Swiftboat Veterans For Truth 'Backer' Funds Anti-Huckabee Group

According to the AP, the Conservative Group, Club for Growth, has targeted Republican candidate Mike Huckabee.

The Club for Growth is spending $175,000 to continue running ads in Iowa that highlight tax increases adopted in Arkansas when Huckabee was governor. During the past three weeks, the group has spent $550,000 to criticize Huckabee's economic policies.

There are two interesting donors to the Club, Bob Perry and Jackson T. "Steve" Stephens Jr..

Perry, a Houston homebuilder, gave close to $4.5 million in 2004 to the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth to help pay for ads which blasted John Kerry's service during Vietnam. Last month Perry donated $200,000 to the Club for Growth.

The other donor to the Club is Steve Stephens. From Little Rock, Arkansas, a businessman and member, Stephens donated $200,00. Stephens is also on the Club for Growth board.

According to the Club for Growth spokesperson, Nachama Soloveichik, it's Huckabee's record on economic issues. "He's the worst Republican in this race."

While this could be true about Huckabee and "economic issues" it's also true, according to the Boston Globe, that Perry signed on to raise money for Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

Some credit the actions of the Swift Boat veterans for torpedoing John Kerry's candidacy. Senator Kerry hasn't forgotten them.

"They lied and lied and lied about everything," Mr. Kerry says in an interview in his Senate office. "How many lies do you get to tell before someone calls you a liar? How many times can you be exposed in America today? Source - New York Times

One of the highlights of the Kerry campaign in 2004 was Kerry's response to the salvos fired by his ex-Navy buddies, the Swift vets, who claimed Kerry was unfit to be the next Commander in Chief. Kerry uttered the famous words to the Swift Boaters, "bring it on," then promptly hid behind his campaign handlers the rest of the election.

According to the New York Times Kerry's supporters are preparing a dossier "that they say will expose every one of the Swift boat group's charges as a lie and put to rest any question about Mr. Kerry's valor in combat."

Critics of Kerry are still waiting for this "dossier."

Perry's backing of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was crucial as Kerry attempted to block the group's efforts to air ads against the former Lt. (Jr.) John F. Kerry. Kerry hid behind his handler's backs while he fought through the courts and with threats, attempting to stifle the veterans of the Vietnam War from voicing their opinion of Kerry.

The same man who helped the Swift Boat Veterans in their battle to expose John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election is back, checkbook in hand.

Club For Growth on Mike Huckabee:

Over the past ten months, it has become abundantly clear which path Governor Huckabee has chosen, and it looks more like the path of John Edwards than it does a limited-government, economic conservative. Huckabee himself admits that he is a "different kind of Republican,"[73] a code word for more government involvement, less personal freedom, and greater dependence on government bureaucrats. Huckabee is proud of his tax hikes, his spending increases, and his regulatory expansions as governor, and he has not indicated that he would govern any differently as President. Nominating Mike Huckabee for president or vice-president, would constitute an abject rejection of the free-market, limited-government, economic conservatism that has been the unifying theme of the Republican Party for decades.

Does the fact that Bob Perry has donated large sums of money to organizations such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the Club for Growth mean we should dismiss what these groups have put out as untrue or underhanded?

In the case of the Swift Vets, it was David versus Goliath. And no, David was not John Kerry, not by a long shot. The Swift vets were a grass roots effort. Kerry, a well-oiled political machine married to a billionairess, Teresa Heinz-Kerry.

From the Swiftvets website:

Senator John Kerry has made his 4-month combat tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of his bid for the Presidency. His campaign jets a handful of veterans around the country, and trots them out at public appearances to sing his praises. John Kerry wants us to believe that these men represent all those he calls his "band of brothers."

But most combat veterans who served with John Kerry in Vietnam see him in a very different light.

These were men who served in Vietnam with John Kerry. These were the men Kerry slandered in his 1971 "Winter Soldier" Testimony before Congress. These were the men Kerry continued to slander and then attempted to silence in his bid for the Presidency in the 2004 election.

Now it's Huckabee's turn. Better the Club for Growth than the Swift Boat Veteran's for Truth.

Just ask John Kerry.

By LBG
Image [ospreydesign]



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