He used to be really fat. Perhaps larger America will think he thinks he's better than them? Like John Kerry but instead of heiress-and-Massachusetts it's the successful diet.
The successful diet is how he made his name, isn't it? It doesn't seem to have hurt him so far.
Watching the Daily Show clip, my guess is that even though he has Christian Right cred on abortion etc., he goes too far into the Carter-y social-activism side of the Christian political tradition for agents of the Monolith to care for him.
He has several potential scandals in his background, in particular a Willy Horton episode where he pressured the parole board to give someone early parole (apparently his victim was a distant relative of Clinton's, so the conservative conspiracy theorists thought he was innocent) who then raped and murdered two people a few months later.
I agree though, he seems very likeable. I was toying a while back with buying his stock for 4.5 cents.
"He's genuinely conservative"
That's your problem right there. That hasn't been part of the Republican playbook for years.
As referenced above, his arguably "genuine Christian-ness" isn't the boon you'd think either.
True, but the current Republican playbook hasn't been working very well lately.
Also true, but adapting to change hasn't been one of their strong suits lately either.
OK. I'll take the bait.
By writing "for a white guy" here, you lose the point you're trying to make. If it really was odd to refer to a well-spoken white pol as "articulate," you wouldn't have added the aside; people would get it anyway just from the word itself.
But it's not odd at all.
Oh man, did you ever take the bait.
You haven'r seen him on Rick Mercer's "Talking to Americans" yet, have you?
from Wikipedia: "On another occasion he (Mercer) got the support of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in calling on Canadians to save the "National Igloo." "
then you would know why everyone knows Huckeabee is a tool.
enough Arkanasas alrady, anyway. I grew up, to the extent that I have, in Missouri, and so know what is what in the state that is covetous of the town of Branson.
Some thoughts on Huckabee here. Not that it'll make a difference in the warped worldview of Bush-bespotted primary voters, but still.
My money is on Huckabee coming out of the primaries as a dark-horse compromise candidate. No one is terribly excited by him but no one is terribly freaked out by him.
I am freaked out by him, but that's because I think his "compassionate" conservatism, by virtue of its sincerity, carries with it some really genuinely ugly ideas. I think he would be pretty terrible on social liberties. There's a part of me that suspects he wants to get kids in shape because he's going to raise an army of athletic fundamentalist foot soldiers who will eat the lean meats of their moderate/liberal contemporaries who reject the covenant marriage groupthink. His whole schtick so far has been about trying to put an affable face on what is a very, very conservative platform. On the plus side, I think he'll be easy to paint as freakishly more socially conservative than the average voter.
"There's a part of me that suspects he wants to get kids in shape because he's going to raise an army of athletic fundamentalist foot soldiers who will eat the lean meats of their moderate/liberal contemporaries who reject the covenant marriage groupthink."
Dude, that's awesome. Sounds like something out of the book of Daniel. "The children of Israel/Huckabee will not eat the king's corrupt meats!," or something like that.
Like I said, it's not like I'd vote for the guy. But still, I think he's interesting. I mean, out of all the GOP hopefuls braying about the decline of traditional values, it's good to see one of them acknowledge heterosexual divorce as the real concern.
I'll grant you that it's good to see him focus on the plank in his own eye, but I also tend to see the whole covenant marriage idea as a soft-serve version of binding the woman's feet. I tend to get touchy about the whole "divorce is the problem" response, though, regardless of how it's meant or phrased, so I'm not saying that to say you are wrong or bad or anything at all. I find his push for covenant marriage as being its own form of sinister for purely personal reasons.
Also, yes, I do kind of think of him in that whole Old Testament way. I suspect he would totally call out the bears to eat the kids who made fun of him.
Salon article on huckabee here:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/05/huckabee/index1.html
The opening description of him made my skin crawl, but by the end he seems pretty sympathetic. No small feat that.