During Ronald Reagan’s 1966 campaign for governor of California, Republicans established the so-called Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

It was proposed by State Republican Chairman Gaylord Parkinson to help prevent a repeat of the liberal Republican assault on Barry Goldwater that laid the foundation for Goldwater’s trouncing in the 1964 presidential election. Just as Nelson Rockefeller and his East Coast cronies had branded Goldwater as an “extremist” who was unfit to hold office, so candidate George Christopher and California’s liberal Republicans were leveling similar personal attacks on Reagan. Party liberals eventually followed Parkinson’s advice, and the rest is history.

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All the Republican candidates have invoked the name of Ronald Reagan numerous times.  It seems they all want to be associated with the Reagan legacy.  But most have forgotten Reagan’s eleventh commandment.  It is one thing to contrast one’s record with that of another candidate.  it is quite another to resort to character assassination and that is precisely what some have done.

The pundits are even worse and they don’t seem to realize the risk they are taking.  The quote above illustrates why Reagan was unwilling to speak ill of his Republican opponents.  He stuck to issues because he understood that it was important that Republicans won in the end the constant assaults in the primary process made that less likely.

The lesson holds true today but you wouldn’t know it listening to the pundits.  I have to admit that I have been guilty as well.  I’ve made my views on John McCain, for example, very clear.  But as I said in my last post, I have to think about the possibility that McCain will be the eventual nominee.  What do I do then?  Can I reasonably blog in support of McCain at that point after all the negative posts I’ve written about him?  I’m not sure anyone would take such post seriously but I’m quite sure some would use my older posts to argue in favor of whoever the Democrat nominee is.

Therein lies the problem.  I need to tone down my rhetoric against McCain, Romney, et.al. in favor of arguing for my candidate.  I think others need to do the same thing.  otherwise we all contribute to making the Democrats’ job easier and our nominee’s job tougher once the nominees are chosen.

Yes, evangelicals and churches mobilized in Iowa and that certainly helped Huckabee.  But the assumption that they mobilized because Huckabee is “one of them” is, I think, misleading.  The fact is Huckabee came in a strong second in the Iowa Straw Poll several months ago, not because of churches and evangelicals, but because of his strong support of the FairTax.  It just so happens that for the most part evangelicals are also strong supporters of the FairTax.  but they are not the only strong supports of the FairTax.

It may well be that Huckabee won’t win in New Hampshire.  But I think it quite likely that he will do well even if he doesn’t win.  Moving on the South Carolina puts Huckabee back in the drivers seat again because there is an incredible FairTax organization in South Carolina and the vast majority of those FairTax supporters are also Huckabee supporters.  I know this because I’m part of the South Carolina FairTax organization.

I was at the FairTax rally in Columbia, SC back in May.  It was held across the street from the Koger Center where the Republican debate was taking place the same night.  We had something like 9,000 people at that rally.  We marched around the Koger Center, silencing all other groups while we marched.  Indeed, small groups of supporters of the various candidates were in awe of the crowd we had.  Many spoke to me, completely amazed that we had such support and so many people there.

The media virtually ignored that rally.  Watching debate coverage that night it was striking to see video of numerous pockets of supporters for each candidate and no video whatsoever of the FairTax marchers.  We were ignored.

We are still being ignored by the pundits on both sides and the media.  With few exceptions the FairTax and its supporters have been given virtually no credit for Huckabee’s meteoric rise.  But the reality is it is FairTax supporters that brought Huckabee that strong second place in the Iowa Straw Poll and it is FairTax supporter who have lifted Huckabee to the national stage.  And so long as Huckabee continues to be the most articulate supporter of the FairTax, they will continue to lift him up.

I heard this verbalized yesterday on a radio talk show.  I can’t remember which show it was but the guest was saying that both Thompson and Romney has looked at the FairTax and liked it but bowed to advisors who convinced them it was a losing issue.  He claimed that both regretted listening to that advice.  I don’t know if that is true or not.  Having attended a couple of Thompson events it seems unlikely to me that Thompson ever even understood the FairTax, much less liked it.  All I know is, the FairTax is a winning presidential issue and Huckabee has tapped into it.

To be sure there are lots of other very important issues and over the next few weeks Huckabee will be thoroughly scrutinized on all of them.  He may or may not survival that scrutiny.  But so far the myriad charges against him haven’t stuck and he’s continued to rise in popularity.  Rush has said that Huckabee supporters aren’t interested in hearing anything negative or factual about Huckabee because they’ve made up their minds.  Perhaps.  But the same could be said (and I will say it) about all those “conservative” pundits who have been slamming Huckabee the last last few weeks.  Some of them have slightly moderated their tone in the last few days.  I suspect that’s because they are realizing that not only have they been unsuccessful in derailing Huckabee but they are going to have to deal with him going forward and that might be a little easier if they don’t have such an adversarial position but that’s pure speculation.

That bottom line is, the pundits and opponents of Mike Huckabee will continue to underestimate him so long as they don’t understand why he’s doing as well as he is.  The FairTax is the biggest key.  Yes, evangelicals support him and that helps.  But that wouldn’t support him if there wasn’t a lot of common ground on key issues and one of those issues if the FairTax.