Today I had the opportunity to be part of a blogger conference call with Mike Huckabee for his new book, A Simple Government. One of the answers that leapt out at me was when Mike Huckabee answered the questions from Tony of Ohio: What would be the best way to convince the house and senate to take up the measure to implement the FairTax compared to how President Obama went about it with the healthcare system? "If you were President in 2013, how would you handle that differently?"
The FairTax in itself is not what struck me in the conversation, it was how Huckabee's strength of experience and his governing instincts shine through when it comes to the American people. He saw how President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid shoved the new healthcare system down the American peoples' throats. He knew it was not the way to go about making national reforms because he had learned from his 10 1/2 years of executive experience as Governor of Arkansas how to enact reform the right way.
Rather than impose the Fair Tax from the top down, Governor Huckabee suggested creating pressure from the bottom up. As governor, Mike Huckabee had a legislature that was 90% Democrat. "I learned quickly not to go in and tell them what they were going to do." Instead Huckabee would take his message directly to the people. "That would in turn create a groundswell of support for things I wanted to get done. The legislature felt they were responding to their constituents not capitulating to the governor of the other party. The voters would then pressure the legislature to put forth a bill." Huckabee emphasized building your case with the American people. "Ask them to contact their Senators and Representatives. Let them know it is their expectation of their representatives to change the tax code."
Mike Huckabee did admit that this takes much longer, but that it is worth the effort. Huckabee stated that this is how he worked with the Democrat legislature in Arkansas that was overwhelmingly disproportionate. And he was highly successful in getting effective changes made.
In regards to the FairTax, Huckabee stated that "both Democrats and Republicans acknowledge that we need a simplified tax code, we need a different tax structure, we need less dealing with the complexities of the tax code." The American people have complained about various aspects of the tax code. So the key here would be to take the message directly to the people. Show them how they can achieve it. Huckabee said, "The Fair Tax handles all of those things and more."
America is at a crossroad, it has very hard choices ahead. Do we keep on spending like we have been doing and end up completely broke? Or do we start reforming entitlements such as Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security? Mike Huckabee, as President in 2013, would tackle those issues from the bottom up, taking the honest, somber message to the American people, and encouraging a groundswell of support for entitlement reform to be taken directly to the senate and the house by the people, for the people.
Bottom Up, Take your Message Directly to the People, Create Groundswell of Support, Get the people to Act, We can Achieve it!
Not only does that look exactly like what Mike Huckabee has done for the last two years bringing his message to the people through his books and TV/Radio shows, but it would be one Huckuva campaign strategy.
