Welcome to Yuckabee, an independent center of opposition to the presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee.

Mike Huckabee Uses Churches As Campaign Tools

The Walnut Creek Community Church in Windsor Heights, Iowa, claims federal tax exempt status, and thus does not contribute taxes to the government as the rest of us are required to do.

One of the conditions for tax exempt status, for religious and non-religious organizations alike, is that they refrain from using their organizational resources in order to support the political campaigns of candidates for public office. This rule exists in order to prevent political parties from using secondary organizations as tools for money laundering and evasion of campaign finance law.

The Walnut Creek Community Church has blatantly violated this condition of its tax exempt status. The church's Reverend, Timothy Rude, has admitted to sending an email in which he campaigned explicitly as the Reverend of the Walnut Creek Community Church, and on behalf of the other leaders of the church, in favor of the presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee. In the letter, he admitted to working in his capacity as Reverend, with the knowledge of his church with the leaders of other churches to organize pro-Huckabee campaign activism. Furthermore, the email was sent to the leaders of other churches in order to solicit their support "as Christians" for the Huckabee presidential campaign.

There is no ambiguity in the email, no room to argue that Tim Rude was merely speaking for himself, and not for his church. He wrote, "I am sure that you are aware that our entire Walnut Creek leadership staff, to my knowledge, is supporting Mike Huckabee. On July 20, we drove up to Ames and spoke with pastors ___ and ___ about our position and were well received."

Furthermore, Reverend Rude used the email to explicitly campaign against another Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback (who has since withdrawn from the race). Rude's campaign against Brownback was done on the basis of Brownback's religious identity. Even if the Walnut Creek Community Church's campaigning for Mike Huckabee did not violate the terms of its tax exempt status, the church's campaigning against Sam Brownback certainly did.

While Mike Huckabee "is one of us," Rude wrote, "Senator Brownback converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002. Frankly, as a recovering Catholic myself, that is all I need to know about his discernment when compared to the Governor's."

Rude wrote about quite detailed planning of the Walnut Creek Community Church's activities in favor of the Mike Huckabee for President campaign, saying, "we are trying to make a 1st or 2nd place showing in the Iowa Straw Poll to give our candidates a boost and viability. Money and media attention would be gained to the winners. All Huckabee needs is exposure in my opinion. The money will come and will the volunteers."

There is reason to believe, given Tim Rude's email, that a conspiracy involving many churches to campaign for Mike Huckabee in violation of the requirements of their nonprofit tax exempt status. Rude writes that another church "is trying to gain 1000 votes of people who were not planning on going to the Iowa Straw Poll from our efforts alone. Would you join us in accomplishing this goal?"

This activity goes well beyond a Reverend talking about how much he likes a political candidate from the pulpit. It seems that Reverend Tim Rude was working with other religious leaders to convert the Walnut Creek Community Church and several other churches into little more than part of the Mike Huckabee for President political machine. For these churches to retain their tax exempt status in spite of this activity would be a slap in the face of American taxpayers and a serious blow against the democratic political process in the United States.

From Irregular Times