Pastors Urged To Caucus By Huckabee Supporters

Here's an explicit example of how Mike Huckabee is relying on an outsourced Get-Out-The-Caucusers effort and on the implied support of pastors -- under the radar.

Pastor Rick Scarborough is hosting a conference call with Iowa pastors to discuss the caucus... joining him are Dr. Tim "Left Behind" LaHaye and Dr. Michael "Home School" Farris.

All three are committed supporters of Mike Huckabee. An e-mail sent to Iowa pastors advertising the call doesn't mention Huckabee -- that wouldn't be legal -- but does say that pastors "have a duty" to keep their congregants "informed" and to lead them to "participate" in the caucuses.

Farris has been a senior unpaid adviser to Huckabee from day one and was key in helping to organize the families of home schoolers to attend the Republican straw poll in Ames last summer.



This is all, again, legal, provided the pastors stay within certain guidelines. But it's very easy to see that a mobilization of pastors and their congregants helps a single candidate. And given how successfully evangelicals have knocked and dragged their voters in the past, their might -- even uncoordinated -- could overwhelm the most established of Iowa organizations on caucus night.

(Note: I've cut and pasted from the original e-mail in order to make the e-mail fit ... I only deleted the dial-in information.)