Mike Huckabee Settles The Score
The former Arkansas governor has a new book due out Tuesday. I've written a sneak peak on Time.com highlighting the barbs Huckabee tosses at his fellow Republicans. To wit:
Mitt Romney, Huckabee's principal rival in Iowa, comes in for the roughest treatment. Huckabee writes that the former Massachusetts Governor's record was "anything but conservative until he changed the light bulbs in his chandelier in time to run for president." He notes that Romney declined to make a phone call of congratulations after Huckabee beat the oddsmakers to win the Iowa caucuses, "which we took as a sign of total disrespect." He mocks Romney for suggesting, during one debate, more investment in high-yield stocks as a solution to economic woes. "Let them eat stocks!" Huckabee jokes.
His treatment of former candidate Fred Thompson, a rival who helped sink Huckabee's upstart ambitions in South Carolina, is somewhat more favorable, if only because it is less personal. Huckabee maintains that Thompson's biggest mistake was strategic: He didn't understand the need to expand the Republican party beyond its base. "Fred Thompson never did grasp the dynamics of the race or the country, and his amazingly lackluster campaign reflected just how disconnected he was with the people, despite the anticipation and expectation that greeted his candidacy," Huckabee writes. . . .
He calls out Pat Robertson, the Virginia-based televangelist, and Dr. Bob Jones III, chancellor of Bob Jones University in South Carolina, for endorsing Rudy Giuliani and Romney, respectively. He also has words for the Texas-based Rev. John Hagee, who endorsed the more moderate John McCain in the primaries, as someone who was drawn to the eventual Republican nominee because of the lure of power. Huckabee speaks to Hagee by phone before the McCain endorsement, while the former Arkansas Governor is preparing for a spot on Saturday Night Live. "I asked if he had prayed about this and believed this was what the Lord wanted him to do," Huckabee writes of his conversation with Hagee. "I didn't get a straight answer." Months later, McCain rejected Hagee's endorsement because of controversial remarks the pastor had made about biblical interpretations.
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1
MS -- How would you catergorize Huckabee, angry, bitter, frustrated, resigned, hopeful or what? I read the article twice and am trying to understand his current state of mind.
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2
I don't think he is angry. He remains frustrated and a bit sore with those people who stood in the way of his campaign, and very much a believer in his own vision for the Republican Party. Though there is no campaign, this is very much a campaign book, and he is very much in campaign mode.
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3
Scherer
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This is the part of your story that is really the most important and the most relevant. It shows why people like Huckabee who should be the future of the party aren't. And it shows why republicans will find themselves deeper in the wilderness in 2 years.
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In a chapter entitled "Faux-Cons: Worse than Liberalism,"Huckabee identifies what he calls the "real threat" to the Republican Party: "libertarianism masked as conservatism." He is not so much concerned with the libertarian candidate Ron Paul's Republican supporters, as he is with a strain of mainstream fiscal conservative thought that demands ideological purity, seeing any tax increase as apostasy and leaving little room for government-driven solutions to people's problems. "I don't take issue with what they believe, but the smugness with which they believe it," writes Huckabee, who raised some taxes as a governor and cut other deals with his state's Democratic legislature. "Faux-Cons aren't interested in spirited or thoughtful debate, because such an endeavor requires accountability for the logical conclusion of their argument." Among his targets is the Club For Growth, a group that tarred Huckabee as insufficiently conservative in the primaries and ran television ads with funding from one of Huckabee's longtime Arkansas political foes, Jackson T. Stephens Jr. -
4
MS -- From the article, I concluded he's very much an outsider to the GOP establishment and to the religious right as well. Do you have any insight as to how he is viewed fundmentalists? Both he and Brownback seem to have the core religious beliefs of the fundamentalist GOP, but not the support of the marquee fundamentalists (Bauer, Hagee, et al).
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Care to opine as to this disconnection? -
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Huckabee speaks to Hagee by phone before the McCain endorsement, while the former Arkansas Governor is preparing for a spot on Saturday Night Live. "I asked if he had prayed about this and believed this was what the Lord wanted him to do.
It's funny the quandaries that arise when you claim to be representing the Creator of the Universe. Occasionally opinions will differ as to what He really intends. Of Jesus was very specific that our relationship to God should be a private matter and that if you wear your faith on your sleeve than 'you already have your reward.'
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Paul Dirks, not being a christian I have wondered about these quanderies. In the past I've asked my Catholic friends who does Jesus root for when Boston College plays Notre Dame?
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Thanks to you I now have my answer. -
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PD: "Occasionally opinions will differ as to what He really intends."
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Yes, that's true. Take this guy for example. -
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wvng: This pastor sounds like the character (aka God's quarterback) Paul Sorvino played in "Oh God!"
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Andy, there is a generational struggle happening right now in the conservative christian (or politically active evangelical) world. Huckabee sides with the younger generation, who mostly supported his candidacy, and which attracts greater public support, and against the older generation, which controls the larger institutions and has deeper ties to Washington Republicans. It will be an interesting struggle over the coming years.
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11
He calls out Pat Robertson, the Virginia-based televangelist, and Dr. Bob Jones III, chancellor of Bob Jones University in South Carolina, for endorsing Rudy Giuliani and Romney, respectively.
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You know, there are other valid reasons he might have found to call those folks out.
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Huckabee's was the most disappointing to me of all the major candidates (well, Clinton in full-on "bitter ling/Wright" mode wasn't much fun, either). He is folksy, engaging, and funny, but he's very comfortable with ignorant theocrats. I thought that his social conservatism with a human face was something worth pursuing, but now it seems like he's as sinister and militant as Robertson, Hagee, and Jones.
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Andy, please be advised that Jesus roots for BC. -
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After reading this story ask yourself a question. Imagine what we might find if we could only ever get to read the Dick Cheney emails...
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/17/9114/4584/205/661880 -
13
Huckabee speaks to Hagee by phone before the McCain endorsement, while the former Arkansas Governor is preparing for a spot on Saturday Night Live. "I asked if he had prayed about this and believed this was what the Lord wanted him to do.
I picked up on the same thing; I have taught college seminars on religion in America and there's a dissertation hiding in Huckabee's anecdote. (Actually, at least two: one on prayer and decision-making in American politics, and one on political endorsements by religious figures.)
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"he's very comfortable with ignorant theocrats." Also pretty darned comfortable with ignorance. Remember the Canadian national igloo?
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Puh-leeze. His only problem with Hagee? That he didn't endorse him. His problem with Romney? That he didn't congratulate him. His problem with everyone? That they aren't him.
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Elvis, thanks for the answer to the BC/Notre Dame quandary. I was told previously that Jesus roots for Holy Cross not BC nor Notre Dame. Thanks for setting the record straight.
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17
You are all wrong; Jesus likes Soccer -clearly. Just ask any Brazilian, Italian, Argentine, etc., etc.
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David Frum leaves National Review:
.Mr. Frum said deciding to leave was amicable, but distancing himself from the magazine founded by his idol, Mr. Buckley, was not a hard decision. He said the controversy over Governor Palin's nomination for vice president was “symbolic of a lot of differences” between his views and those of National Review's.
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“I am really and truly frightened by the collapse of support for the Republican Party by the young and the educated,” he said.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/media/17review.html?_r=3&ref=business&pagewanted=all -
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Just out of curiosity...
Who's gonna buy this book?
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Go Irish! -
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Do I really have to spell it out?
Jesus ALWAYS roots for the underdog! -
21
Jesus ALWAYS roots for the underdog!
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See, I was going to make that argument, too, Paul.
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But BC's won the last 6 meetings, and 7 of the last 8. And I'm a BC fan, so I can't make any argument that cuts against my position. But, you can argue that ND, with their budget and deal with NBC and history, cannot properly be considered an underdog.
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So how does Jesus define "underdog"? -
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Elvis and PD,
Jesus obviously didn't think Huckabee was an underdog...Mike might have gotten more endorsements.
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JJ
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More proof that conservatives try to endorse and promote a bizarro world, over at the Corner they mention the story you linked but decline to mention that Frum is leaving. Instead they focus on what they say was the meme of the article; that the internet is changing them for the worse. I just wonder how many of their faithful followers every step out of the NR cocoon and see for themselves that the world really isn't flat.
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http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjJhM2IwZjBkMmM0N2M5N2U0OGY4NTY1NGI1NDk1ZmI= -
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I wish Huckabee, McCain, Palin et all would understand that if we had wanted to keep hearing from you, we would have voted for you. We can't miss you until you leave!
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25
Huckabee can speak, is witty, and has those evangelical creds. However, let's not forget his batty tax plan. When the details of that were thoroughly discussed, he would have been easily beaten.
- michaelscherer @alangrayson TIME told your story (http://bit.ly/cdG9qb), tho not how you would have told it, here: http://bit.ly/YSRHh - 4 hours ago
- michaelscherer RT @PElliottAP: Obama makes surprise visit to White House briefing room. Tune in. - 7 hours ago
- michaelscherer RT @ryssiebee: 92 magazine covers, 10 years, 2 minutes. http://bit.ly/5d7oCo - 10 hours ago
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