Trumpkin attacks on GOP show who really supports Hillary

All through the campaign a common charge from Trump supporters is that a non-vote for Donald Trump is a practical vote for Hillary Clinton. Yesterday Donald Trump declared war on the Republican Party and proved the fallacy of that charge.

As Republicans rejected their nominee in the wake of plummeting support, Trump fired a fusillade of tweets at the Republican Party and Paul Ryan. Trump charged Republicans with disloyalty and said that Ryan was a “weak and ineffective leader” who had given him “zero support.”

Taking their cue, Trump surrogates and supporters took to the airwaves and social media to attack the Republican Speaker of the House. According to the Washington Times, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham called Ryan’s refusal to defend Trump’s indefensible behavior a “really dumb move” and said that the Republican down ballot was “going to get crushed in this election” by Trump supporters. Rush Limbaugh, quoted by Media Matters, asked, “What good is there a [sic] Republican Party if it cannot even unify around the concept of winning?”

What the Trump supporters fail to admit is that Trump is not winning. A new poll shows him trailing Hillary by nine points in Ohio. Real Clear Politics polls for the battleground states show Trump trailing in all of them except Iowa. And the gap is widening.

Trump is even in trouble in red states. A new Deseret News poll shows that Trump’s lead in Utah has evaporated. Trump is now in a three-way statistical tie with Clinton and independent Evan McMullin. He also has thin margins in Texas and Georgia, states that should be solidly red.

To insist that the GOP continue to support an unpopular candidate who is in danger of dragging down the entire party shows that the Trump movement is nothing more than a personality cult. The Trumpians care nothing for the congressional races that will determine who controls the next Senate and House of Representatives.

If the Republican Party is to be unified around “the concept of winning,” it must look beyond Donald Trump. The Trumpians seem not to care that, as Trump goes down to defeat, a Republican majority in Congress will be necessary to stop Hillary’s agenda. If they truly care about the Second Amendment, religious freedom, the Supreme Court and myriad other issues the GOP needs to preserve its members in the Senate.

Instead, even as new Trump scandals roll out daily, many Trump supporters are openly calling for the defeat of Republicans in Congress on social media. These attacks on Republican congressmen, the only people that will stand between Hillary and her full liberal agenda, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Trump movement was never about conservative principles or stopping Hillary. The Trump movement was about nothing more than the cult of Donald Trump.

The Trump supporters calling for the defeat of the GOP are not tacitly failing to support the party or conservative principles. They are actively working to give the next Clinton Administration a congressional majority with which to subvert the Constitution.

Originally published on the Resurgent

Why do Christians (still) rally around Trump?

As Donald Trump plummets in the polls like a brick dropped from the Trump Tower, I have to wonder why Christians are rallying to his defense while Mormons are willing to stand up to him. After the release of Trump’s sex tape last Friday, Utah’s Republican delegation to Congress was quick to denounce the party nominee and withdraw their endorsements. As a Southern Baptist, I expected many evangelical Christians to follow suit. I was wrong.

According to Christianity Today, only one Christian leader repudiated Trump. Instead, many evangelicals have rallied to defend Trump. Dr. James Dobson denounced Trump’s comments and then quickly pivoted to attack Hillary Clinton on abortion and religious liberty, as did Ralph Reed. Franklin Graham said that Trump’s comments “cannot be defended” and does not endorse any candidate, but said that “the most important issue of this election is the Supreme Court.” Sam Rodriguez, head of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference said that God uses “broken people to accomplish great things.”

Many Christians choose to emphasize God’s forgiveness. What they forget in their rush to forgive Trump is that forgiveness requires repentance (Luke 17:3). Has Donald Trump repented? There is no sign that he has. Last year, Trump was unclear on whether he had ever asked for forgiveness and said that he tried “not to make mistakes where I have to ask for forgiveness” according to the Christian Post. The Bible says that all, including Trump, have sinned (Romans 3:23). When asked about repentance, he said, “I think repenting is terrific.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that Christians are excusing Trump’s behavior. They’ve been doing it for the past year. Most of the discussions about Trump’s sex tape discuss it in a vacuum, as if it is the one blemish on an otherwise spotless record. In reality, I realized long before the revelations of the “Access Hollywood” tape that Trump’s career had been a long history of corruption and lies. He had bragged about cheating on his wife. He had allegedly committed fraud with Trump University. He had boasted in the Republican primary about paying elected officials for favors. Trump was vulgar, insulting and a fountain of false statements. Christians loved him.

Franklin Graham reportedly compared Trump to Moses and David and said that he was better than the alternative. Jerry Falwell, Jr. endorsed Trump over all other Republican candidates last January. Christians compared Trump to the Biblical king, Nebuchadnezzar and pointed out that God used ungodly men to accomplish his will. Eric Metaxas, the author of a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Christian martyr who died resisting Hitler, said in Christian Post that “sometimes you have to hold your nose and vote for the person who is going to do the least damage or who is going to pull you back from the brink.”

My neighbor, Carter, had a large “Veterans for Trump” sign in his living room and gushed, “I think we need a successful businessman.” Jay, one of my coworkers and a devout Christian, would watch Trump press conferences and chortle, “I love this guy.”

To be fair, not all Christians loved Trump. There were a few who stood on principle and told the truth about the “truth-teller.” Two Southern Baptists, Russell Moore and Albert Mohler, were among the few who spoke out against Trump early on. The Religion News Service lists more, such as Max Lucado and Erick Erickson. Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wisc.) penned “the Evangelical Case Against Donald Trump” last February.

In a supremely ironic incident, Mark DeMoss, a board member at Liberty University, was forced to resign after criticizing Donald Trump’s speech there. I had thought that religious liberty and the freedom to speak your mind were major reasons that Christians supported Trump. Those liberties apparently do not extend to opponents of Trump, at least at Liberty University.

Most of my Christian friends who support Trump seem to do so for three reasons. First, is the Supreme Court. Never mind that Trump backed away from the list of conservative jurists that he promised to use to fill court vacancies. Second, is his purported pro-life platform. Never mind that Trump was the only Republican candidate who supported Planned Parenthood throughout most of the primary, only changing his mind last month. Third, is religious liberty. Never mind that Trump refused to support the First Amendment Defense Act and that he seems disagree with Christians on gay rights. Trump’s commitment to religious liberty seems to not extend past allowing churches to be politically active. Fourth, when all other defenses fail, Trump is “not Hillary.”

In fact, Trump is so “not Hillary” that his supporters seem willing to excuse any sin on that basis. I have watched friends and colleagues that I knew and respected reluctantly board “the Trump Train.” Often, when they do, it’s like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Once they commit to Trump, all moral concerns fail. No matter what Trump does, it’s all about defeating Hillary because no one is worse than Hillary.

They quickly fall into the moral equivalence trap. They criticize Hillary’s lies, but never mention Trump’s. The condemn Bill Clinton’s behavior, but make excuses for Trump’s. They argue against Hillary’s liberalism, but dismiss Trump’s. One friend, Martin, dismisses Trump’s outlandish and insulting comments as saying “silly things.” Any criticism of Trump leads to the accusation that I must be a closet Hillary supporter and a liberal. They are no longer the people that I had known and respected, using logical fallacies in an attempt to defend the indefensible.

But I still wonder why Mormons, who share many moral beliefs with Christians, are much more outspoken against Donald Trump. It may be because Trump poisoned the well against Mormons during the primary. The socially conservative sect is at odds with Trump’s crude, profane, materialistic lifestyle. As Religion News Service points out, most Mormons are also not anti-immigrant, their forebears having been forced to flee other parts of the country for their religious beliefs. When Trump proposed his Muslim ban, the politically neutral LDS Church responded with a statement on religious freedom. Trump also has made statements that Mormons consider insulting.

While Trump was alienating Mormons, he was pandering to Christians. Early on, he made the promise that people could say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays” if he was elected. But haven’t we always? Buzzfeed revealed in August that Trump needed prepping from his handlers to know how to answer questions about Christianity and social conservatism. An early tipoff of his insincerity was his “Two Corinthians” flub. Trump blamed Family Research Council Tony Perkins for his gaffe according to CNN.

If Donald Trump is biblically illiterate so are most Americans. That is another reason Christians have been slow to offer opposition. A recent survey by Lifeway found that most Americans believe the Bible, they just don’t know what it says. The survey found that, as a whole, evangelical Christians actually knew less about Christian beliefs than Americans at large.

If Christians were reading their Bibles, they might know that Paul commanded them “not to associate with sexually immoral people” (1 Corinthians 5:9) and that “bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33). As Donald Trump bellowed, “I alone can fix it” at the Republican National Convention, they might have thought about Jesus’ warning that “false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24).

One bright spot is that evangelical women seem to be waking up. The Christian Post reports that author Beth Moore and Chelsen Vicari, Evangelical Action Director at the Institute of Religion, have both condemned Trump’s lewd remarks.

In another Christian Post piece, Julie Roys, a host for the Moody Radio Network, says, “I honestly don't know what makes me more sick. Listening to Trump brag about groping women or listening to my fellow evangelicals defend him.” She also calls the prospect of Hillary Clinton “a disaster of historic proportions.”

“Donald Trump may do less damage to the country than Hillary,” Roys wrote, “but he's done far worse damage to the evangelical church than anyone in recent history. And let's remember, the church — not politics — is the only real hope of reforming the character of this nation and saving it from destruction. That's why the witness of the church is simply not worth trading for a political victory.”

Roys is right. Trump has revealed many Christians to be moral hypocrites. This has hurt their standing in their communities. On a business trip to Atlantic City last spring, my friend Rob, who is an atheist, gleefully snapped pictures of the Trump Taj Mahal. He said that he wanted to use the photos to show Christians who they were campaigning for. The character of many Christians will remain tarnished long after the election is over.

Roys acknowledges the difference between a reluctant vote for Trump and actively making excuses for him. “If you feel you must vote for him to prevent a Clinton presidency, then go ahead, plug your nose and vote,” she writes. “But please, don't argue like Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition that ‘a 10-year-old tape of a private conversation’ should ‘rank low’ on our "hierarchy of concerns.”

After the election, when the smoke clears and the Trump supporters wake up to the hangover of four years of Hillary Clinton, elected because of their unfaltering support for an extremely flawed, dishonest candidate, maybe Christian Trumpers will realize what they have wrought. Their defense of Trump’s immoral behavior has degraded the whole culture and done serious damage to American Christianity. The church has become hot for politics and “lukewarm” on Jesus and morality. It may be time for a rebuke.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Republicans were real losers in the second debate

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton had their second presidential debate (transcript here) last night. Today the pundits will argue over who landed the most blows and which candidate won. It’s easier to see who lost than it is to determine a winner. The big loser of the night was the Republican Party.

Trump performed much better last night that in his first debate. For the most part, he was able to control himself and was able to land some heavy blows on Hillary Clinton regarding her deleted emails and corruption. The problem with Trump’s performance is that it won’t be enough to save his campaign. It will, however, help stem the tide of defections and retracted endorsements that Trump has suffered since last Friday when his “Access Hollywood” video was released.

An embarrassing performance by Trump might have saved the GOP. But Trump did not deliver an embarrassing performance. Trump was able to hold his own, but did not deliver anything resembling a knockout blow to Hillary Clinton.

In fact, one of the most memorable moments of the night was a line that garnered Trump applause, but may come back to haunt him. Hillary Clinton had just said, “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.” Trump’s quick retort was, “Because you’d be in jail.” (Applause.)

While the line will undoubtedly be repeated ad nauseam by Trump supporters, it is less likely that it will score him points with undecided and moderate voters. If a voter is undecided at this point, they are still considering Hillary Clinton as well as Donald Trump. If they are considering Clinton, it’s unlikely that they agree with Trump and the Republican base that Hillary is a criminal. It may backfire on Trump to threaten jailing a candidate that half the country is considering, especially with Trump’s association with Vladimir Putin and other dictators, as well as charges that Trump himself may be a budding authoritarian.

“I didn’t think I’d say this, but I’m going to say it, and I hate to say it,” Trump had said earlier in the night. “But if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. There has never been anything like it, and we’re going to have a special prosecutor.”

“You’d be in jail” does not seem to indicate a fair investigation or trial. In fact, the comment hearkens back to the numerous presumptions of guilt in open cases that conservatives have criticized President Obama for. “You’d be in jail” is a prejudicial statement that implies President Trump wants a certain outcome and knows in advance what it would be. Trump’s comment made Hillary’s point for her.

The “jail” statement, along with a pre-debate press conference that resurrected Clinton scandals of the past, were celebrated by Trump supporters. Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick all accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment and some had also charged that Hillary had also intimidated or threatened them to cover up Bill’s behavior. Kathy Shelton, who had dealt with Hillary as a 12-year-old rape victim, was also at the press conference.

Both the “jail” comment and the press conference are examples of how Trump is playing to his base, rather than to the undecided voters who will decide the election. Such tactics fire up his supporters, but risk turning off undecided voters. Trump overlooks the fact that Hillary’s popularity was at its highest during the Bill Clinton sex scandals of the ‘90s. He risks generating sympathy for her by bringing them up again. Trump also risks the release of more damaging information in response. A producer of “The Apprentice” has already said that “far worse” tapes of Trump exist.

Hillary Clinton also had bad moments. One of the worst was a truly bizarre statement in which she evoked the memory of Abraham Lincoln, “Honest Abe,” in response to a question about duplicity in her public positions and what she had said in private speeches. In the end, there were no huge missteps that would serve to disqualify her among voters who haven’t ruled her out already.

Nothing that Trump or Clinton did makes Trump any more palatable than he was on Saturday to many voters. Trump’s debate performance will not erase his words from the minds of women voters. Dozens of Republicans have already abandoned Trump and called for him to withdraw from the race. The debate will not draw them back, but it may slow future defections.

Rather than the deadlock that we saw last night, an embarrassing performance by Trump would have been more merciful to the GOP. It would have increased the chances that Trump would quit the race and be replaced by an electable candidate. Republicans would not have to choose between their principles and their nominee. Now that won’t happen and the party will continue to be torn apart.

The debate won’t change the trend toward Hillary in the swing states. The Trump tapes might even start shifting Senate races toward the Democrats.

Worst of all for Republicans, the necessity of defending Trump will do lasting damage to the party’s reputation. The party of family values and religious morality has descended to the point where it is making the case that bragging about sexual assault is typical male “locker room talk.” Republicans, many of them professing Christians, excuse Trump because “Bill Clinton did it too.” A promising generation of young conservative leaders will be tainted by their association with and support for Mr. Trump. Many careers, not limited to Mike Pence, will be seriously damaged by the fallout.

The debate won’t save Trump. It will just enable him to take the Republican Party down with him.

Orginally published on The Resurgent

Hillary Clinton promoted Donald Trump as way to damage GOP

Among the documents in the leaked John Podesta emails recently posted by Wikileaks was a strategy memo that suggested that the Clinton campaign may have colluded with the Democratic National Committee and the media to promote certain Republican primary candidates that the Democrats considered extreme. If genuine, the memo indicates that the Clinton campaign interfered with the Republican primary with the help of the media.

The memo was an attachment to an email with the Wikileaks ID number 1120. It was sent to numerous staff members on April 23, 2015 with the subject line “[AGENDA & MEMO] Friday Strategy at 8:00 AM ET.” The email was sent by “MASTOR,” probably a reference to Marissa Astor, who is listed as a surrogate on the Hillary for America organizational chart. The attachment file name is “150407 Strategy on GOP.”

The memo is addressed to “The Democratic National Committee” and is dated April 7, 2015. The introduction says that its purpose is to “outline the strategy and goals that a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field.” The introduction notes that, even though Hillary Clinton was not yet the Democratic nominee, “most of what is contained in this memo is work the DNC is already doing.”

The memo lays out three strategies to “make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to the majority of the electorate.” First, the Clinton campaign planned to “force all [emphasis theirs] Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election.” Second, they wanted to “undermine any credibility/trust Republican presidential candidates have” among independent voters. Finally, they planned to “muddy the waters on any potential attack launched against HRC.”

In “operationalizing the strategy,” the memo described a plan to “use the [Republican] field to inflict damage on itself.” The Clinton campaign wanted to use “more extreme candidates” as “’Pied Piper’ candidates” who would seem to “represent the mainstream of the Republican Party.”

The memo identified three “Pied Piper” candidates by name. They were Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Ben Carson. At the time the memo was written, Donald Trump was still two months away from declaring his candidacy. It is not clear if the Clintons directly influenced Trump to enter the race.

“We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them [sic] seriously,” the memo says. This indicates coordination between the Clinton campaign, the DNC and members of the media.

The memo goes on to identify several “more established” candidates who needed special attention to
“undermine their credibility among our coalition (communities of color, millennials, women) and independent voters.” The candidates identified as bigger threats to the Clinton campaign were Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Bobby Jindal and Chris Christie.

To “muddy the waters,” the memo suggested building a dossier on each Republican candidate in the areas of “transparency & disclosure, donors & associations, and management & business dealings.” In a statement that presaged this week’s attacks on Donald Trump, the memo says, “any information on scandals or ethical lapses on the GOP candidates would serve well. We won’t be picky.”

 While the email does not contain a “smoking gun” that indicates that Clinton enticed Donald Trump to enter the Republican primary, it is apparent that Trump was considered a weak and extreme candidate who could hurt the rest of the Republican field. The reference to the press may help explain the large amounts of friendly press coverage that Trump received during the primary. There is also no indication that the Clinton campaign thought that Donald Trump could actually win the Republican primary and become the party’s nominee.

In the end, Hillary Clinton’s plan to sabotage the Republican primary must have exceeded her wildest expectations.  One of her “Pied Pipers” actually won the nomination and became the Republican candidate for the presidency. Hillary was ready when he did.

Read the full story on The Resurgent

Hillary promoted Trump two months before he started campaign

Lost amid the furor over Donald Trump’s sexually charged hot mic recording was another email dump by Wikileaks. The new document dump contains emails purportedly hacked from John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

One of the documents leaked and subsequently tweeted by Wikileaks allegedly shows that the Clinton campaign worked with the media in “elevating” Republican primary candidates that were more extreme. The Clinton strategy was to make these “Pied Piper” candidates seem to “represent the mainstream of the Republican Party.” The document mentions three candidates by name: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

“We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them [sic] seriously,” the document says.

The Wikileaks tweet does not present the entire document. The portion available is not dated although Wikileaks says that it was “two months before he [Trump] declared his candidacy.” The tweet does not provide a way to identify or find the document within the trove of emails posted on the Wikileaks website.

If genuine, the document indicates that Hillary Clinton not only interfered with the Republican primary, but also conspired with the media to do so. There were numerous reports that Donald Trump spoke with Bill Clinton prior to declaring his candidacy last year. It is possible that the Clintons set up Donald Trump to run as a Republican, knowing that they could destroy his reputation if he won the nomination.

At present, the authenticity of the document and Wikileaks claims have not been independently verified.

Read the full story on The Resurgent

Third parties may win electoral votes this year

Evan McMullin (EvanMcMullin.com)/Gary Johnson (KnowYourMeme.com)

It can’t be said too much that 2016 is the year that breaks all the rules. Another rule that might be fractured this year is the one that says that third parties never win anything. The old saw that a vote for a third party is a wasted vote could be put to the test with the possibility that two third party candidates could win electoral votes in two different states.

Many of us remember the third party candidacy of Ross Perot in the 1990s. Perot mounted an insurgent campaign that was successful… by third party terms. Perot won 18 percent of the vote in 1992, but didn’t win any states or electoral votes. To find the last time that a third party candidate won electoral votes, we must look back to 1968 when George Wallace and Curtis LeMay won five states and 46 electoral votes under the banner of the American Independent Party.

This year, polling shows that two third party candidates are threatening to take safe states from the major parties. One blue state and one red state may be in play by candidates who could be considered a “favorite son.” This scenario is made possible by the overwhelming unpopularity of both major party candidates.

The FiveThirtyEight blog recently speculated that Libertarian Gary Johnson could eke out a win in his home state of New Mexico. The Real Clear Politics average for New Mexico showed a surge for Johnson in late September after the first presidential debate. He reached a high of 24 percent, seven points away from Donald Trump and 11 points behind Hillary Clinton, in an Albuquerque Journal poll taken between September 28 and October 1. He has since slipped to 14 percent following his “Aleppo moments,” but could possibly rebound if Donald Trump has another difficult week. Hillary is currently favored to win New Mexico.

Independent Evan McMullin is another surging third party candidate. McMullin only began his campaign in August and appeared in his first national poll on September 28. McMullin debuted in the Public Policy poll at two percent, higher than Jill Stein’s one percent, but behind Gary Johnson’s six percent. McMullin’s showing was impressive for an unknown candidate whose campaign was only two months old.

McMullin’s best chance for an electoral victory is in his home state of Utah, which is normally a deep red state, but which is also particularly unfriendly to Donald Trump. Trump finished third in the caucuses there last spring behind Ted Cruz and John Kasich. Trump’s difficulties in the deeply religious and conservative state run deeper than in other states because of Trump’s lifestyle as well as his policies.

Deseret News opinion writer Michael Worley laid out the case for McMullin in September 8 editorial. The three points he cited were McMullin’s honesty, his social conservatism and Trump’s troubling record on religious freedom. The LDS church, which is normally politically neutral, issued a statement denouncing Trump’s proposed Muslim ban on the basis of religious freedom.

Because Utah is presumed to be a safe red state, polling is sparse. A June Salt Lake Tribune poll showed Trump and Clinton virtually tied at 29-26 percent with Gary Johnson at 16 percent. McMullin debuted in a Public Policy poll on August 23 at nine percent. Trump had surged to 39 percent, Clinton held steady at 24 and Gary Johnson dropped to 12 percent.

The most recent Utah poll is a Dan Jones and Associates poll reported in the Salt Lake Tribune on September 25. Donald Trump still led Hillary Clinton, but the margin was reduced to nine points. At 34 percent, Trump’s lead was due to the crowded field. Clinton maintained 25 percent and Johnson and McMullin were in a statistical tie at 13 and 12 percent respectively. Eight percent remained undecided.

A McMullin win in Utah would also require a variety of favorable factors. Trump’s lead could be reduced, perhaps after a poor debate performance or as a result of a scandal. Gary Johnson’s difficulties might also lead third party voters to switch their votes to McMullin. An interview on the web show of former Libertarian candidate Austin Petersen hints at crossover appeal.

McMullin also has a secret weapon. Deseret News reported that McMullin is fundraising from Mitt Romney’s list of 2012 supporters. If McMullin proves viable, an endorsement by Mitt Romney, one of the most prominent anti-Trump Republicans, could put him over the top in Utah.

Even though Johnson and McMullin may only win one state, it could change the shape of the race. FiveThirtyEight ran simulations that showed that the loss of New Mexico’s five electoral votes could prevent Hillary Clinton from winning the 270 electoral votes necessary to become president. The same could be true if Donald Trump lost Utah’s six votes in a close race.

In the case of deadlock, the House of Representatives would decide the next president. The House would choose from the top three candidates by electoral vote. Since Utah has one more electoral vote than New Mexico, McMullin would displace Johnson in a deadlock if both win their home states. Each state delegation in the House of Representatives would receive one vote. Since the House will almost certainly be controlled by Republicans, the choice would be between the unpopular Trump and the unknown McMullin.

The odds are still long against a third party candidate carrying a state, let alone becoming president. FiveThirtyEight calculated that the probability of a Johnson victory in New Mexico and that state deciding the election occurring together would be 0.15 percent, almost a million to one shot.

It may be an interesting election.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Evan McMullin unveils 'Principles for New American Leadership'

Yesterday independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin unveiled his list of conservative principles to a cheering crowd in Provo, Utah. McMullin, who only announced his candidacy in early August, is positioning himself as the conservative alternative to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. His statement of principles, the “Principles for New American Leadership,” put forth core values for the relatively unknown candidate.

In a video accompanying the unveiling of the document, McMullin describes his beliefs. “Our great nation requires a new generation of leadership and civic engagement…. Washington has become distant and disconnected from our needs, and unable to meet the challenges ahead. The two parties have given us gridlock and division, and candidates who care more about themselves than us. That’s why I want to share my vision of new American leadership.”

McMullin’s principles appeal to the core values of the conservative movement, but also reach out to people who are not traditional conservatives. His first principle, that “our basic rights are God-given” is a direct reference to the Declaration of Independence. He also states that “we must honor the Constitution” and “any changes to the Constitution must be made through the amendment process, not by judicial or executive action.”

With respect to elected officials, McMullin’s principles state that “leaders must be honest and wise” and “put the public interest ahead of their own, acting with integrity, transparency and good judgment.” Leaders should also be “fiscally responsible,” McMullin says. “Our country cannot be secure and prosperous with uncontrolled debt and deficits.”

McMullin affirms traditional conservative issues with his declaration of principle. “We have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, which the government must ensure,” he states. He also strikes a strong pro-life stance, declaring “We must protect the lives of the most vulnerable from the unborn to the elderly.”

McMullin goes beyond traditional conservative issues, however.  His principles call for a “safety net for Americans unable to support themselves,” but government programs “should help people to overcome poverty, rather than simply survive it.” Beyond calling for the repeal of Obamacare, McMullin advocates for a healthcare system that will “encourage competition and innovation” to provide “access to affordable, quality health care.” McMullin’s principle of free markets applies to healthcare and other industries as well.

On immigration, McMullin finds a middle ground between the extremes offered by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. “We must secure our borders, enforce our laws and facilitate the legal immigration of those who will contribute to American prosperity, security and culture,” he says.

As an independent, Evan McMullin is an outsider candidate. After graduating from Brigham Young University and earning a Master’s of Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He fought radical jihadists as a CIA officer in the Middle East after September 11. He worked for two years as an investment banker after completing his CIA service and then became a senior advisor to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and chief policy director of the House Republican Conference.

After only two months on the campaign trail, there are reports that McMullin is surging. Because he doesn’t appear in most polls, it is hard to gauge the depth of his support, but he has already passed Jill Stein in one recent national poll. 

Originally published on The Resurgent