|
 From left: LaDonna Ryggs, president, South Carolina Federation of Republican Women (SCFRW); Geri Warren, first vice president, Greenville Country Republican Women's Club (GCRWC); Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas; Betty Poe, GCRWC president; and Mary McAbee, second vice president, SCRFW.
The former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher showed a skill honed in his many years in the ministry by not repeat-ing a standard stump speech in his many trips to Greenville. Huckabee was the 44th governor of Arkansas and if elected president would be the 44th president of the United States.
Geri Warren, first vice president of the club, introduced Mike Campbell, state chairman of the Huckabee campaign. Mike is the son of the late Carroll A. Campbell Jr., South Carolina governor from 1987 to 1995.
Campbell, who is from Greenville, praised Huckabee’s consistency, saying he hasn’t had to change his positions just so he could run for president. He has always believed the same things and has always had the same moral compass.
Huckabee told the women and guests that Americans don’t have a lot of confidence in what is happening in Washington, faulting the government for not controlling spending, securing the borders or fixing the tax system. Referring to the parable of the talents in the Bible, Huckabee said if a person hasn’t been effective with one set of responsibilities he should not be given greater responsibilities.
Huckabee said he wants the next generation to live better than this one, not just economically, but to be safer and more secure, living with a sense of fulfillment and joy, knowing that families are going to make it and that their children are going to have jobs that will sustain them.
Huckabee said we must get back together again and be a nation under God, and not be a divided, polarized nation. He said we must reform our education system, decrease the number of high school dropouts and bring music and art back into the schools.
Huckabee said he is the one to go toe to toe with Sen. Hillary Clinton on her health care plan. “We don’t have a health care crisis,” he said. “We have a health crisis in America, and until we address that all we are going to do is bankrupt this country.” He said we must change from an intervention culture, waiting until stage 4 cancer before intervening with the most expensive levels of treatment, and instead focus on prevention.
Huckabee called for the nation to become independent in the areas of energy and food production and weapons manufacturing, saying that a country dependent in these areas is only as free as the supplying country lets it be. He said he is not comfortable with the idea that every time he buys gas he is helping to make the Saudi royal family just a little more obscenely rich. “We are paying for both sides of the war on terror,” he said as the money we spend on oil finances it.
One of the reasons Huckabee said that he is unalterably pro-life is because he believes the ultimate test of a civilization is, “Are we as one generation willing to sacrifice ourselves for the next generation, rather than sacrifice the next generation for the convenience of ourselves?” He asked: Are we self-centered, or God and others centered?
|
