Huck's Army Will March Again
By Adam Graham (03/10/08)
If you would have told me in January that I would make more than 300 calls to complete strangers in 3 states on behalf of Mike Huckabee, donate money to his campaign, and write some of my best work to defend his campaign's continuing existence, I would have told you you were crazy.
In fact, I put out some zingers on the Governor when I, like many bloggers was feeling quite charitable towards Fred Thompson. I told my readers that the nomination of Mike Huckabee would mean the GOP had left key principles of fiscal conservatism and would have “lost their brain.”
I wrote parodies involving the Governor's gifts received while Governor. I calculated that his playing nice with Senator McCain was an attempt to claim the VP spot. I thought I had Huckabee all figured out. I was wrong.
A Huck History
The first time I saw Huckabee was in 1996, when he addressed the state of Arkansas as Felon Governor Jim Guy Tucker tried to hold onto office. I heard of him a couple of times in the news. I remembered being somewhat annoyed when I heard about his weight loss memoir, “Quit Digging Your Grave With Your Knife and Fork.”
It was hard enough for us fat guys to try to get elected to office without Huckabee quite literally thinning the ranks. Later I told myself that Huckabee lost 110 pounds of Conservatism due to many people painting him as the ultimate nanny stater.
I read an article by Paul Weyrich critiquing Huckabee's spending and tax record in Arkansas in 2005. I didn't give much thought to Huckabee when he announced nor at the Iowa strawpoll. And I certainly didn't give him much thought as the entire establishment conservative press came down on him.
I pride myself in being able to look beyond a candidate's rhetoric to expose where they really stand, and with Huckabee I took him on on several topics. My honest disagreements with the Governor became a source of pride. I was being an intelligent consistent conservative. I wasn't rushing off in a herd mentality like so many other Evangelicals to support Huckabee.
Yet, I began to see the folly in this. There was a, “The Emperor Had New Clothes” aspect to the way Christians were urged not to back Huckabee. “Only those Christians who are practicing identity politics would even think about supporting Huckabee. Wise Christians will back Thompson/Romney.”
And of course, there was some ugliness to the assaults. There were people on popular forums who accused Huckabee of not legitimately losing his 110 pounds, instead charging that he had his stomach stapled. (How that explains him running the Boston Marathon, I don't know.) I read his article in Foreign Affairs, laid out a reasonable foreign policy including restoring our military to the same percentage of GDP it was at under President Reagan.
I defended Huckabee during the absurd “floating cross” (i.e. Bookshelf that some media guy decided was a cross.) during his Christmas ad.
Others referred to his faith in a mocking way using “Reverend” and “Pastor” as insults. I warned that these type of attacks were out of line. I warned that it would backfire, and was mostly unheeded.
I began to have regrets about Huckabee about the time the people of South Carolina voted for John McCain and Fred Thompson finished third, with a good portion of his votes coming from Huckabee. Huckabee had his problems? But McCain? There was no comparison in my mind between the two. John McCain had never drifted above Ron Paul in my Presidential preference list.
What we conservatives had managed to do in my mind was leave ourselves with Romney and McCain. I later compared it to the choice to the choice between playing Russian Roulette with three bullets in the chamber and drinking a gallon of hemlock.
As for Huckabee, no way he could win after South Carolina. Might as well focus on McCain v. Not McCain. Besides, Huckabee was running to be McCain's vice-president.
What changed my perspective? There were two things. The first were Huckabee supporters. While Ron Paul supporters showed they could raise a lot of money, Huckabee's supporters managed with few resources and hard work to receive results.
Through a link on a forum I stumbled on to the corny, but charming and well-done Huckabee campaign songs by Matt Robins. This song became a favorite even though I couldn't agree with the sentiment at the time. It showed me the future of politics in the country. The dedication and general demeanor of most Huckabee supporters was inspiring and moving. Whether you agreed with Huckabee or not, his supporters (particularly home schoolers cutting their teeth in politics) are the future of this party.
The second thing to change my mind was Huckabee himself. The last question Anderson Cooper asked at the Reagan Library Debate was whether Ronald Reagan would endorse them. Mitt Romney answered, “Absolutely!” And listed off a bunch of policies. John McCain issued a basic reply to the effect of, “Are you kidding me? Reagan wouldn’t endorse you, you jerk.” Huckabee however declined to claim a Reagan endorsement and instead said he endorsed Reagan. He explained that Reagan wasn’t a great president because of great policies but because he believed in America and got us to believe in ourselves again.
In election season where candidates were trying so hard to imitate Reagan, that I was waiting for someone to appear on the campaign trail eating jelly beans, and then in a debate turn to Senator McCain and say, “There you go again,” Huckabee actually got it. He understood the optimism that helped Reagan bring about “Morning in America”. Too bad, the Conservative media (with a small bit of help from yours truly) had leveled Huckabee to the ground.
Of course, as President Bush could have said, I (and most everyone else) misunderestimated Huckabee. He came back from the political grave again on Super Tuesday with five wins in states other people were supposed to win. The campaign would live to see another day.
And after Romney dropped out, Huckabee was the last man standing against McCain. He could have dropped out. If his goal was to get the best speaking spot or a shot at the Vice-Presidency that would have made sense. It would have been a decision that re-affirmed my suspicious about Huckabee.
However, he continued the fight despite the McCain Camp and the media (though I repeat myself) making claims it was “mathematically impossible” for him to get the nomination, he better understood how the Convention worked than his critics.
I looked at Huckabee and saw some issues I had questions on.: However, I decided I could trust him on several things: Abortion, the Second Amendment, and protecting the nation’s sovereignty from the Law of the Sea Treaty, and the International Criminal Court. Those mattered and McCain was on the wrong side of every other issue. In addition, while he’d become tougher on illegal immigration than he was at the beginning of the campaign, he’d gained the trust of Jim Gilchrist and Duncan Hunter. That was good enough for me.
Of course, I was somewhat lukewarm about it. That’s when Huck supporters came in. Despite the media telling them it was over, they had days they made 50,000 calls into places like Kansas and Virginia. They wouldn’t give up or give in. I found myself inexplicably making calls into Virginia. Then, despite my opinion that Huckabee had no chance of winning Wisconsin, I began to call Wisconsin. And, of course, Texas got plenty of attention. I made nearly 200 calls the 3 days I was on vacation. The enthusiasm was contagious.
And there was good reason. Huckabee’s four week campaign against the ignorance of an ADD culture representing the values of many millions of Americans was inspiring. Perhaps, it was the fact that Huckabee dared to believe that we in what many Republicans may as well have called the Irrelevant States of America (those that voted after Super Tuesday) should have a voice and a vote.. During the time leading up to the Iowa Caucus, Huckabee showed he had a great personality and could catch on as a nice guy. In the four weeks from Super Tuesday to Texas, he showed he was a warrior, a happy warrior but one nonetheless. He was a fighter, who like Rocky Balboa may have lost the fight, but it wasn’t because he curled up in a corner and laid down.
It was in this month that for the first time, I saw the potential for greatness in Huckabee. He is a man who has survived the storms. He is a man who has faced long odds and fought them. He knows who he is and he knows what he believes on the core issues that define him. He is a fighter and at this hour, America needs a fighter.
More than that, his concern and appreciation for other shines through. While Michelle and Barack Obama rake in $55 million a month and denigrates this country as something to be ashamed of, I’ve been impressed by Huckabee’s willingness to appreciate the small gifts from humble people that made his campaign possible. The day after his 13-point defeat in Texas, he invited his staff over and cooked them a meal and his immediate focus is insuring his staff finds good jobs. This is not the stuff of ordinary campaigns.
Of course, to say Huckabee has the stuff of greatness is not say he will not make mistakes. We forget that Ronald Reagan for all his greatness gave us the twin plagues of Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court and raised taxes in 1982. Great men will make great mistakes, but they can move the country forward on the issues that matter most.
This past primary election cycle has been a lesson in humility. Sometimes in our cynicism, we are like Teddy Roosevelt’s Man with the Muckrake, I head straight down in the muck looking for the bad in men and finding it, and incapable of seeing the good. Rarely do I change my mind about a politician, but my final assessment of Mike Huckabee is that he is genuine and he’s dedicated to the most important principles of our time. I believe that one of these days we will see him atop the GOP ticket. It will be his dedicated supporters that will get him there and maybe even carry him to victory.
So I said, "What about voting for Huckabee?"
She said, "I think I remember that man,
And as I recall, I think, we both kinda liked him."
And I said, "Well, he's the best hope we've got."
-Breakfast at Huckabee’s by Matt Robins.
Just remember this, when government says we’re giving you things, remember before the government can give you something, the government has to take it from you first. And the handling charge is extraordinary.-Mike Huckabee
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