Mike Who-abee?
For those of us who spent some time in Iowa before this past weekend’s GOP Straw Poll, the second place finish by the formerly obscure Mike Huckabee wasn’t much of a surprise. The former Arkansas Governor had been earnestly working the grass roots and had already created a buzz far disproportionate to the relatively small amount of resources he was able to invest in his campaigning.
The media had cast him simply as Kansas Senator Sam Brownback’ s co-competitor for the social conservative vote. But you really couldn’t find two candidates who had more divergent styles. Brownback really relies on the Old Time Religion schtick, pounding away on the family values button. Indeed, his stump speech relies on the thesis that the answer to literally all of America’s problem’s resides in “stronger families.” He’s also prone to bringing poor old Jesus into just about everybody speech. Unless you are already a card-carrying bible-thumper, Brownback has no appeal.
Huckabee, by sharp contrast, has the soft and rather comforting tone of the southern Baptist preacher he once was. He’s what a Compassionate Conservative, if you’ll excuse the expression, really ought to sound like. He’s neither threatening nor polarizing, not a hint of demonization of non-believers — or even of Democrats. He’s all about a social gospel that, even if it sucks policy-wise, sure sounds good. His style is straightforward, calm, reasonable and, yes, charismatic (Also note that he was one of the guys who raised his hand in that GOP debate when asked who doesn’t believe in evolution).
He doesn’t shy away from talking about improving the environment, expanding health care or fighting corporate corruption. “I’m not afraid of talking about obscene drug company profits nor about the outrage of CEO’s earning 500 times what a worker does,” Huckabee told me during an interview at the Iowa State Fair. “It’s important we do so because too often we Republicans sound like a wholly-owned affiliate of Wall Street. America was not made great by greed.” Huckabee’s also strong on more support for education and has been an outspoken advocate of increased arts and music education. OK, not bad for a Christian conservative.
I don’t know how much of a national boost Huckabee’s campaign will get from his strong showing in Iowa. It certainly lifts some of the fog of anonymity. But if Romney or Giuliani wind up winning the nomination, Huckabee could be a strong contender for the VP slot providing a good (Republican) balance to either northeasterner. He’s worth keeping a close eye on and he’s not to be written off simply (as I was earlier tempted) as some sort of Pat Robertson clone. Hardly.
August 12th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Like the unlamented Cruz Bustamante, Huckabee makes a big deal of his successful diet.
Good for him, actually. It might have saved his life.
August 12th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
The only thing I take issue with in the above account is that strengthening the family, promoting “family values” is a crank position.
Democrats and the Left are slowly waking up to the fact that over 85 per cent of the population are Christians and over 90 per cent profess a religion, but remain more dismissive of the idea of “family values,” but sorry kids, the science is in.
Having a Mom and a Dad at home protects children, raises their grades and academic and career prospects, lowers their rates of criminality and drug abuse and alcoholism and drastically lowers their exposure to crime, physical abuse and sexual molestation.
If you get shot or hit over the head with a car tool, the malefactor will almost certainly come from a broken home.
The science on this is no more controversial than the science on Evolution, and less controversial than that which purports to prove that long-term global warming trends are caused by industrial emissions and industrial by-products.
Science doesn’t care about politics.
August 12th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I guess that depends on what you mean by family values. I seem to remember a statistic that showed that children raised by gay couples were actually better off than kids raised by a traditional mom and dad (with the presumed explaination being that, openly gay couples were more likely to be better off financially than their hetero counterparts).
I think this is particularly important to bring up, when much of the Republican rhetoric on “family values” involves things like outlawing gay marriage and banning violent video games, rather than ensuring that children have plenty of adult supervision growing up. I think it is pretty safe to say that in this use of strengthening family values, it is a crank position.
August 12th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Sure Eric the Political Hack,
Start quibbling from the get-go, instead of just admitting that 9 out of 10 people aren’t gay, and that 7 or 8 people out of 10 don’t make much money.
And then, after that, elevate the legal status of “gay marriage” to a self-evident right, while ignoring actually workable, politically possible solutions to legitimate claims made by gays, like civil union. Then, throw in a red herring like video games (as though only conservatives go around proposing bans on and punishment for speech).
Finally, admit that studies of gays raising children — and when did I ever object to the idea or practice of gays raising children — skew towards rich metropolitans, as they certainly do, and what do we have, beyond your breathless concern for a rich, miniscule percentage of the population that already votes the way you do?
Next up, let’s here from people who can prove that the sons and daughters of divorced multi-millionaires are more likely to get into the Ivy League than than the sons and daughters of undivorced Wal-Mart workers.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Science has nothing to do with either how or why the Republicans spout “family values” rhetoric.
Family values is a media-safe code word for homophobia, the belief that women belong at home, not in the workplace and freaky sex ideas like banning condoms and sex education and opposing abortion rights.
And when it’s mouthed by someone who’s trying to use religion to win votes, it’s pure crank.
If the GOP wants to legislate what happens between consenting adults in their bedrooms, ban abortion and question women’s role in contemporary American society, they should do so a little more honestly without tarting up their white male traditionalism as “family values.”
It may or may not be factual that “over 85 per cent of the population are Christians” by any meaningful definition of the word. But it’s beyond doubt that a widening majority of them understand the importance of keeping church and state separate. And these are people who don’t need a translator to tell them that “family values” isn’t actually about policies that help families. It’s about soothing the resentments and feeding the insatiable demands of traditionalist Christians for reminders of their moral superiority.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Samuel,
I’m afraid you missed my point (or just ignored it). What I was trying to say (and perhaps bunkerbuster stated it better) is that the whole “family values” charade is nothing more than disguised homophobia and excuses for censorship.
If Huckabee or any other politician was actually proposing meaningful reforms to help kids get ahead in life, I’d be interested in hearing about them. So far, unfortunatly, I have not.
If you think I’m wrong perhaps you would be willing to lay out what exactly you mean by “family values” as opposed to just restating the same worn-out platitudes.
August 13th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Marc, your commentary from Iowa the last couple days earns a double whiskey-shot boilermaker salute from me — my highest honor, dude! Ron Paul as po-mo, constitutution grinder, grassy knoll republican hipster freak; who knew?!
President Huckabee? Almost sounds as if Twain or Faulkner dreamt that one up as a plot device for a story about a country that was sick of itself. Plausibly unlikely? Well, get your chicken soup and vitamin C where ever you can find it. Have you ever heard Parliament do country and western?
“I’m just a little old country boy,
young and in my teens,
don’t gamble, drink or smear,
and she done this to me…”
Don’t know what the rusty trailer hitch yer talkin’ ’bout Samuel, but BB’s right,
…except on MOndayS..
August 13th, 2007 at 7:41 am
I saw Huckabee on Cspan a month or so back. The most striking comment he made, sort of an aside, was that he was willing to talk about alturnative sentencing for women who have had abortions. You know, as opposed to murder one. I hope the press gets more specfics on this one.
August 13th, 2007 at 7:48 am
His secret is out.
August 13th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Wait Skynyrd were pro-gun control (Saturday Night Special) and liked drugs….
Seriously though, they at least believed in evolution, I think….
August 13th, 2007 at 8:17 am
“Having a Mom and a Dad at home protects children, raises their grades and academic and career prospects, lowers their rates of criminality and drug abuse and alcoholism and drastically lowers their exposure to crime, physical abuse and sexual molestation.”
As long as we’re chasing Science, I wonder if the statistics on kids with 2 lesbian parents are more favorable with respect to most of the problems on the above laundry list? That’s what I would call science-based family values.
August 13th, 2007 at 9:30 am
It is getting pretty weird here. There is one fact that comes out of the straw poll and that is the really weak GOP field. Numbers were down – two of the so-called frontrunners couldn’t be bothered to show up – and Romney has to be really proud of spending so much to get so little.
Oh well, there’s always South Carolina.
August 13th, 2007 at 10:03 am
I like Huckabee. If I were a far-rightwinger, he’d be my man. And he’s not a bad bass player. Supports more music and arts programs in the public schools, which is kinda weird for somebody in his ideological camp. Decent guy who’s wrong on most issues. It happens.
August 13th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Huckabee is a brilliant communicator. He is every bit as good at explaining his position understandably as fellow Arkansas gov Clinton is. His ideas disqualify him, in my opinion, but it would be a mistake to underestimate him.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Skynyrd (or at least Ronnie Van Zandt) was also pro environment (All I Can Do Is Write It In a Song).
August 13th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
I’m not sure that people care about the political beliefs of Skynyrd or that those beliefs would affect the love for their songs. Also, I have no problem with Van Zandt being “pro environment” as it was viewed back then.
However, I absolutely will not listen to anything by Barbra Streisand. Likewise, you don’t hear a lot of Lee Greenwood music at Democratic gatherings.
August 13th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Your loss Woody. You rednecks can have all that crappy “Country and Western” schlock. Long as I can keep my bluegrass along with Babs.
August 13th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I’ll take anything over Babs, except of course Up the Sandbox.
Skynyrd were good, but I prefer the Allmans. But the country/rock fusion was perfected by Canadians – and an Arkansan – in a Band, of whose name I don’t recall…
August 13th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Eric the Political Hack Says:
“What I was trying to say (and perhaps bunkerbuster stated it better) is that the whole “family values†charade is nothing more than disguised homophobia and excuses for censorship.”
It’s hard to know where to start here. In many poverty zones, the percentage of of fatherless households (never mind the question of marriage) approaches 60 percent. The poor are overwhelmingly single females with fatherless children. This is beyond dispute.
Back when Daniel Patrick Moynihan issued his Moynihan Report he was widely reviled as a racist (and with perfect irelevance to his arguments), but his predictions have come to pass. The trend he warned against in the American black community is now going full throttle in the white community, with the same results, but for reasons that are purely ideological and partisan you have to insist that talk about “family values” is only about hating gays and subverting the Constitution.
Tacking on “ophobic” to your chosen noun doesn’t illuminate anything but remains a favorite tactic, if not strategy of the Left.
“Islamophobia!” “Homophobia!” As charges these are unanswerable becasue they contain neither questions nor substantive criticism.
How would you like being called Christianaphobic? It reduces your opposition to the political agenda of many Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals to a psychological motivation, and implies that you aren’t willing to live in peace with these groups, under any circumstances.
I will believe that “multi-culturalism” isn’t a bad joke and an abbreviation for a set of irrational prejudices when I see Western Leftists engaging their domestic political enemies on the substance of their arguments.
The religious have the right to argue from their religion, just as ideologues have the right to argue from their ideology.
The silliest thing about this discussion is that you apparently think a pack of fleck-mouthed Christians are working to take away your rights and that we are on the 11th hour. Try to keep calm and cultivate liberality. The Christian tradition is the same as the American Christian tradition—overwhelmingly secular and liberal. Lighten up, Francis.
I don’t know about you personally Eric, but most of the people I know personally who think like this are urban and college town provincials who know few to zero American Christian fundamentalists and evengelicals,
August 14th, 2007 at 5:15 am
“but for reasons that are purely ideological and partisan you have to insist that talk about “family values†is only about hating gays and subverting the Constitution.”
No Samuel. It’s not partisan ideology, it’s simple logic and basic observation.
Name one single piece of legislation any GOP member has every sponsored–that didn’t share enthusiastic Democratic support–that was written to help urban poor families.
You can’t, unless you think measures to make abortion more difficult, ban condom distribution in schools and jail minor drug offenders are actually HELPING urban poor families.
Yet there is GOP-backed legislation aplenty to serve the anti-gay, anti-abortion rights political agenda that the GOP promotes under its “family values” marketing slogan.
The big lie here is that the widening disintegration of the traditional American family is the result of liberal values displacing traditional ones. Thus the bromide that a return to conservative women-stay-at-home-and-have-babies values would solve the problem.
To be sure, certain welfare policies have accelerated the rise of single-parent families, but that trend was well established and would exist regardless. Clinton, to his credit, addressed some of that and had much, though not all, of his party’s support for their effort.
Family values are important and it’s well worth having an open, honest debate about what the government can or can’t do to help. But as long as the GOP uses the phrase as a code word to bash gays and working women, there can be no such discussion.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:13 am
Since this thread is stale and we talked about politics and music, here is something that I received today.
—
MY NEW TRUCK
I bought a new Ford F-350 crew cab and returned to the dealer the next day because I couldn’t get the radio to work.
The salesman explained that the radio was voice activated.
“Nelson,” the salesman said to the radio. The radio replied,”Ricky or Willie?” “Willie!” he continued and “On The Road Again” came from the speakers.
Then he said, “Ray Charles!”, and in an instant “Georgia On My Mind” replaced Willie Nelson.
I drove away happy, and for the next few days, every time I’d say, Beethoven,” I’d get beautiful classical music, and if I said, “Beatles,” I’d get one of their awesome songs.
Yesterday, a couple ran a red light and nearly creamed my new truck, but I swerved in time to avoid them. I yelled, “Idiots!” Immediately the French National Anthem began to play, sung by Jane Fonda and Barbara Streisand, backed up by Michael Moore and The Dixie Chicks, with John Kerry on guitar, Al Gore on drums, Dan Rather on harmonica, Nancy Pelosi on tambourine, Harry Reid on spoons, Bill Clinton on sax and Ted Kennedy on Scotch.
I LOVE this truck!!!
—
I know that many of you are now begging to get on some of my friends’ email lists.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:20 am
Moynihan was indeed a racist, and a man proud of his role in the mass murder of East Timorese in the seventies.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:52 am
To be sure, certain welfare policies have accelerated the rise of single-parent families
A) Bullshit
B) Even if it were true, helping people is the job of a just society, regardless of one or two parents.
August 14th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Hmmm/ KOS seems worried about Huckabee:
“His rise on this brand of populism is a phenomenon Democrats should be well aware of if they want to win the White House in 2008.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/14/105631/146
August 14th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Yes. Huckabee is showing that aside from reactionary-right social thinking, economic populism resonates wit hAmerican proles. No surprise. Hopefully Dems will listen. I don’t like his views on 99 percent of the issues, but the guy is quite authentic-seeming.
August 15th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
It happens every now and then: a candidate emerges who I’d never vote for, but who I’d love to campaign for — because it would be interesting and fun. Yes, you can me to the I Heart Huckabee chorus. His is the freshest voice on the Right since I can remember — or at least, since Jack Kemp, who had a heart of solid gold, even if he was far too self-serious at times.
Huckabee seems to just along for the ride on his own bandwagon, and I think that’s kinda cool, even if it means he’ll probably step off quickly when it seems to be headed for the ditch. After that departure (it seems inevitable), this campaign season, which has already started WAY too early, will grind on mercilessly, without relief, a juggernaut of grim determination from the remaining candidates.
Why, the other day, I actually *forgot* John Edwards’ name, and had to resort to the circumlocution of “y’know, that glorified ambulance-chaser?” Perhaps my memory will fail me even more delightfully from now on … “y’know, that woman who used to be married to, um, that other president who DID NOT have sex with that woman, what’s-er-name, starts with an ‘M’?” “Um … I forget now, Italian surname, inhaled a lot of 9/11 wreckage fumes, still dizzy from it?” “Y’know, that Mormon who got knocked on the head with presidential ambitions, and now has amnesia about the fact that he used to almost be a liberal?” (Somehow, I can’t quite consign Obama to anonymity at this point, so I’ll let Woody make something up for me.)
By the way, am I alone in thinking there’s something pathetic about conservatism in America because a certain brand of it distinguishes itself as “Compassionate”? If “conservative” is a good predictor of being Christian, and if being Christian is a good predictor of being more compassionate than most, why the qualification? Maybe because they can’t so easily practice what’s been preached to them?
Put me down n favor of classifying abortion as Involuntary Manslaughter, with the mandatory punishment being a lifetime free supply of contraceptives and ob/gyn checkups. It’s a terrible, terrible crime, and I can think of no better punishment.
August 15th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
“you can me” -> “you can add me”.
Well, you can also can me. I work as a proofreader sometimes?! Don’t tell my clients.
October 30th, 2007 at 3:18 am
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Any info on credit cards other than this topic?…
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