Mike Huckabee Wednesday night gave the dinner keynote before an audience of anti-choice activists and politicians at the Susan B. Anthony List's annual gala.

His advice to a party that advanced more abortion restrictions in the last three years than it had the entire previous decade: Keep doing what you're doing.

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An aggressive assault on abortion rights is "how we win elections," according to Huckabee.

Despite the GOP showing no signs of letting up on its assault on reproductive rights, Huckabee warned them to ... not let up on the assault on reproductive rights.

"This is not an issue that we should abandon," he said. "I have a moral obligation before God and a political obligation unto the Declaration of Independence and our constitutional form of government to believe that that life is a life worth living and a life worth protecting. We can run the full gambit of what we believe, we don't have to reduce down to one flavor. That's not how we lose an election. That's how we win elections and it's how we save this republic."

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Given how bullish the GOP has been on restricting reproductive health services like abortion and contraception (lawmakers in Missouri, for example, have pushed more than 30 restrictions to regulate a single clinic), it's unclear why Huckabee thinks that others in his party are trying to silence virulently anti-choice candidates, but I guess it's fun to play at being the underdog, even when all evidence points the other way.

He also advised the party to soften its rhetoric on the issue in order to win voters over.

Sen. Mike Lee, who also spoke on Wednesday, did not appear to get the memo. The Republican from Utah called support for abortion rights a “culture of death” and “savagery.”