Tim Hoagland, FairTax.org's communication's director, wants to set the record straight about his group's role in helping Mike Huckabee place second at the Ames straw poll:
For the record, everywhere we went on our 25 city Iowa bus tour over the last two weeks we saw crowds enthusiastic for the FairTax. We invited one and all to come to Ames on our 10 buses and have little doubt that supporters of each candidate--and undecided's--came to Ames with us. This is a grassroots campaign to advance an issue important to the nation and every taxpayer
We never inquired as to whom someone supported, only asking them to come to our two events. We estimate that 5,000-7,000 people came through our tent during the day. Our "Fairest Wheel" drew a lot of attention as did the funnel cakes, Mel McDaniel's band, our air-conditioned tent and our FairTax materials. We believe a lot of people came in skeptics and left the tent, believers. We saw a lot of Romney and Brownback supporters wearing "FairTax" stickers on top of their candidates T-shirt even though those candidates don't support the FairTax. Simply put, the idea is resonating with the public, irrespective of political affiliation or candidate preference.
Having said that, it cannot really be a surprise that those citizens who feel so strongly about the FairTax naturally gravitate to those candidates who most strongly advocate enactment. It is, after all, a non-regressive national retail sales tax that replaces the dysfunctional income tax system, eliminates all federal taxes on the poor and benefits taxpayers at every income level.
That Mike Huckabee, who made the FairTax a central plank of his campaign efforts in Iowa and elsewhere, benefited from the popularity of FairTax is only a surprise to those who have not followed the growing grassroots popularity of the FairTax (as seen in 514 radio talk shows over the past 11 months). We have seen 10,000 person rallies in the last year in South Carolina, Florida and Georgia. We are getting 50,000 web hits a day to www.fairtax.org
Finally, anyone saying that the FairTax buses or grassroots campaign was a "secret" weapon must be unaware of the fact that we have been telling anyone who will listen about our bus tour, our issue and our Straw Poll events. That the national media has paid little attention to an issue that recently has seen five of eight GOP candidates, one prominent almost candidate--and one Democrat--give it support is less a "secret" than a largely unreported truth.
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I am proud to be an American when I see the way the Iowa straw poll seemed to cut through some of the hype created by the media that was in favor of the over financed candidates.
Back about 1915 or so we had a politician named Woodrow Wilson that accepted a bribe to create the Federal Reserve. They were a group of very powerful bankers and businessmen from around the world at the time. Through the monopoly of being the source of our money and by being outside of our government, or paying any taxes, they have built up a fortune that, I believe, includes owning most of the politicians of the world.
It is going to take a determined, We the People, to restore law and order in our government before we can restore law and order in our streets.
"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."
-Woodrow Wilson
Posted by Carson | August 14, 2007 8:05 PM