When I heard yesterday that Jim Gilchirst, a founder of the Minutemen Project, a border control group, had endorsed Mike Huckabee, I was pretty confused.
I know that Huckabee recently came out with a good border control/illegal immigration plan, but frankly I don't trust politicians who don't see the light until they're on the campaign trail. I have about as much faith in such conversions--once they get in office--as I do if someone told me Colonel Sanders became a vegetarian.
Huckabee has an abysmal record on illegal immigration, having supported driver's licenses for illegals, in-state tuition rates for illegals, and calling plans to stop such benefits "racist" and "bigoted." That's not someone who's friendly to enforcing our nation's laws or borders.
I did hear one thing in that Washington Post piece I linked to above which was welcome, though I can't speak to its sincerity:
"Frankly, Jim I've got to tell you there were times in the early days of the Minutemen I thought what are these guys doing, what are they about," Huckabee said. "I confess I owe you an apology." He said of Gilchrist, "nobody can question his commitment to his country."
But back to the subject of Jim Gilchrist himself, when I read this yesterday, I emailed Carmen Mercer, Vice President of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. I met Carmen at one of the functions I attended in Washington D.C. in October, and had a terrific conversation with her about border/immigration issues, and about the current field of candidates.
Carmen told me something I hadn't seen in any "mainstream" media reports: Jim Gilchrist has long ago left their organization and is doing his own thing, these days. So while Gilchrist was a founder of the Minutemen, he is not in any capacity speaking for that organization.
The only candidates who have a positive record on border control/immigration are Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul and Alan Keyes. The rest have a mixed-to-poor record in this area, including Huckabee. So I'm still confused as to Gilchrist's endorsement.
If Huckabee has come around and seen the light, that's great. But remember: people who want your support will sometimes say things they don't really mean in order to get it. I think it's better to consider the walk they've walked, over the talk they talk.
2 comments:
No National Minuteman Group has endorsed Mike Huckabee.
One individual Minuteman has personally endorsed him.
For the sake of clarity, it is important to note that the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), the nation's largest Minuteman organization, is a 501(C)4 non-profit organization and cannot and does not endorse any candidate for public office. MCDC is not associated with Mr. Jim Gilchrist, who today endorsed Mike Huckabee for president.
Jim Gilchrist’s erstwhile Minuteman Project is itself an organization which by its own representations as a non-profit civic group, cannot legally endorse candidates. It does not have any volunteers who observe illegal border activity. It has no border fence building projects. Jim Gilchrist here speaks only for Jim Gilchrist, he does not speak for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, nor is he nationally representative of most patriots in the "Minuteman movement" – who under no circumstances could ignore the failed record nor endorse the duplicitous “plan” recently rolled out by candidate Mike Huckabee. The national media needs to recognize that Jim Gilchrist’s endorsement is his own personal statement, nothing more.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps emphasizes policy dealing with national border security. The only "plan" to ensure border security that is acceptable to our constituency would be a candidate policy statement declaring that his first act as President will be to hold a press conference and announce to the American people an executive order to immediately deploy and fund 30,000 National Guard personnel to the U.S. Borders (25,000 to the southern border and 5,000 to the northern border) to complement a massive increase in U.S. Border Patrol Agent field personnel, and a bilateral effort to secure our frontiers, smash the drug cartels, shut down the human smugglers and protect the public safety of the citizens who reside along the borders on both sides of our national boundaries.
Unlike this last-minute opportunism attempted by Huckabee, many of the other GOP presidential candidates have actually helped push the issue of national border security forward for some time. Tom Tancredo’s many years of hard work on the border crisis and illegal immigration issues have all the candidates striving to sound like him. Duncan Hunter can take personal credit for getting the highly effective San Diego border fence built. Ron Paul has been to the border with us first hand and aggressively pushed positive border legislation. Alan Keyes has done more than anyone to support the organizational development of MCDC, and personally participated in the Minuteman Border Fence Groundbreaking – advancing a citizen’s construction effort which has forced Congress to finally get the Feds building physical border fence.
Only one Minuteman group is conducting regular multi-state border security efforts, building fence and aggressively monitoring Washington DC: Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. We would like to extend an invitation to all the presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat, to come to the border and see what is really happening on our nation’s frontier. Not to take the safe little government photo-op helicopter ride, but see the lay-up sites full of trash and debris. See the rape trees. See the violent crime in the border towns. Walk on the pathways of destroyed environmental terrain trampled by tens of thousands of invading foreign migrants. See what the American elites’ support of broken borders, unfettered illegal immigration and sanctuary cities is doing to our fellow Americans who live on our borderlands, and how these failed policies imperil our nation’s safety, security and prosperity.
Jim Gilchrist Endorses Huckabee Over Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul!
For decades, we, at U.S. Border Control, have followed the axiom that one should never speak ill of any other immigration groups because it merely feeds ammunition to our enemies who favor open borders and amnesty for all.
But it is important to let the public know that not all immigration groups support Mike Huckabee.
Years ago, before he launched the Minuteman Project, Jim Gilchrist ran the idea past me in a conversation we had over the internet. His vision was to get volunteers, armed only with binoculars and walkie talkies, to join him at the border in order to show the government that regaining control of our borders was so easy that even grandmas and grandpas, sitting on beach chairs, could get the job done.
It was a brilliant idea and Jim Gilchrist’s experiment drew more media attention in a few months than the rest of us have been able to garner in decades. And for that, Jim deserves all our thanks for moving the immigration issues off the back burner on to the front page.
Sadly, I am afraid that Jim was not really prepared for his overnight fame and events overtook him. Shortly thereafter, he and Minuteman cofounder Chris Simcox went their separate ways with Chris establishing the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps that took in millions promising to “build a fence,” while Gilchrist’s organization became mired in legal squabbles and an ugly and very public hostile takeover attempt by Board members who claimed their funds were not being properly accounted for.
Now Jim has put himself into the spotlight again by endorsing Mike Huckabee for President! How could he do this when dedicated immigration activists like Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo or Ron Paul are in the race and saying what is in their hearts -- not what campaign advisors tell them to say!
I am not a political pundit. As chairman of USBC, I spend 100% of my time working to pass legislation to reform our border and immigration policies, close the borders to illegal immigration and terrorism, and prevent an amnesty for 3-50 million illegal aliens. So what I am about to say is merely my personal opinion.
My instincts say Mike Huckabee is just another political opportunist who will say or do anything to get elected. His sudden transformation to an immigration reform candidate is no different from McCain's sudden transformation. All it proves is that they can read polling data.
But before I wrote this alert, I thought I better doublecheck to see what some of the other immigration groups were saying about this Gilchrist endorsement. Maybe I missed something.
That’s when I found that Roy Beck's NumbersUSA had changed several of its ratings for Governor Huckabee from “red” to “green” in response to Huckabee’s new immigration plan. This is a big turnaround from just a few days before, when Beck characterized the Governor as a “disaster” in the area of immigration.
In their latest chart of the candidates, NumbersUSA gave weight to recent statements and platform positions of the candidates in addition to their actual votes. I think it is risky, at best, to rely on statements over actual deeds, but that is how Mike Huckabee managed to move up the charts.
What does USBC think of Mike Huckabee? U.S. Border Control does not endorse or oppose candidates seeking public office as it is illegal for a nonprofit lobby group to do so. But we do, however, publish a highly regarded scorecard that analyzes the voting patterns of elected officials so that voters can make informed decisions when they go to the polls.
Our ratings are being finalized now and will be announced shortly -- in plenty of time for Americans who want to know how their Congressman, Senators or the Presential candidates voted on immigration and border policy issues.
Our rating system is traditional. We give no weight to campaign rhetoric, nor do our ratings rely on the often misleading high profile votes. Instead, our ratings are based on those critical amendments and procedural votes that show exactly where a candidate stands on border and immigration issues.
If you would like to receive a copy of our ratings when it comes out, send me an email with the word "Scorecard" on the subject line, or, better, yet, sign up right now to receive our infrequent but important alerts, including our Scorecard ratings and updates.
Wishing you a happy and healthy holiday season and best wishes for the new year.
Edward I. Nelson, Chairman
U.S. Border Control (http://www.usbc.org/)
U.S. Border Control Foundation (http://www.usbcf.org/)
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