Mike Huckabee, Phyllis Schlafly, and the Conservative Movement

I have been wanting to write a post on the conservatism of Mike Huckabee for some time. As should be obvious to readers of this blog, I truly believe he is a very important and articulate leader of the conservative movement in this country, and will be more so in years to come.

Unfortunately, he has been the victim of calumny by a rich, ambitious charlatan who, when preparing his business plan for capturing the White House, determined that espousing conservative positions contradicting everything he previously stood for, would be the surest route to capturing the Republican nomination for President. In this pursuit, he was backed by the White House and his friends at the Club for Growth, the very people that have done the most damage to working American families through international trade agreements, the export of American jobs, open borders, and the failure to enforce US immigration laws.

The following reflection from the Catholics for Huckabee blog affirms that Mike Huckabee is the authentic conservative, standing on the shoulders of conservative pillars like Russell Kirk, Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Buchanan and Ronald Reagan.

When the debacle of the 2008 presidential election is over, authetic conservatives will begin the task of rebuilding the party and the conservative movement that this President and the internationalists at the Club for Growth have done so much to destroy.

The Schlafly Connection

Huckabee's CPAC speech last Saturday was clearly a watershed moment, revealing Huckabee as an authentic, old-school conservative. It was a crucial speech which managed to hit all the right buttons with his conservative audience, and finally connected the rest of the dots around this most intriguing candidate.

In a brief summary of the various factors forming his political conservatism, the former Arkansas governor mentioned his humble working-class background, his staunch Republican employer as a teen (a rare commodity in Arkansas), his desire for order amidst the growing mayhem of the '60's, and his struggle to implement conservative policies in his gubernatorial career.

Along with his personal experiences, Huckabee included some serious discussions of political issues, displaying a wide-ranging and well-developed political philosophy in the process.

Particularly comforting and a personal highlight of his speech for me, was Huckabee's reference to Phyllis Schlafly's 1964 book, A Choice, Not An Echo, which he read as a teenager. A bestseller at the time, this groundbreaking book called for the unification of the conservative movement under the leadership of Barry Goldwater, against the liberal Eastern Establishment wing of the Republican Party, whose wealth and media influence had controlled the presidential elections for years.

Phyllis Schlafly has always been a heroine of mine. A lawyer with a Master's in Political Science from Harvard, this Catholic mother of six became famous for her articulate and impassioned opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and the feminist movement in the '70's.

It was truly heartwarming to hear Mike mention the name of this gracious and eloquent defender of traditional values, still writing columns and speaking on the radio today, at the age of 81. Her name brought back memories of all the conservative Catholic giants of two decades ago: James Likoudis, Frank Morriss, Jean Kirkpatrick, Russell Kirk, and a young Joe Sobran and Pat Buchanan. It also reminded me of pro-life Marches to our Denver capital building on windy January days, of the Eagle Forum, Gloria Steinem, Pat Schroeder, Richard Nixon and ERA bumper stickers.

Recalling the name of Phyllis Schlafly and her example of courage and resistance against the popular liberal tide was no accident. Curiously enough, Huckabee did not mention the other conservative hero whose name has been on everyone's lips these past few weeks. Instead he chose a leader whose legacy is very close to Reagan's, and who is really his feminine counterpart. A significant choice in more ways than one, perhaps.

In this momentous speech, Mike boldly planted his own conservative banner on the hilltop, an invitation for traditional conservatives to rally around. His speech is a declaration of war against the secular liberalism of McCain and a call for true conservatives to unite.

The classic conservative positions Huckabee outlined in his speech, as well as the name of Phyllis Schlafly, signalled his personal connection to the same well-grounded, consistent conservatism which has been tested and proven over the last few decades and which lives on in many corners of this nation. This kind of conservatism may not be exactly thriving in country clubs, corporate offices and the halls of Congress, but it is alive and well in the middle and working classes, in labor unions, volunteer fire departments, middle-class neighborhoods, farms, small businesses, churches and in homeschooling families and small private colleges and schools.

In other words, the conservatism of Phyllis Schlafly et al., has been kept alive by all of us who have been busy making hard choices, going against the grain, and not merely echoing the lies and empty promises that have been thrust upon us from almost every side for all these years.