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SOFT ON HUCKABEE. I spent some time last night looking further into former-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's record and have been racking my brain for an explanation as to why the national press has been so willing to accept his aw-shucks Mr. Nice Guy act without scrutiny (I'm sure commenters will have plenty of explanations of their own).
Part of it is certainly the fact that he's raised so little money no one was taking him seriously until he came in second in the Ames Straw Poll, and non-viable candidates tend not to be scrutinized as carefully by reporters. Part of it is that he was, by all accounts, a reasonably good governor in his home state of Arkansas, and unusually invested in the creation of social welfare programs for a Republican. (What is novel tends to get more coverage than what is typical). Some of it is because he is genuinely funny and quick on his feet with a quip and a quote -- behavior endearing to reporters, who live by good quote. The policy agnosticism of political reporters who are trying to explain Huckabee and others to the world from the inside, as the candidates see themselves, or who write horserace and optics stories rather than analytic ones has also played a role. And part of it, I fear, is that there just aren't enough women in the national political press corps for his anti-modern social agenda to be widely seen as the sort of regressive and radical threat that it is. So Huckabee pardoned Keith Richards and plays "Free Bird." That doesn't make him Rock 'n' Roll. That makes him a poseur.
I mean, just look at his agenda. Mr. Guitar-Rocker Folksy Nice Guy wants to: eliminate all contraception education in schools; use our tax dollars to fund ideological and ineffective abstinence education programs in those schools; and get rid of condom distribution in schools in favor of Bible distribution programs that have been overturned by the courts. He favors: a federal marriage amendment to the U.S. constitution; a human life amendment; the teaching of creationism to children; and the South Dakota law that banned all abortions and was so extreme the state's own highly traditionalist voters overturned it in a referendum.
Here's Huckabee in his own words:
On sex ed:
I do not believe in teaching about sex or contraception in public schools. That is the responsibility of parents.
On abstinence education:
I am disappointed that funding for abstinence education is not likely to be renewed by the Democrat Congress. This reversal only emphasizes how important it is for Republicans to take back Congress and win the White House with an authentic conservative in 2008.
On Bibles, not birth-control:
I miss the America I grew up in where the Gideons gave Bibles to fifth graders instead of school nurses giving condoms to eighth graders. With so much at stake, it's important that we return to the core values and guiding principles which have made our country great.
"My faith is my life," he says. "It defines me. I see no separation between my faith and professional life.
In short, Huckabee, the former Baptist minister and religious TV executive, is the candidate of exhausting and divisive social issues and the ongoing war by what Andrew Sullivan calls Christianists against the mainstream views of the majority of the American people. But, hey! As long as he can tell a good joke and strum a guitar, right?
--Garance Franke-Ruta
COMMENTS (16)
Journos have a lot of bad reasons for being soft on Huckabee, and Garance's post got most of them right.
But they also have one good reason to note Huckabee: he represents the only credible future for the Republican party: a kind of US-style Christian democracy. The Republican party no longer coheres as a collection of hate and greed groups. If you want to revive the party (and even a yellow dog D like myself believes in the two-party system), you will have to invent some kind of glue other than hate and greed.
Outside of gender roles (where Garance's analysis is spot-on), Huckabee avoids hate. His rhetoric is anti-greed: convincingly so I think. I think that voters can sense sincerity in a Republican. Black voters, for example, sensed it in Jack Kemp.
Huckabee is the basis for a genuine coalition: the less crazy of the Talibs, the non-Talib social conservatives (a whole lot of the population), the less crazy of the funding wing of the party, and those who prefer communitarian to rights-based social programs. This could include a lot of people of color. He would have to give up the crazier Talibs to quietism and xenophobes to I'm not sure what. But I still think he would have a net majority. (He would likely be able to keep the racists, who aren't particularly demanding of their candidates.)
My guess is that the Republican party of 2016 will either be Huckabee's kind of party, or be an irrelevancy.
Posted by: Joe S. | September 7, 2007 1:45 PM
My explanation: The mainstream press has been selectively pimping GOP personalities for quite some time now. McCain and Giuliani have been endlessly pimped, for years, complete with free slogan-recitation. Fred Thompson was treated as the smartsexyhonest Second Coming in those early Hardball sessions. The incumbent president was shamelssly pimped in 1999 and 2000--except for the two-to three-month period when they thought McCain could get nominated.
Now, they're uniformly saying what a great guy Huckabee is. By now, this should have become a familiar, recognizable pattern.
Posted by: bob somerby | September 7, 2007 1:52 PM
"why the national press has been so willing to accept his aw-shucks Mr. Nice Guy act without scrutiny"
Three words, George. W. Bush.
In addition, Huckabee plays against type; he is a pro-life evangelical christan who doesn't breathe fire. This makes him somewhat intriguing.
He also was forced to govern in a bipartisan fashion since the Arkansas state assembly & Senate are run by Democratic supermajoritiies. This makes him almost alone in the GOP field in having a few bipartisan bones. McCain used to have them, but he has abandoned them.
Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | September 7, 2007 1:58 PM
I will also add that Huckabee is really, really good on TV, and appears to be substantially less scripted than the major contenders except maybe Obama.
Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | September 7, 2007 2:03 PM
Same reason the press has given Richardson a free pass: both candidates are in 4th place. Ironically, the press's preoccupation with the top-tier helps out the lower tier, by not covering their faults. If Richardson had gotten the scrutiny given Edwards, Clinton, or Obama, he'd be done.
Posted by: david mizner | September 7, 2007 2:15 PM
Save this link, folks. I think you're going to want to refer back to this.
Posted by: pk | September 7, 2007 2:23 PM
Oddly, GFR seems to have forgotten to mention one of the other main reasons why the MSM would like the Huck. Why was that?
Backwards hint! oreniD
Posted by: TLB | September 7, 2007 2:28 PM
"Outside of gender roles (where Garance's analysis is spot-on), Huckabee avoids hate."
I'm sorry but that's not "gender roles"-- that's sex. Take a little credit. You deserve it.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 7, 2007 2:57 PM
Huckabee favors a path to citizenship in order to bring migrants out of the shadows. 12-20 million migrants currently live in the shadows.
He can be for all the Billy Graham crackpottery he wants - it doesn't matter. The point is, he would go a long way towards helping create a DEMOCRATIC majority, while his uptight, 1990s attitudes about women will hardly cause a policy ripple.
Posted by: Talk Show Charles | September 7, 2007 3:16 PM
Not only would Huck help the Dems as Talk Show Charles says, but he's acted like one as well:
youtube.com/watch?v=T5Dp7FaKIJo
In fact, I'll send $10 via PayPal to the first person who asks him that question, just as long as they get a "yes" or "no" answer and, if he answers "no", they point out that he's lying.
Posted by: TLB | September 7, 2007 3:43 PM
Hee hee! Is there a soul in public life who isn't bought and paid for by the Mexican government? TLB says no! It reminds me of how other folks prattle on about AIPAC.
Posted by: Steve | September 7, 2007 5:54 PM
Steve, of course, mischaracterizes my concerns. However, I've documented at my site direct or indirect links between the MexicanGovernment and various non-profits and even Democratic politicians.
For one example, a GA state rep. got a $50,000 salary as the exec. dir. of a non-profit that used to be located at the Atlanta MexicanConsulate. He later led an ImmigrationMarch organized by their former consul; the latter has organized other marches and even a boycott.
Unrelated to that specific case, a lawyer named PeterSchey has at least three links to the MexicanGovernment, including collaborating with them on a project involving visas. Member groups of an organization he heads include the ACLU, the SPLC, the AFSC, and MALDEF.
Other interesting links at my name's link.
That doesn't mean that all or most are getting bags of cash. However, there is a lot of money involved in the "industry".
Oddly enough, all of these things are either below TAPPED's radar or they choose to ignore such "collaborations" (accent on the last syllable).
Posted by: Here's a fun page | September 7, 2007 7:06 PM
Man, that Mexican government is ruthlessly effective.
Posted by: Col Bat Guano | September 8, 2007 12:31 AM
Man, that Mexican government is ruthlessly effective.
Actually, they are. They've managed to send us millions of people who send billions home, and by so doing they don't have to care for them nor do they have to worry about them pressing for reforms.
The only thing that's stopped them from getting everything they want ("reform") was a groundswell of public opposition.
If Bush and the Dems had gotten their way, the MexicanGovernment would have gotten everything they demanded.
It's a good scam, and "liberals" like those at this site enable it.
Here's an article from a former VicenteFox advisor that might force some eyes to open:
cis.org/articles/2006/back706.html
Posted by: TLB | September 8, 2007 12:27 PM
Note for future polemics: Huckabee plays bass guitar. You don't "strum" a bass guitar. Indeed, very little popular guitar playing since the days of the Weavers has entailed "strumming." GFR and other journalists please note.
Signed, Not A Huckabee Fan, Needless To Say.
Posted by: Patrick Nielsen Hayden | September 9, 2007 1:58 AM
While it's true that you don't strum a bass, strumming remains a staple technique of almost all guitar-based popular music. Unless you're limiting the definition of strumming to the use of fingers, in which case it's true that just about everybody uses a pick these days. But my sense is that the common usage allows "strumming" to refer to pick use.
Posted by: Galen | September 10, 2007 3:08 PM