Mike Huckabee Hits a Chord in Iowa

Washington Post: Likable Evangelical Presidential Hopeful Riding Bounce From Strong Straw Poll Finish

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by Sridhar Pappu.

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Sarah Huckabee has known her father, Mike, as many things. When she was little, he was the man whose wallet she could dig into with any sentence that began "Daddy, I need . . . ." Later, he was the man whose ascent to the Arkansas governor's office ripped her away from her friends and familiar surroundings the summer before she entered high school. Now, as his national field director, she's known him as a Republican Party candidate for president and charismatic speaker. But, she says, she's never known him as "hip."

"We'd have to work on some of his clothing options before I'd say that," the 25-year-old Huckabee says during lunch Wednesday at a brew pub here where her father -- sporting a prep-school ensemble of a blue-striped oxford shirt and blue blazer -- eats with a local newspaper columnist.

But hip is precisely what Huckabee has become in the weeks since he placed second in the Iowa Straw Poll on Aug. 11. Indeed, since walking into the media filing room that night and being swarmed by the media as if he were -- these are his words -- "Britney Spears being released from prison," Huckabee has been seen as the cuddly antidote to what has been an awfully tough-talking Republican field. He's the affable, compassionate, good guy and rock-and-roll evangelical who plays guitar and wants to hang with the Rolling Stones.

It's hard to think of a candidate in recent political history who felt such a bounce and media hug after a second-place finish in a nonbinding contest where three of the top-tier candidates or almost-candidates -- John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson -- didn't bother to show. But man, is he working it.

"Oh, gosh," Huckabee says when asked to recall the media appearances he's done since his surprise showing at the straw poll. "I did Colbert, Maher. I did Fox News Sunday. 'Face the Nation.' I can't even remember them all. It's just a blur." (Bill Maher, who had Huckabee on his HBO program on Friday, the candidate's 52nd birthday, ended his interview with the former governor by saying, "Rudy Giuliani scares the hell out of me, so I hope you win.")

"I'd like to think the people of the country are looking for somebody that's not running because he's mad and angry," Huckabee says in an interview here. "My two strongest critics are the extreme right and the extreme left, both of whom say the same things about me. It's not unlike 'The Manchurian Candidate' -- the original, which I think was better. The extreme right and extreme left are so extreme that they join together at the other side of the world. That's really what that movie was about. At some point, extremism almost loses distinction."

Even those who think little of his political accomplishments can see Huckabee's appeal. Randy Thompson, whose advertising and consulting group has long aligned itself with the Democratic Party establishment in the former governor's home state, can spend 15 minutes bashing Huckabee's decade as governor, only to go soft.

"Everyone who's spent time with him whether they thought he was the best governor in the history of Arkansas or the absolute worst can agree that he's a nice man," Thompson says. "I think there's a certain freshness to that. That's what the people supporting him in Iowa saw."

Now, with the help of the national media, that's what the rest of America has begun to see. Huckabee's rare combination of down-home folksiness, compassion and ability to intelligently articulate conservative views has helped his transformation from former Baptist minister to the avatar of the post-Jerry Falwell evangelical movement. Once ridiculed for holding his hand up during a debate when asked which candidates didn't believe in evolution, he's risen above the label of religious zealot into, well, a conservative whom liberals such as Maher kind of like.

Though Huckabee's national poll numbers currently linger at single digits, political analyst Charlie Cook calls him a candidate with "good crossover appeal to social conservatives and more secular Republicans."

"The question to me is, will he get the resources?" Cook says. "Will he be able to take advantage of the vacuum that's out there? Nobody's really taken off, but will Huckabee be able to find the resources? I just don't have the answer to that."

[euge005]

The real news networks are more fair than the Bush Broadcasting Network also known as Fox. Immagine their Tony "Baghdad Bob" Snow had to take loans to support his family when he took the 168,000$ job doing the same thing in the White House as he did for Fox. How many in this country could do quite well thank you on 168k an year?

[euge005]

Good post Jumkey. We also need to add pandering to Communists in China, the huge debt from borrow and give-to-the-corrupt-cronies policy and the favorite sell the nation''s soul and freedonms for big energy. Afganistan was about terrorism. Iraq is about oil, never was anything else. Find me a third party that will put responsible import duties on China, end big energy''s monopoloy on energy, expel the 12 million criminal immigrants, prosecute the other criminals that have bled the nation''s treasury in give aways to the rich or bogus war profiteering contracts and restore a future that has rights and retirement respected. That person deserves to be president. Then we can lock up everyone that was in the Chaney administration for the things they have done for a very long time. Like until they pay us back what was stolen.

[lars008-2009]

Welcome to Freedom%u2019s Watch, an organization dedicated to fighting to protect the ideals and issues that keep America strong and prosperous.
http://www.freedomswatch.org/

The Real Stars: In Today''s America, Who Are the True Heroes?
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Stars-Todays-America-Heroes/dp/1401911447/ref=pd_bbs_sr_7/104-3631381-4433551?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188576368&sr=8-7

Bush''s war support rising?
The latest poll by United Press International/Zogby Interactive showed that 54 percent think the war is not lost, with respondents splitting sharply along party lines on that question.
http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=15553
Majority in poll say U.S. can win war in Iraq
The poll shows 54 percent of Americans said the war is not lost.
http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=15533

Porter ties U.S. withdrawal from Iraq to $9 gasoline
http://www.lvrj.com/news/9466252.html

[lars008-2009]

it is fascist nazi terrorislam stupid...

non muslims of the world unite... fight against the tyranny of the fascist nazi terrorslam imperialist empire of the darkside...

I was a fanatic...I know their thinking, says former radical Islamist
By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this "Blair''s bombs" line did our propaganda work for us.
More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=465570&in_page_id=1770
Bless the Beasts and Children
Fascist nazi terrorslam kills every man woman and child in the village again%u2026 typical mo for terrorslam%u2026
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/bless-the-beasts-and-children.htm

Our Prophet commanded us to fight the kaafirs when we are able and to attack them in their homelands and to give them three choices before we enter their lands: either they become Muslim and be like us, sharing our rights and duties; or they pay the jizyah (poll tax) and feel themselves subdued; or they fight, in which case their wealth, women, children and homes become permissible as booty for the Muslims.
http://islamqa.com/index.php?ref=13759&ln=eng&txt=before%20islam%20arabia%20pagan

the truth about fascist nazi terrorislam...
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/

[hwy71so]

BTW, this country was founded on Christian beliefs and was stronger for it. Now we''re getting farther and farther away from those standards and our country is more than ever in the porcelain eddy.

[hwy71so]

nolalou
So, are you talking out both sides of your face?

You say this:

"It''''s good to know there are some ''''nice guys'''' in the race for president, but I vote mainly on the issues, and track record of the person running.
Posted by nolalou at 12:09 PM : Aug 31, 2007"

Then you say this:

"He''''s a Christian conservative neo-con with an easy going manner, but he''''s still a neo-con!
Posted by nolalou at 12:09 PM : Aug 31, 2007"

Which is it going to be, issues and record or party bias? Sounds like party bias.

[nolalou]

It''s good to know there are some ''nice guys'' in the race for president, but I vote mainly on the issues, and track record of the person running.

Gov Huckabee may be a nice guy, but I cannot vote for him due to his ultra conservative stance on many issues. He is against closing loop holes that allow gun sales at ''gun shows'' without background checks, for example. He''s a Christian conservative neo-con with an easy going manner, but he''s still a neo-con!

[odiejsn1949]

He''s a nice man but I have a problem with a man who was a "God called preacher" getting uncalled and then being called into politics. Also there were no raises (in some areas)for State workers while he was governor. E-mails to his office about concerns were not answered. I guess you could say I''m glad he''s not governor anymore but I hate to think what might happen if he become president.

[condumism]

Huckabee is a NEOCON. To all you braindead fools that think otherwise, you''ll see. This guy is not worthy of anything nationally.

[jumkey]

Well, now, another love letter from CBS News to the Republicans. All they need to do is add hearts and flowers.

The Republican Party needs to be punished for it''s war of aggression, profligate spending, self-centered hubris and rampant corruption. It needs to rid itself of it''s intolerant religious element and start serving the needs of the American people - not the corporations that put them in power and support their misdeeds (yeah, I''m taking about you here CBS).

Anybody but a Republican in ''08.