Huckabee Rally Really Feels Like a Rally
GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Ahhh...this is more like it. Advertised as a rally, this event at Furman University actually feels like one. The mostly young crowd lined up over an hour before the event. A teenage band helped pass the time, the room bursting with at least 1,500 people packed standing room only. Two walls had to be collapsed to withstand the flow of people and even that didn't seem to alleviate the pressure of people all around.
Press risers didn't arrive until about 20 min before the event, and they were too short. So the photographers hauled their equipment to the side of the room and scrambled to get a decent shot of the podium. A camerman shook his head at me with sweat on his face.
Huckabee opened by playing a personal favorite on the trail -- "Taking Care of Business." A scan of the crowd and all you could see emerging from the sea of heads were hands holding camera phones, jostling for a blurry image of Huckabee.
Huckabee joked that he thought maybe the crowd assumed Chuck Norris was showing up and continued on to deliver yet another speech he would have given in Iowa, a self-deprecating speech that addressed anti-abortion rights, the "fair" tax, immigration, and fully funding the military.
Midway through his speech, Huckabee improvised when the projector screen came down and the light dimmed. He didn't know what was going on, and as the screen rolled back up, he turned to it with with his hands upheld and said, "praise the lord." The crowd laughed.