Interview with Jack Hunter

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Mandeville, LA –This Clip of The Day was originally aired and published on Jul 31,2013 and is part of the Founders Pass Flashback Collection.

Exclusive Audio and Transcript – In today’s interview, Mike and Jack discuss Rand Paul endorsing Mitt Romney, the backlash from it, and the backlash FROM the backlash.

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Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  My buddy Jack Hunter is on the Dude Maker Hotline, down in Charleston, South Carolina.  Jack!

Jack Hunter:  Good to be with you, Mike.  How are you?

Mike:  I’m all right.  How are you?

Jack:  I’m doing fantastic.

Mike:  I’m sorry that people are making fun of your hair.

Jack:  Well, that happens from time to time.

Mike:  Tell us, oh oracle of all things Rand Paul, what’s going on with Rand Paul?  Have you seen the Photoshop of him with the dagger in Ron’s back and all the other compromising positions he’s been put in since he endorsed Governor Romney?

Jack:  Well, I’ve seen that and all sorts of other things. Ron Paul and his movement and his loyal followers, which I . . . strategy to move forward and do what needs to be done to push our principles and the ideas that we want to push forward forward.  That’s exactly what this is.  This isn’t as controversial as many people are making it out to be, though I understand the reaction.  This isn’t sticking a dagger in anybody’s back, and certainly not Ron’s back.  It’s one of those things where you have this great movement, this wonderful movement, where 2 million people at this point have voted for Ron Paul in the presidential primary this year, which is fantastic.  That’s double 2008.  Move beyond 2012 and 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and keep these . . . alive and push forward the Republican Party, there’s certain parliamentary procedure-type things you have to do, and this is certainly one of them.

Mike:  Let me ask you about the foreign policy part of this.  I think most . . . wrote about this on Monday.  He actually was listening to me and quoted me about this, that some of the alarm bells that went off when Rand said Governor Romney had assured him that he would not be reckless in his foreign policy.  Jack, I got to tell you, this is really the big alarm bell for me.  Almost everything that Romney said or has said is reckless when it comes to foreign policy.  So how do you address, or maybe you’ve talked to Rand or you’ve heard Rand address that.  I don’t know.  We’ve tried to get him on the program and have been unsuccessful.  How do you address that?  What do you say about that?

Jack:  That might be one of the things where I might disagree with my friend Senator Paul.  I have absolutely no problem, and in fact agree 100 percent, that he needed to endorse whoever the Republican nominee is, whether it’s Romney or Herman Cain or Michelle Bachman or Newt Gingrich.  We all wished . . . a basic practical matter moving forward.  As far as Governor Romney making assurances about what his foreign policy is going to be or whatever, it’s still Mitt Romney.  He’ll say anything to anybody.  I don’t put a lot of stock in that necessarily.  Maybe that’s something we disagree on.

I’ll be honest with you, Mike, one of the things that concerns me about Romney is a lot of his advisors might be a lot of the old Bush people.  You’ve even seen some inferences of that, them giving him counsel and whatnot.  That gives me cause for concern.  Quite frankly, we have George W. Bush II in the White House right now as far as foreign policy goes.  I think he’s been every bit as bad if not worse as Bush was on all those sorts of things.  You sort of throw your hands up and say what do you do at this point?

Mike:  Jack Hunter, The Southern Avenger, is on the Dude Maker Hotline with us.  Jack, you alluded earlier there may be a situation now where people that are unaccustomed . . . deal with it with Rand’s endorsement of Governor Romney for President last Thursday, one week ago today, is how does the Libertarian movement, and I’m not talking about the anarcho-capitalists, because they, quite frankly, don’t care and are not part of this part of the movement anyway.

How does a Libertarian, and I would say the original Tea Party movement, which was started by Ron Paul — he started the Tea Party movement in 2008.  How do they address this, getting used to actually having some political power and clout?  Rand, as I said and [unintelligible 04:40] quoted me as saying, Rand can’t be dismissed now as some sort of radical extremist crank Libertarian nut job.  He is every bit as mainstream as Marco Rubio is in the eyes of many in the Republican Party.  You have to now say, you’ve got this little bit of power.  What are you going to do with it?  Don’t you?

Jack:  . . . making any headway or making any progress whatsoever and everything being pretty terrible and people ignoring us.

Mike:  Right.  We’re the bitch battalion.

Jack:  That’s exactly right.

Mike:  We’re the 101st Bitch Battalion.  [mocking] “Stop that! Wait a minute, they said we can do that?  You’re not supposed to say we can do that.”

Jack:  That’s exactly right.  We’re in a position now, because of our numbers and influence, we can actually flex some political muscle that neoconservatives and as you call them quite accurately, the decepticons would like nothing more than the people like Rand Paul to just sit on the sidelines, go endorse third party, run around in the parking lot somewhere.  That’s exactly what they would want him to do.  I’m dead serious.  A lot of our people who can’t understand this, that’s exactly what they would want him to do because it would render him meaningless.  It would render that influence sort of neutered.  The fact that he’s willing to engage with the Republican Party, play . . . principle, that’s what you have to stress at all times.

I’ve said this a million times and a lot of people have picked up on it.  There’s no shame, there’s nothing wrong in compromising politically to advance your principles.  When you’re wrong is when you compromise your principle to advance politically.  That’s what Mitt Romney’s career has been.  He doesn’t care about any principles; he just cares about Mitt Romney.  We care about the Constitution.  If we have to endorse a Governor Romney or make an alliance with somebody we might not agree with on every issue, as Senator Paul, and frankly Ron Paul has done in the House, to get things like Audit the Fed pushed through and different sorts of legislation, you do that because you’re wanting to advance the principle.  That is the endgame.

Mike:  You know what, Jack?  That is very — you should write about this.  That is very prescient of you to make that connection.  I had not thought of what you just said, my friend.  Jack Hunter, The Southern Avenger, on the Dude Make Hotline.  Did any of the same people . . . did any of them scream and holler, jump up and down and do Photoshop of Ron Paul putting daggers into the backs of people that he had been photographed with at campaign rallies when Ron was able to make political friends with 217 other members of the House to get the Audit the Fed bill to the floor and to get a vote on it?  You know that there were 217 others, other than Justin Amash, that voted with Ron on that bill; 213 of them didn’t agree with him on anything else.  Wasn’t that a betrayal, too?  He had to vote with these people.  Ultimately, if the bill were to pass, he’d have to be photographed with the.  He’d have to say he was pleased with their position on their particular issue, wouldn’t he?

Jack:  That’s exactly right.  I’ve been saying throughout the week, saying that Rand . . . Lindsey Graham is all of a sudden a Libertarian because he supported the Audit the Fed legislation in the Senate is just not true.  Why did Lindsey Graham support the Audit the Fed legislation?  Because he’s Lindsey Graham, he knows conservatives hate his guts, and he’s worried about keeping his seat.  That’s why he does that.  Why does Rand Paul endorse a Mitt Romney?  Because he’s a principled constitutionalist, and in general, you want your party to know you’re on their side.  When they’re acting just like the Democrats, you take them to task and you kick their ass and you yell out loud about it.  That’s exactly what Rand Paul has done since he’s been up there.  That’s what his dad does.  That’s going to continue.

Senator Paul did a great interview with Daily Paul Radio, our friend Kurt Wallace, about issues like the NDAA and all these other things.  He said unequivocally, “I’ve endorsed Governor Romney.  He’s the Republican nominee.  When it comes to these issues that we disagree on, if he’s president or not president, I’ll be up there yelling as loud as I always have.”  I would dare say . . .

Mike:  As a matter of fact, that’s what Rand gets out of the grand bargain, that when President Romney says, [mocking] “Yeah, we’re not very happy with the way those Yemenis are acting these days, so I went along with NATO and went ahead and authorized limited military airstrikes against [insert name of country Bill Kristol wants to bomb here.]”  When Rand goes to the floor of the Senate or he comes on this show or goes on Fox News and says, “I disagree with this.  The president is just wrong,” then that’s not just some Libertarian crank whack job Rand Paul.  That’s the guy who actually endorsed Romney for president, right?

Jack:  That’s exactly right.  I always compare that scenario.  Robert Taft, who was a great conservative leader in the early to mid-20th Century, was a big opponent of Dwight Eisenhower . . . president after a pretty heated primary battle.  That’s just the sort of things you do.  Ron Paul does not support anybody who’s running against incumbents in Texas for any seat, for congressional seats.  Why?  Because that’s something he’s agreed with the Republican Party he won’t do.  Does anybody who’s sane think that Ron Paul is somehow not a principled man or just a go-along-to-get-along sort of loser Republican that doesn’t stand for anything because of that?  No.  It’s just one of those things you do.

I say this with the full recognition that it’s completely reasonable that anybody who was upset by this endorsement should have been upset or you could at least expected them to be upset.  I think that’s a completely reasonable reaction, given the movement that his father has built and so on, but this is a time where we need to use education and teach people, moving forward, about practical politics to advance principle.  That’s the thing that seems to confuse everybody.  They think we’re compromising our principle.  That would . . .

AG:  . . . that neocons would love to distance the Ron Paul movement from even being a part of the discussion.  I guess the Republican Convention is just a little over two months away.  There have been a couple articles over the past couple days saying that people like Bill Kristol and those decepticons and neocons would love to have the Ron Paul supporters cause a big scene at the convention, because then you could ostracize them from the movement.  Do you see that being the case?  Do you have to have a similar approach to what’s going on now as in becoming a part of the process and trying to advance the principle, even while not necessarily agreeing with everything that’s going on at the convention?

Jack:  That’s a great question.  Our numbers are there.  We’re going to be there in force in Tampa.  We’re going to have our voices heard and we’re going to influence the platform, the agenda, and let the party know we’re here to stay.  We are the future of the party.  You guys are old news, all that Bush . . . future.  That’s what’s going to happen in Tampa.  You’re absolutely right, when we get there, we need to represent Dr. Paul in a way that represents Dr. Paul.  This isn’t about shouting people down and going crazy.  This is about our ideas being a hell of a lot better than theirs and we try it in that respect.

The neoconservatives would like nothing more than us to go completely bonkers and run around and act crazy and show our ass, quite frankly.  We have to be better than that.  This is about ideas.  This isn’t about who can yell the loudest.  That’s how people have sort of treated us since 2008.  Rudy Giuliani and people like that are trying to shout people like Ron Paul down.  We’re better than that.  Their ideas, to the degree that they have any ideas, which they don’t have many, are terrible, bankrupt.  It’s an ideological vacuum.  We are filling it.  We are the only people with ideas, and we’re certainly the only conservatives in this party at this point.

Mike:  Jack, we gotta run.  Thanks for . . . doing your Friday gig?

Jack:  Well, on occasion.  I’m in South Carolina right now, but I’ll be back in D.C. this weekend.  It’s just temporary.

Mike:  Sorry we missed you, buddy.  We’ll catch you on the next time.

Jack:  Absolutely.  Good to talk to you.

End Mike Church Show Transcript