Posted on 01/09/2010 9:15:48 PM PST by pissant
AJM: Hello Congressman, how are you today?
DH: Very good.
AJM: How did your speech go?
DH: Good. It was a great event. It was for a guy named Lew Meyer. He was guy who was in Hue City when the NVA came and took Hue City, which our Marines then retook. He was badly hurt and was then in a POW camp. We got him a POW medal and a purple heart.
AJM: Thats great. Did you say it was on the Midway?
DH: Yeah, the ceremony was on the Midway. Ive got about 20 minutes here, so lets roll.
AJM: OK, let me close my office door so I dont disturb the neighbors.
DH: OK.
AJM: OK. Happy New Year to you first of all. I guess what Id like to know, what wed like to know is what are your plans for 2010 in terms of helping move the country, move the ball in our direction? I know youve been very involved through 2009 , so what are your plans going into 2010?
DH: Well, I think the best efforts of all Republicans and all conservatives is to try to get good guys to run for office, particularly in seats in what I would call swing districts, where we can take a big step, a giant step towards taking congress back. And to those ends, what Ive been doing is trying to help a few good candidates. One of whom is Gunnery Sergeant Nick Popaditch who is running for Congress here in San Diego against a long term liberal incumbent Bob Filner. Popaditch is a Silver Star winner who was in that famous picture as the statue of Saddam came down, when Baghdad fell. He was a tanker and was thereafter injured pretty badly in a tough firefight, won the Silver Star, came back to the States and is now running for that congressional seat.
We have a number of other good guys who are running fresh out of the Service. One is Vaughn Ward, a rifle company commander in Iraq and he is running for the seat in Boise, one of the two house seats there. Then we have Jesse Kelly who is running for what should be a Republican seat in Tucson. That is a seat that has a 20,000 vote Republican plurality, yet the seat is held by a democrat.
So helping with these what I would call these takeback congressional districts, helping good, conservative candidates win in those districts should be the agenda for all Republicans and all conservatives this year.
AJM: Sounds like a good agenda.
DH: You win these things by winning seats and thats how well take away this do anything I want to do program that the Obama Administration has embarked upon. They arent held back now, they are filibuster proof in the Senate, and as the Health Care vote demonstrated, they have enough votes to override a filibuster attempt. And that means essentially they can do whatever they want to do. Thats not balance, thats not checks and balances, but rather it is the pathway for a socialist agenda this next year.
AJM: Yes sir! This next question is related and it is a little bit touchier. And that is what about conservatives challenging established moderates in the party for their seats?
DH: It depends. Ive always been cool to that approach, because we end up with a limited number of bullets and we end up shooting each other. Republicans cant afford to do that, generally. So if youve got some fairly scarce ammunition and you can use it in a district where $50 thousand or $75 thousand might mean a 2% win for a Republican, like the Nick Popaditch district, why would you go over and spend a million trying to knock out a Republican in a safe Republican seat?
That approach has always left me a little cool. And behind that approach, to some degree, is of course the self interest of folks who want to take a Republican seat, that want to get a political seat for themselves, so they end up stirring up a fight with a Republican incumbent who at least makes that first vote in the right column. And that is the vote for Speaker. And if you have a Republican majority, you should always have a conservative speaker, because the majority of the Republican Party is conservative. So if you have a Connecticut liberal like Nancy Johnson or a social liberal like Rob Simmons, who is otherwise good on defense, and that person would vote for, say, a Newt Gingrich for Speaker of the House. So its much more worthwhile to expend your ammunition trying to take back a district that is held by a Democrat then shooting at each other and I say that as a staunch conservative shooting at other republicans when your ammunition is scarce when its going to take an all out effort to simply win a majority.
AJM: I understand that position, and that is the good Republican position. Now Im going to ask you to put on your conservative hat. What happens in the instances when a moderate IS challenged by a conservative? Obviously certain moderates, oh I would say like a Lincoln Chafee, is really quite left actually as opposed to moderate. But in this case specifically, I heard today that JD Hayworth, your old buddy from Congress, is going to challenge John McCain for his Senate seat.
DH: Yeah? I havent heard that. But Im going to see JD I think in a couple of weeks. Hes going to be out helping Jesse Kelly. Im sure if thats what hes going to do, Im sure hell call me about it. You know, everybody is an independent contractor so you cant say you dont have the right to run in a district whether its for a Senate seat or a House seat and go up against a member of your own party.
What you were asking me about, though, was the practicality of using scarce ammunition to shoot our own soldiers. And my answer to that is, that it is not a practical thing to do.
Now, you called me with a lot of enthusiasm about having a 3rd candidate when we had a Republican candidate and had a democrat candidate in that NY district 23. I think that, wasnt that the McHugh district?
AJM: Yes. McHugh moved onto the Administration
DH: What I told you probably would happen, or had a chance of happening, occurred. That is, we ended up having a split. From a Democrats strategy point of view, they loved it when the Republicans basically had a split. Then the Republican nominee, who did something entirely inappropriate, which was to endorse the democrat. So the one thing that could keep the democrats in control of that particular seat occurred.
So at some point, heres what you have: You have to win! Winning is important. So when you only have so much ammo, you want to ensure every bullet is expended to achieve maximum leverage.
The district next door to my seat, which I won in 1980, I ran against an 18 year Democrat, liberal incumbent, I couldnt raise a dime from the Republicans. In fact, I had to sell my house to run. Which I did. But I couldnt raise any money from the so-called Republican establishment. That same establishment put about 3 million dollars into the primary contest in the Republican district next door. The money I got from selling my house, which I could not raise from the Republicans, put me over the top and I was able to win that 2 to 1 democrat seat by 53% to 47%. So I learned firsthand that, in terms of numbers, I gave the Republican party a seat that they otherwise would not have had. So its much more effective to use your ammunition shooting at the other side than shooting at your own troops.
AJM: I generally agree. I dont anticipate that JD Haworth will get much support from the Party. Hes going to have to raise his money on his own.
DH: I want to be clear. Im not talking about JD. JD hasnt said anything to me, so I dont want to personalize or speculate about what your friends are going to do. I like JD, hes a great friend of mine. And what you do in a case when you have a personal friendship, is very often you throw all the rules aside. Personal friendships are still important in this world, and they are important to me.
But you asked me a general question about Republicans using their resources to shoot their own guys in primaries, and I said its not a practical strategy, and its not. I mean look at the national numbers. The democrats are below 50% approval for the first time. We have to strike hard.
If you ask me whether I would take a liberal Republican in a seat where his first vote would be for John Boehner for Speaker of the House, rather than Nancy Pelosi; or you are going to have a lefty in that seat who votes for Nancy Pelosi, my preference is always going to be the former.
AJM: I understand that, and I think most conservatives do. But the environment, especially with the Tea Parties, has kind of changed the outlook on Republicans as well as Democrats..
DH: Yes it has. But Im reminded of another thing. You know Bob Dornan lost to Loretta Sanchez here in Orange County
AJM: Uhhhggggg
DH: And Bob Dornan was one of the great conservatives in our party. Dornan was beaten by a couple of hundred votes. I think 224 votes, arguably a number of them cast by illegal aliens. The democrats played the race card and the republicans folded. Nonetheless, he only lost by about 200 votes. The libertarian candidate got about 5000 votes, as I recall. And probably a lot of those people who voted libertarian, said well Im going to vote Libertarian because I think the Republicans havent done enough to cut taxes, they dont do enough for freedom. So by voting libertarian, they helped to elect a liberal over a real conservative. Thats what I call the practical aspects of dividing your votes and dividing your resources.
AJM: Yeah, I understand the third party notion and what it can do. I think you explained it well regarding that seat in NY. But when we talk in terms of Republican primary I think its been your practice, in fact I know youve actually recruited conservative candidates in the past to run against more liberal republicans. And I think we are going to see a fairly decent groundswell of that this time, within the Republican Party, not necessarily third party.
DH: Yeah. People Ive recruited in the past, like Gunny Nick Popaditch though Im not the only person to have encouraged him to run, I dont want to give myself all the credit I think hes a great candidate. But I asked him if hes interested in running against an extremely liberal Democrat. And thats the reason I wanted Nick to run.
AJM: Yeah, thats a seat held by a democrat. In the past, with the Conservative Opportunity Society, you were trying to identify conservatives to run, not just Republicans.
DH: Oh thats true. I still do. But all the conservatives I recruited to run, I recruited to run as Republicans during my tenure at COS. (Laughing) I dont recall ever asking anyone to run on the Libertarian ticket.
AJM: (laughs) Oh, no, no, no.
DH: (laughing) Thatd have been a real trick if I had!
AJM: OK. Well good. Im sure youll be hearing from JD in the weeks to come. It will be interesting to see what happens there.
DH: Yeah. JD is a great guy and hes a great friend.
AJM: Yeah, I noticed also, you told me you endorsed Mr. Bob Smith for Senate down there in Florida, not the moderate NRSCs Charlie .
DH: Yeah. Bob Smith helped me in my presidential race. He supported me. Plus, hes an old time friend of 30 years. Thats important.
AJM: Plus hes an old cold warrior too. We dont seem to have too many anti-communists around anymore. We need a few more of them, Ill tell ya.
DH: Yes, we do. Bob Smiths a great guy and I would do the same thing again.
AJM: Well good. There you go, youre stirring the pot.
DH: (laughs) Thats not so. You have a general practical rule which is when you divide votes, you divide resources, that hurts you in terms of the general election. But against that rule, youve got exceptions. One exception is old friends who have known you for a long time, who have helped you. Theres a certain reciprocity involved. And also, going out and recruiting candidates as Ive done. When you go out and recruit a conservative candidate and you ask them to run, because you think they are just a tremendous candidate that would do great things for the country, you dont have a crystal ball that tells you that 3 weeks from now youre going to have a state senator get into the race who has got good poll numbers. So you understand, once you go out and recruit that good candidate to run, then you have to stick with him. Theres a certain loyalty factor involved. So overlay that loyalty factor, that conservative factor, and the recruitment factor against the practical rule that you want to use your scarce ammunition in the real battle (general election), not against fellow republicans. I think that is an important thing.
AJM: OK, very good.
Now on to our Christmas underwear bomber. Im sure you are quite aware of that story, about the guy getting on the airplane with the bomb planted in his skivvies. They did not connect the dots on this guy and Im wondering if its because of their attitude that this is not really a WAR on terrorists were engaged in. They changed it to an Overseas Contingency Operation, and they dont use the words terrorism or jihadists, so I think political correctness has slipped back into this fight, especially with the idea we are going to prosecute these guys in court. What is your message to the Obama Administration about how we need to keep these folks off of airplanes and out of our country?
DH: The Obama Administration, I hope, has learned the lesson that you cant eliminate the war by changing your vocabulary. You cant do that anymore than they could have in 1942 by declaring that World War II was over. That is essentially what the Obama Administration tried to do. They thought that by changing their vocabulary, they could somehow stop these jihadists from attacking us. That is a rather naïve point of view. And if that is representative of their strategic thinking, I think the country is in for real trouble.
AJM: Ive seen nothing from these guys that tells me its not. That is why this 2010 election we just talked about it is one of the most crucial in our modern history. Weve had others, but this ones a biggie.
DH: Oh yeah! Thats why Im doing ..let me again make a pitch for 3 guys. Youve got 3 military guys who went out there and fought for this country in Iraq and understand what it takes to defeat an enemy. One of the guys is Gunnery Sergeant Nick Popaditch, the cigar marine. He was the guy that was sitting in the turret of an M1 tank as the statue of Saddam came down. He later won the Silver Star in heavy combat. A great, great speaker, very eloquent; running against liberal Bob Filner here. Weve got to help him. Also, Jesse Kelly, who was a Corporal who went over the line in the initial push towards Baghdad. He comes from a business family, and could have easily avoided service. In fact, everyone that serves today serves as a volunteer. He went into the combat arms as an infantryman and served in that first Iraq push. Hes running in Tucson. And lastly, Vaughn Ward, who served in both the CIA and as a Marine rifle company commander in Iraq, running in the Boise district of Idaho. These are three guys who served our country and want to serve again in the Congress. Ive backed them up. If I did nothing else, Id cut three checks and send them to those guys.
AJM: Well, youre definitely going to get checks coming for all those guys. Plus there are another couple of gentlemen, like the guy out in Iowa, Chris Reed, who I believe youve campaigned for as well.
DH: Yes, absolutely. While he didnt serve in a combat unit in Iraq or Afghanistan, he nonetheless was in the Navy, a servant of our country. Hes running against the liberal, Mr. Loebsack out there in Iowa. Great candidate. So I went out there to do a small event for him. Weve got to help him out. That seat is representative of the kind of swing district that we need to get back if we are going to win majority. We cant just win the solid Republican districts. Weve got to win some tough ones. That seats in the same position, I think, as Mr. Filners here in San Diego. Its a Democrat seat, a district that is marginally Democrat, but populated by a conservative constituency and voter base. We can win these with good candidates. Chris is an example of one of those good candidates.
AJM: And you are going to stay involved in these campaigns and other campaigns of up and coming conservatives throughout the year?
DH: Absolutely. Yes.
AJM: Well your 20 minutes is up, I hate to tell you (laughs). I know you have limited time, but I have to ask you this. Are you a San Diego Chargers fan by chance?
DH: Uh, yes.
AJM: And you think their chances this year are???
DH: Listen. I always think the Chargers are going to win every game. (laughs). With respect to other facets of life, we can be practical, we must be practical. But with the Chargers, Im always for the Chargers whether they are up or down or indifferent, and I always think they are going to win every game. In this case theyve won what? The last eleven?
AJM: Yes. I think.
DH: And Phillip Rivers has never lost a game in December, hes 18-0 for December. And I hope that carries into this month! But I think weve got a great chance of winning everything.
AJM: They are looking good. I just filled out a football pool, Im still picking the Vikings to win the Super Bowl theyve been my team since I was a kid but in terms of who looks the scariest right now, Id say its San Diego.
DH: San Diegos looking good. Incidentally, on the college level, Vaughn Ward, the guy who is running for Congress in Boise Idaho, his team Boise State has done well. They just won the Fiesta Bowl.
AJM: Is Vaughn a Boise State grad?
DH: No, I dont think hes a Boise State grad, but hes a Boise State aficionado at this point.
AJM: (Laughs) After last nights National Championship game, Boise State ended up in the final polling, the AP and the Coaches Poll, as number 4 in the nation. Thats pretty impressive, because I think they have all but one of their starters is coming back next year. Can you believe that?
DH: Yeah. They ought to be a little higher. What they did was simply let them replace TCU who they beat.
AJM: Pretty much.
DH: They beat Oklahoma, they beat Oregon.
AJM: They should be number 2.
DH: I think they are the number 1 team in the nation! Who do they have ranked right now as number 1?
AJM: Alabama, of course.
DH: Yeah. But you know, TCU was number 4 ranked, right?
AJM: Uh huh.
DH: What did they get? 45 yards on the ground against Boise State?
AJM: That was an impressive defensive display.
DH: I think they have definitely got the best defense in the nation. And I think theyve got the best team.
AJM: Well next year, because they should start the year highly ranked, if they go undefeated again, they should get a chance to play for the national championship this time, even though they are in the WAC. So well see.
Final question for you. Michael Steele. Have you been paying attention to this guy the last few days?
DH: I havent been following Michael, but I know him.
AJM: He managed to put his foot in his mouth one more time. Yesterday, talking to Sean Hannity, Hannity asked him if he thought we had enough to take back the House, and he answered no. So hes been scrambling trying to do damage control. But there have been a lot of calls for his head. Do you think it is beneficial at this point to call for this guys head?
DH: No. What I think Michaels got to do, is redouble his efforts to take back the house. He can always make up by action for what faux pas have been wrought by speech. If he just works real hard and helps us raise money and goes into those districts hes a good speaker and just does everything he can for us to win
AJM: He needs to watch his language or something. Hes very good at shooting himself in the feet.
DH: Well, Im not good at un-ringing bells. So it sounds like that bells been rung. (laughing)
AJM: (laughs) Well listen, Ill let you go. And Im going to be bugging you once JD gets a hold of you, and Im going to ask you if youll be supported him over McCain.
DH: OK. Good
AJM: I have a sneaking suspicion youre going to.
DH: (laughs) Well, thanks for calling up and .
AJM: No more Amnesty Queens. Have a good day.
DH: OK. Goodbye.
Good to hear Hunter is busy recruiting conservatives.
I like JD, hes a great friend of mine. And what you do in a case when you have a personal friendship, is very often you throw all the rules aside. Personal friendships are still important in this world, and they are important to me.
Hopefully JD will call and enlist Hunter's help -- and Hunter will support him wholeheartedly!
Hunter has recruited many staunch conservatives over the years, with the direct intention of turning the GOP into a conservative party.
It would be hard to imagine that Hunter would espouse third party conservatism as the way forward. WHen asked about the tea party movement in an earlier interview, he said it was not only important, but NECESSARY if we are to turn this country around.
BUt as most of us expected, he firmly believes that the GOP is the vehicle. ANd for a “retired” guy, he is doing more than the vast majority of unretired guys to try to make that a reality.
What RINO-ism has he ever espoused?
I’ll certainly ask!
Dude. Hunter did not endorse Scozzafava. He endorsed the conservative. He just was willing to explain what usually happens in circumstances like these. And that is the split vote. And lo and behold, that is what happened.
I reckon that is what will happen.
Go VIKINGS
Hey pissant! Duncan L. Hunter is everything I ever said he was, and Barrack H. Obama is also everything I ever said he was. To bad more people didn’t listen. I send these interviews to everyone I know. Mr. Hunter needs to get into the public eye bigtime. The American people have learned their lesson. It is high time for such a man as Duncan L. Hunter to take over the wheel and guide America back to what our founders meant her to be.
Conservatives are their own worst enemies. If a politician disagrees with them on ANY issue, they call them a RINO. People use the term RINO too loosely. No wonder the Dems are in control these days.
Just because someone doesn’t agree with YOU 100% does not make them a RINO.
Thanks for the sanity BUMP.
Good interview...
That is one of the reasons he’s agreed to do these interviews. To keep in the public eye.
Hunter understands how important it is this year to get back at least the House to stop Obama’s agenda from ruining our country. That is what he’s focused on. But look at the platform of the 4 candidates he’s backing right now and they all echo the Hunter agenda.
DUE TO MY mAC. DEGEN. IT IS VERY DIFFICULT FOR ME TO READ.
CAN YOU TELL ME WHERE BOB DORNAN IS TODAY, HOW OLD HE IS, AND WHAT HE IS DOING NOW? WE NEED THAT FINE MAN NOW MORE THAN EVER. IS HE IS GOOD HEALTH?
WALTER! Thank you kindly! You are still a wonder, and I appreciate all the info on Bob Dornan. I shudder to think of the future as those of us who are of his generation die off. We must do all we can to see that our American history does not go with us. God bless, dear friend.
I think he is semi-retired. But he still is active in pro-life circles. I Miss B1 Bob
Thanks for the ping. B4DH
Thanks pissant. Got halfway. Save the other half for morning coffee!
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