Month: January 2008

Huckabee looks to Super Tuesday

John McCain picked up another primary win last night in Florida and many are expecting Rudy Guiliani to drop out of the race today or tomorrow. Things are getting tighter and tighter as Super Tuesday approaches next week.

Here’s the latests from Mike Huckabee via e-mail:

Our focus turns now to Super Tuesday. Recent polling shows us in first or tied for first place in Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee and Oklahoma. Voters in these states will have a chance to reclaim the nominating process for conservatives by casting their votes in support of our campaign. And in the states where poll after poll has shown us in second or third, please spread the word that we are still standing and we have what it takes to win.

Because if I am a Republican voter in a state casting votes next week on Super Tuesday, I am asking two fundamental questions:

Which candidate best reflects my views on the issues?

And does that candidate have what it takes to defeat the Democrat nominee in the fall?

If I am a voter in Tennessee and I care about education, I want a President that has executive experience reforming a state’s education system and has a substantive plan to reform education at the national level.

If I am a voter in Georgia and I care deeply about the issues of abortion and marriage, I want a President that will fight tirelessly for life and the family at the federal level, someone with a real record of achievement on these issues not just a politician paying election year lip service on those issues.

If I am a voter in Missouri and I am worried about the economy, I want a President that understands what its like to walk in my shoes and has a plan to stimulate the economy and real world, governing experience to strengthen and help grow our economy.

If I am a voter in California and I am concerned about national security, especially border security, I want a President that has a plan to secure our borders, end amnesty and end the practice of sanctuary cities.

If I am a voter in Alabama and I care passionately about the second amendment, I want a President that understands the 2nd amendment is primarily about tyranny and the right to self-defense not hunting.

If the Republican nominee cannot relate to Republican voters on these important and fundamental issues, we will not defeat the Democrats in the fall.

If the Republican nominee appears out of touch with regular voters or has cast votes that were an anathema to his Party, that candidate will fail to unite the Republican Party against the Democrat nominee, no matter who that nominee is.

I have what it takes, our campaign is still standing and drawing new support everyday and I am prepared to lead America forward. Spread the word. I am fighting for you and will continue to do so every step of the way.

With deep gratitude,
Mike Huckabee

Three answers to prayer

Sometimes we overlook the little things. Either saying they’re not worth wasting God’s time with or even if we do ask we forget to realize that He answers our prayers.

Today we’ve seen proof of three answered prayers.

  • Laurie’s raise was finally approved.
  • My allergies are MUCH better than they were over the weekend.
  • Someone’s stepped up and wants to lead the discussion for the new women’s group at encounter.

Praise God. Always good to remember God cares about the little things as much as the big things.

AcademHack

“Please on behalf of those who will listen to you, stop using PowerPoint, or at least stop using PowerPoint the way that it is commonly used.”

Just found AcademHack – via research on my last post about Twitter. The presentation above is from them. Wish I had one of Brian’s weekly PowerPoints – they’re usually right on with this idea.

AcademHack has some great stuff! I’m not in the classroom but there’s some great stuff here that could work for those in any type of leadership/teaching position… including community groups.

Twitter peeps

So you’re browsing SSL and you see this box on the right hand side that says Twitter updates.
Currently (as of 8:26 a.m. on Jan 29) it shows:

  • what happens when you live alone and die alone > who picks up the pieces? http://tinyurl.com/yto2or 21 minutes ago
  • Listening 2 this american life podcast podcast on the bus about an hour ago
  • Cant find my keys about an hour ago
  • The new Casa de Blundell is live :: http://tinyurl.com/27cyj2 about an hour ago
  • time to take out the trash and head off to work… now where’s the dog at? about an hour ago
  • Getting my morn caffeine fix while checking email about an hour ago

Wait, you haven’t noticed this yet? Well go check it out. We’ll wait for you….

OK now that we’ve all seen it, you’re probably asking, OK so what is it? It’s my Twitter feed. The feed displays everything I add to my Twitter account throughout the day.
Now explaining Twitter might be a little bit harder.

Twitter.com is another one of those fancy Web 2.0 sites that is built around community and 140 character text messages. The site asks the basic question, “What are you doing?”

Users then respond throughout the day with their own activities, thoughts, notes and what not. There’s even a channel set up for things people overheard in their day-to-day lives. You’ll find all sorts of things happening, or being mico-blogged about on Twitter.

ESPN has a feed that alerts people with the latest NFL news. College professors are Twittering with their students. Folks are sharing their insight from the Sundance Festival. Reporters are sharing insight on the presidential race and MacRumors abound.

So what’s the big deal? Well once you sign up for your free Twitter account you can follow any of these feeds, including mine, to can get the updates from your own Twitter page, via txt message or e-mail. And what amazes me is the community that’s built around Twitter. I’ve mentioned this before, but thanks to Twitter and his blog, I know more about Thomas and his life in Scotland than I do about my friends and family that live within 20-30 miles. That’s good and bad — but for this blog entry, we’ll go with the good ;-).

We’re also starting to use Twitter for encounter. We’re posting info on upcoming events and hope to start using it for prayer request notices as more encounter peeps get on board.

Kevin Hendricks over at CMS has more suggestions for Twitter as well (who by the way kept me entertained/informed last week on living life without a furnace via his Twitter feed):

The main thing to keep in mind is that Twitter is just another medium. It could be a volunteer coordinator or an evangelism tool. Experiment and see what works:

  • Ask questions: Sermon research, who’s coming to an event, what people might be interested in, etc.
  • Share insights: Maybe it’s a quote from a sermon, maybe it’s a sudden insight from a Bible study.
  • Highlight content: Point people to blog posts, articles or resources on your church web site.
  • Hype events: Remind people of events and give a glimpse of what they’re missing.

So that’s about it. Now go for it. Twitter away.

The GOP in 2008

Moby has some interesting thoughts on the current Republican Party in America.
Granted he’s definitely not a Republican…

sitting in my hotel room in london and i just finished watching bush’s final
state of the union address.
eh. to be honest it was kind of a non-event.
no nutty comments about steroids or trips to mars.
no new members in the axis-of-e-vil.
he just seemed sort of out of touch and a bit lost and sort of
desperate in a ‘uh oh, i don’t want to leave
office with a 25% approval rating’ kind of way.
it got me thinking about the state of the republican right in 2008.
and how fractured it is.
to make a big sweeping generalization, there are 4 big components
to the republican right(let’s use simpsons examples)-
1-the flanderses(aka-cultural evangelical conservatives)
2-mr burns and kent brockman(rich guys who don’t like taxes)
3-cletus and brandene(ignorant hicks who believe that barack obama lives in baghdad with wmd’s)
4-grampa simpson(scared and angry people over 70)

Moby suggests that the “flanderses like mike huckabee, mr burns likes mitt romney, cletus and brandene don’t know who they like but they know they don’t like hillary cos she wants to kill christmas, and grampa simpson likes john mccain cos he’s over 70 and doesn’t take sass from the young people.”

Wonder which Simpson character is a fan of Ron Paul?

A fairly broad paint brush of the GOP but probably not too far off. Thoughts?