it. You’re hooked.”

Lack of clean water is a horrible reality for many of our neighbors not just to our south, but also in our own state of Texas! (If you don’t believe me, do a google search on colonias in Texas). As a compassionate nation, we could reach across the border and help them learn how to provide clean drinking water for their own residents. We could help them learn to stand on their own feet so their residents aren’t running to us illegally to provide for their families’ basic needs. Instead, we look the other way. We let them sneak in. Many of them drown trying to cross the Rio Grande. Others suffocate to death in hot, crammed trucks, with no water or food for miles and miles. These people take the huge risks in human trafficking because their own country has lagged behind ours in technology and sanitation. They sneak over our border so they can have their babies in our hospitals so their children will be US Citizens.

Yes, their circumstances are sad. But they still broke the law. If a homeless person steals a rich man’s wallet, he is still charged with robbery and tried by a jury. These unfortunate souls need a better way to make a life than having to live in the shadowlands, afraid to show their faces for fear they will be deported. The way to make it right is to go back home and then come back in legally! We need a leader who can be tough and compassionate with our neighbors to the south. Perhaps the Mexican government should be held accountable for their citizens who sneak over here. We need fresh ideas and faces to attack this tough issue.
Mike Huckabee’s plan for strengthening our immigration policies addresses those issues and more. Senator McCain’s plan does nothing about those who are already here illegally. And had his bill passed into law, our current immigration laws would have been made into even a bigger farce than they are now.

Senator McCain has wishy-washy views about abortion laws and supports embryonic stem cell research.

1999: “in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade,”

2007: “It should be overturned.”

Embryonic stem cell research involves using human embryos for research purposes before destroying them. This practice is abhorrent to those of us who believe an embryo is a life. During WWII, many Jewish people were viewed as “non people” by scientists, and they were forced to undergo gruesome experiements. How is this different than experimenting with human embryos?

“All I can say to you is that I went back and forth, back and forth on it and I came in on one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had, in favor of that research. And one reason being very frankly is those embryos will be either discarded or kept in permanent frozen status.” The senator, while standing firm on his decision added, “I understand how divisive this is among the pro-life community.”
From Catholic.org

Governor Huckabee, however, is firmly against embryonic stem cell research and would use his presidential bully pulpit in an attempt to change hearts and minds. The “pro-choice” culture we’re living in is resistant to change. But Huckabee realizes that you can’t legislate morality. What you can do, is lead by example.

What I accomplished as Governor proves that there is a lot more that a pro-life President can do than wait for a Supreme Court vacancy, and I will do everything I can to promote a pro-life agenda and pass pro-life legislation. If I’m saddled with a Democrat Congress, I’ll veto any pro-abortion legislation they pass. I will staff all relevant positions with pro-life appointees. I will use the Bully Pulpit to change hearts and minds, to move this country from a culture of death to a culture of life. I have no desire to throw women in jail, I just want us to stop throwing babies in the garbage.

Senator McCain’s tax reform is just more of the same mumbo jumbo.

Sometimes you just have to throw out the old. Our tax code is antiquated and penalizes productivity. Americans deserve a government that is financed in an easy-to-understand way. You should not need a degree in economics to understand the federal tax code. Rather than throwing out the old, Senator McCain’s tax reforms involve doing more of the same with a few cuts for some people…his ideas just add another layer of confusion to an already hopeless law.

Governor Huckabee’s FairTax proposal is a fresh idea. Even if, as some say, it has no chance of becoming law, at least the introduction of such a law, with presidential support, would open up debates on creating a new system of financing our government. We are in desperate economic times. I just spent nearly $50 at the gas pump today. No, I don’t drive a tank! I drive a small car.

Despite Goliath News Media pundits warning me that voting for Huckabee is throwing away my vote, I did it anyway. I did it because Governor Huckabee’s values match my own. I did it because I will not compromise my principles to vote for a man who cheated on his wife, supports embryonic stem cell research, wrote a bill that provided for amnesty for illegals, and represents more of the same “old guard” politics. It’s time for a change!