From Mike Huckabee:
Dear Faithful Friends,
Last night was a tough one for all of us. While Janet and I stood on the stage, we felt as if we were surrounded by a much larger family than our immediate family. We have been surrounded throughout the process by a large and growing family of faithful friends whose efforts in the campaign have humbled and amazed us day after day. I regularly wept or choked back tears just reading comments on the blog when I realized the sacrifices that so many have made for the campaign.
We had held out hope that we would win enough delegates to keep the contest going, but had vowed that if Senator McCain actually got the 1191 delegates, we would accept the will of the voters. In the end, the relentless hammering of the media that we “couldn’t win” influenced enough voters and while we campaigned long and hard in the final states, it simply wasn’t enough. I congratulate Senator McCain and will do what I can to assist him and influence him to take strong stands for issues that we conservatives cherish.
I don’t see the long journey having reached its destination, but merely taking a detour. As my Marine friend Clebe McLary says, “I didn’t lose–it’s just that the game ended before I got finished playing.”
In the immediate days ahead, we will be transitioning from campaign mode. For 14 months, there have been a lot of things put on hold in our lives. We have to join the many incredible people on our staff to figure out “what’s next?” But this much I can tell you—we want to stay in touch and start now building a platform to continue addressing issues that brought us together in the first place.
Throughout my life, I’ve found that there are sometimes three possible answers to our prayers–“Yes,” “No,” or “Not Now.” I would like to think our prayers were answered with a “Not Now.”
We will keep our website up and as we transition, will want to create a way to keep in touch and continue the battle for our families, our freedom, and our future. We also want to make certain we are doing everything we can to assist key Senate and House races around the country, in places where we feel we can make a difference. You can expect us to be very active online as we do this.
In the immediate time, we have to make sure that we pay all the bills of the campaign and end in the black, help our staff find ways to earn a living, and make sure that we don’t lose the momentum of the past 14 months, but instead follow the plan:
REFLECT, REST, RENEW, and RE-BOOT!
I really welcome your input and thoughts during these coming days. Pray for us as we seek wisdom as to what steps we take now. Despite what some have thought, we really didn’t have a “Plan B’ in the wings–we always thought we’d be in this until the inauguration in January of 2009!
God has been so good to us! We can never fully express our gratitude for all you have done and how you have touched and blessed our lives. I truly hope I didn’t let you down. I promise to you that I gave it all I had to the last minute and left it “all on the field.” What is more amazing is how you were willing to be “poured out” to the point of empty in order to be with us all the way. I stand amazed by it all and overwhelmed with gratitude.
We will dust off, pick ourselves up off the canvas, and answer the bell for the next round, whatever that may be. We love you all, and trust that the journey has just begun!
With tired bodies and grateful hearts,
Mike and Janet Huckabee
—
bummed…
I’m more bummed today that I was last night. I think everyone in the office is pretty bummed. Folks were either voting for Huckabee (very few) or Obama. Obama’s campaign lives on – but I think everyone was sad to see him lose in Texas.
Don’t know what’s in store for Huckabee or the next 9 months, 4 years or 8 years. Wait – 9 months till the general election?….. goodness!
I was reading last night in Everything Must Change before heading to bed and I thought this summary of Jesus may be similar to the hope people feel in their candidates. Sure, no candidate has all the answers. No candidate can please everyone but I think those that jump in behind a candidate feel there’s a sense of hope that this person will be different. This person will bring about change. I’m not really trying to compare political candidates to Jesus – but I’m saying that people are looking for a savior and I think we often confuse that with political leaders or celebrities or friends or loved ones. And when it doesn’t work out – we really feel let down by the candidate themselves, or maybe the other voters.
Maybe I’m just feeling down because I’ve never really been on the losing side of an election. My first presidential election was in 2000 and I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 (the lesser of two evils by 2004).
Either way – I love this picture of Jesus that McLaren paints and the hope that Jesus brings with him.
I pictured Jesus, wandering through the villages of Galilee, walking among his own oppressed and dominated people, people who… had lost hope. Their hopelessness left them paralyzed and powerless between two primary schemes of despair – the violent despair of terrorist resistance or the resigned despair capitulation and collaboration with their powerful oppressors. He didn’t fix all their problems, even though many of them wanted him to and hated him when he didn’t. He didn’t organize any army or hatch a plot or design liberal democracy or create a new get-rich-quick business plan. He didn’t scapegoat anybody – if anything, he kept letting scapegoats off the hook, taking their side to the consternation of their hyperreligious critics.
Instead he simply let the people know he liked them – and so did God…
… And he did one other thing: he told the people something outrageous, something so familiar to us, so familiar to me that it is only in rare moments that I get a glimpse of how wild it really was. It wasn’t an if/then statement – if you do this and this and this, then you’ll get that result. That would have been more pressure, another chance to fall.
No, all he did was tell them that something was already true: the kingdom of God is here. Already.
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