JUST A THOUGHT : Be still my heart
Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2007
So there I was, lying in bed early
Sunday morning, with none other than Mike
Huckabee staring me right in the eye. Safe to say, it wasn’t a pretty way to start the day. I’m sure that if someone had told me a decade ago that it would come to this — that Mike Huckabee would someday presume himself worthy of the same office shared by the likes of Lincoln and Washington — I’m certain my reaction would have been measured and sensible. Anything is possible in life, I like to remind myself. So why not ?
And yet despite all the rumors and assumptions, on Sunday morning I was slightly baffled just the same as I watched Huckabee (a former Southern Baptist preacher who once weighed 300 pounds ) tell the nation that he is forming a presidential exploratory committee on NBC’s “ Meet the Press. ”
“ I think America needs positive, optimistic leadership to kind of turn this country around, to see a revival of our national soul, ” the former Arkansas governor told host Tim Russert.
“ I make no apology for my faith, ” Huckabee went on to say. “ My faith explains me. ”
There’s no doubt that Huckabee, 51, the country’s newest presidential candidate (did I just write that ?) is right to say that his religious principles help define him as a politician. They also pigeonhole him. Americans listening to Huckabee talk for the first time Sunday morning likely walked away thinking they already know everything there is to know about what seems like the 103 rd candidate to officially enter next year’s presidential contest — and it’s not even February 2007 yet.
In many ways that’s not an unfair estimation of the man. From his first day in office to his last, Huckabee rarely surprised his supporters, his detractors, and the public in general. Regardless of the issue before him (abortion, the death penalty, gay rights, taxes ) Huckabee was always Huckabee — which is to say he always took the conservative route. Not that being known as solidly conservative with 10 1 / 2 years of executive experience is necessarily a bad thing.
According to the pundits, there are three front-runners to capture the presidential nomination at next summer’s Republican National Convention in Minneapolis: U. S. Sen. John McCain, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and “ America’s Mayor ” himself, Rudolph Giuliani
Should all three make a run of it, it’s my estimation that everyone else currently running for president on the Republican ticket is effectively running for the vice presidency, regardless of what the candidates or their handlers might say.
A million reasons abound as to why the presidential slot is most likely out of Huckabee’s reach. But, that doesn’t mean the vice presidency is an impossible dream — not by a long shot. All three of the probable presidential nominees I listed above are, to put it politely, social liberals. Should the party decide to back any one of them, then there is a very strong possibility that a social conservative would be taken to balance the ticket out.
Obviously Huckabee would prefer the opportunity to campaign for the presidential nomination and win it outright. At the outset, though, that just doesn’t seem to be a realistic possibility. So expect to see a Mike Huckabee on the campaign trail who’s very cordial, especially toward those presidential aspirants who have the best chance of proving victorious. Mike Huckabee is no dummy. He wants to win. Should everything go just right, the vice presidency is something that (believe it or not ) is definitely within his grasp. President Huckabee ? It’s not as crazy as it sounds, much to my disbelief. It could really happen.
• • • Right now, the one thing that stands the best chance of tripping Huckabee up entirely — more than a lack of name recognition, a lack of foreign policy experience, and more than even a lack of money — is Huckabee’s own petulant, unforgiving nature. Sunday morning, after Huckabee was through selling his candidacy to America, I began flipping through the Democrat-Gazette. My eyebrows raised a bit when I came across a column written by one Mike Huckabee. Suddenly I found myself baffled all over again. Basically the article was a defense of all this business concerning the “ destruction of hard drives” in the last days of Huckabee’s time in office. Certainly all of us are entitled to fight back against claims that seek to do injury to our names, but I can’t help thinking Huckabee made a mistake by calling out a Democrat-Gazette reporter for filing “ misleading, if not dishonest” stories that read as little more than an attempt “ to create an impression of wrongdoing. ” Maybe Huckabee thinks playing off the evil, liberal mass media is smart politics, and plays to the general public. In many cases, of course, making journalists out to be the bad guys proves to be a very effective strategy. And yet to me it comes across as whining. Huckabee is now running for president of the United States; he has much more important things to occupy his time. Say what you will — it’s more proof that Huckabee lacks thick skin, or maybe any skin at all. At this rate, I simply don’t know how he’s going to survive the exasperating process that is a presidential campaign (including questions about Iraq, Iran, the national debt, and health care ) if he still hasn’t figured out how to defend himself without being mean and nasty in the process. Scott Shackelford is editorial page editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times. His column appears on Tuesdays.
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