Minutemen Bash Founder Over Huckabee Endorsement

Hat tip to Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic.com for reporting the update press relase form Chris Simcox, President Minuteman Civil Defense Corps: Jim Gilchrist likes Mike Huckabee, but the organization he founded sent a "special message" to members blasting Huckabee. The headline: "Real Minutemen Do Not Endorse Huckabee." No National Minuteman Group has endorsed Mike Huckabee. One individual Minuteman has personally endorsed him. For the sake of clarity, it is important to note that the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), the nation's largest Minuteman organization, is a 501(C)4 non-profit organization and cannot and does not endorse any candidate for public office. MCDC is not associated with Mr. Jim Gilchrist, who today endorsed Mike Huckabee for president.

Jim Gilchrist’s erstwhile Minuteman Project is itself an organization which by its own representations as a non-profit civic group cannot legally endorse candidates. It does not have any volunteers who observe illegal border activity. It has no border fence building projects. Jim Gilchrist here speaks only for Jim Gilchrist, he does not speak for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, nor is he nationally representative of most patriots in the "Minuteman movement" – who under no circumstances could ignore the failed record nor endorse the duplicitous “plan” recently rolled out by candidate Mike Huckabee. The national media needs to recognize that Jim Gilchrist’s endorsement is his own personal statement, nothing more.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps emphasizes policy dealing with national border security. The only "plan" to ensure border security that is acceptable to our constituency would be a candidate policy statement declaring that his first act as President will be to hold a press conference and announce to the American people an executive order to immediately deploy and fund 30,000 National Guard personnel to the U.S. Borders (25,000 to the southern border and 5,000 to the northern border) to complement a massive increase in U.S. Border Patrol Agent field personnel, and a bilateral effort to secure our frontiers, smash the drug cartels, shut down the human smugglers and protect the public safety of the citizens who reside along the borders on both sides of our national boundaries.

Unlike this last-minute opportunism attempted by Huckabee, many of the other GOP presidential candidates have actually helped push the issue of national border security forward for some time. Tom Tancredo’s many years of hard work on the border crisis and illegal immigration issues have all the candidates striving to sound like him. Duncan Hunter can take personal credit for getting the highly effective San Diego border fence built. Ron Paul has been to the border with us first hand and aggressively pushed positive border legislation. Alan Keyes has done more than anyone to support the organizational development of MCDC, and personally participated in the Minuteman Border Fence Groundbreaking – advancing a citizen’s construction effort which has forced Congress to finally get the Feds building physical border fence.

Only one Minuteman group is conducting regular multi-state border security efforts, building fence and aggressively monitoring Washington DC: Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. We would like to extend an invitation to all the presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat, to come to the border and see what is really happening on our nation’s frontier. Not to take the safe little government photo-op helicopter ride, but see the lay-up sites full of trash and debris. See the rape trees. See the violent crime in the border towns. Walk on the pathways of destroyed environmental terrain trampled by tens of thousands of invading foreign immigrants. See what the American elites’ support of broken borders, unfettered illegal immigration and sanctuary cities is doing to our fellow Americans who live on our borderlands, and how these failed policies imperil our nation’s safety, security and prosperity.

With your support MCDC continues to make Border Security and Illegal Immigration a national priority that must be resolved. Now more than ever we need your help to continue the fight. . . . Chris Simcox, President Minuteman Civil Defense Corps

---

Tags: Chris Simcox, Election 2008, Jim Gilchrist, Mike Huckabee, Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, presidential candidate To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!