Mike Huckabee at House Party in N.H.

On Sunday, June 3 Mike Huckabee attended a house party at the farm-home of Roger and May Pat Jackson, where he spoke about border control and tougher trade negotiations.

The majority of the attendees said that of the policies Huckabee proposed border security is the most important.
What are people saying of his visit?
"His answer on immigration was good," said Bruce Jackson, 23, a firefighter from Auburn. "He wants to close down the borders and track what is going on."
"He was quick on his feet and knowledgeable," , says Mary Pat Jackson

Talking about American businesses and international trade, he says this, "there is no free trade without fair trade,"

Roger Jackson, who is employed at Merrimack Street Volvo in Manchester, liked these ideas. He said that the domestic automobile industry is dire straights because it builds health care and retirement into the prices of its vehicles, expenses not always included in foreign vehicles.

He also touched on the subject of energy dependence. "The U.S. is being held hostage to foreign oil," he said.
From Fred Noyes of Epson, "I thought he failed to address geothermal resources. This country has volcanic heat beds that can be converted to steam and electricity," said Noyes who asked the candidate to consider this.
"He promised me he would look into it," he said.

Read the full story in the Union Leader.


I would like to get a little off track for a moment and speak from a Michigan perspective regarding the auto industry. Roger Jackson's comment above got me thinking. I grew up near Flint, Michigan. As most people know this is where General Motors got it's start. And of course Ford got it's start in Detroit. In fact, Flint's nickname used to be Buick City. A good majority of the kids I went to school with had fathers who worked in the General Motors plants and mom was a homemaker. Many of those kids, or at least the boys, figured they would follow their fathers into the "shops." By the time we started graduating high school this was not the case.
If you talk to the Democrats and Democrat voters in Genesee County they will tell you that the "Big wigs" in Detroit are evil and greedy. Talk to the Republicans and Republican voters in the county and they will tell you that the UAW is evil and greedy. Talk to me... I will tell you both sides got greedy.
Look at the picture in my header. That photo was taken at the Sloan Museum in Flint, Michigan. The 1955 Chevy Bel Air in the background, there is a 75% chance that my grandfather had his hand on it as it was rolling down the assembly line.
Fifty years ago and longer GM needed so many workers that they couldn't find enough locals, so they recruited men from Down South to come up to Flint to work. My grandfather was one of those men. He was a cotton farmer in Arkansas with an eighth grade education. He brought his family up to Flint so that he could provide better for them, to become what is known as a "shop rat." That is an assembly line worker. My grandparents still live in the same one story two bedroom house, where they raised 3 boys and 3 girls, my youngest uncle came way later. The girls slept in one room while the boys slept in the living room. My other grandfather grew up in Flint and didn't finish college, yet he was made a supervisor as soon as he started working there. This was the era that, "What's good for GM is good for the country." Now Michigan unemployment rates are 7.1%.
I can't say that the employee benefits are bad. I think GM was doing what they thought was right at the time. When the 70's came quality levels of cars went down. While at the same time employee salaries went up. It doesn't take an economic genius to figure how this was going to end. If it wasn't for these benefits neither of my grandparents would be in the financial situation they are. Enough blabbering! I thought I was just going to make a quick note about GM.

God Bless from the Upper Peninsula in Michigan!