Huckabee camp says senator is ‘whining’
Posted on Friday, August 3, 2007
Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign said Wednesday that Sen. Sam Brownback should "stop whining"about an e-mail that cited Brownback's conversion to Catholicism as evidence that Huckabee has better judgment.
The e-mail was sent by the Rev. Tim Rude, pastor of the Walnut Creek Community Church in Windsor Heights, Iowa, to two Brownback supporters in an attempt to persuade them to switch their allegiance to Huckabee.
The e-mail noted that Brownback is Catholic and added," As a recovering Catholic myself, that is all I need to know about his discernment when compared to the Governor's."
When the e-mail became public, it caused a flare-up between the two Republican presidential hopefuls, who have been competing in Iowa for the support of Christian conservatives at the Aug. 11 straw poll in Ames.
Rude apologized, and Huckabee said the e-mail was not authorized or condoned by his campaign. But that wasn't good enough for Brownback, whose campaign on Wednesday called on Huckabee to apologize and denounce the e-mail's contents.
On Thursday, Huckabee campaign manager Chip Saltsman issued a statement saying," It's time for Sam Brownback to stop whining and start showing some of the Christian character he always seems to find lacking in others."
The statement added," if Brownback is going to fall to pieces every time a supporter of the Governor says something he doesn't like, he clearly isn't tough enough to be President."
Saltsman also pointed out that," unlike Brownback,"who converted from Methodism in 2002," I have been a Catholic my entire life, as have several of the senior staff members of the Huckabee campaign."
"As a lifelong Catholic, I was taught that when a person apologized, we were to forgive him and go forward, not shop for other apologies from people not even involved in the original sin,"Saltsman said.
He also noted that a Web site, Baptists for Brownback (baptistsforbrown 2008. wordpress. com ), has labeled Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Fred Thompson "Hellbound."
Brownback spokesman John Rankin issued a statement Thursday calling Huckabee's response "hysterical."He said Baptists for Brownback is "a spoof site with no ties to the Brownback campaign."
He also said Brownback's campaign had privately forwarded Rude's e-mail to Saltsman on Sunday, asking him to "stop this anti-Catholic whisper campaign."
"After two days, the Huckabee campaign did not respond, which left the impression that they would not take action,"Rankin said.
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