Huckabee

Fueled by the Faithful

By johngreen — January 4, 2008

As anticipated, Mike Huckabee’s victory in the Iowa caucuses was fueled by support from religious conservatives. Huckabee received 46 percent of the votes of self-identified “born-again Christians” among the GOP caucus attenders, according to the National Election Pool “entrance” poll. In addition, he won 56 percent of those who said that “the candidate’s religious beliefs […]

Pressuring Pastors

By rvineis — January 2, 2008

The AP has it that pastors supporting Huckabee have been receiving intimidating letters. The letters tell their recipients that becoming politically active could jeopardize their tax exempt status.

“Our Values”

By rvineis — January 2, 2008

Huckabee has a new ad out for Iowa. The message is on Huck’s pro-life background and reminds Iowans that Mike is no Mitt. Like the “floating cross” ad, this video has a Christian symbol in the background: an ichthys. Will this ad create the same media buzz like the Christmas commercial? We shall see…

Huck Meets the Press

By Mark Silk — December 31, 2007

On yesterday’s Meet the Press, Tim Russert taxed Huckabee with a line, apparently from his speech to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Salt Lake City in 1996, where he urges the audience to “take back the nation for Christ.” This has roiled the waters a bit, causing various cries of outrage in the […]

Huck Shakes Up GOP

By rvineis — December 30, 2007

This weekend’s NYT has worthwhile piece by David Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick explains how the rise of Huckabee might be signaling a change in the traditional anatomy of the GOP. “Now his success is setting off a debate in his party over whether his success marks the fading of the old Reaganite conservative coalition — social conservatives, […]

Huckstrapping

By Mark Silk — December 24, 2007

From this Dallas Morning News piece, it looks like Huck is doing quite well, thank you, working around the lukewarmness of many of the Religious Right’s Big Dogs.

Huck Angers Catholics

By rvineis — December 23, 2007

Reuters’ Jim Forsyth has this story on how Mike Huckabee’s appearance at a controversial church might anger some Catholic voters. The anger surrounds the church’s pastor John Hagee. “Hagee has a history of denigrating the Catholic religion,” said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, the largest Catholic civil rights group in the United States. […]

Resentiment

By Mark Silk — December 23, 2007

A few days ago, Mike Huckabee told David Brody, There is a level of elitism that has existed, the chattering class if you will who lives in that corridor between Washington and Wall Street and they sort of live in their protected world, and frankly for a number of years many of them thought of […]

Till Proven

By Mark Silk — December 20, 2007

Huckabee pleads complete innocence on the Xmas Greeting ad. Someone ask the cameraman.

The Shiv

By Mark Silk — December 20, 2007

Robert Novak sticks his shiv into Huckabee not for being too religious but for not being religious enough–or at least, for failures on the barricades of the Baptist Wars of yore. The reason the panjandrums of the SBC are not backing Huck, saith Bob, is that when the charge was on to drive the liberals […]

What Really Matters

By rvineis — December 18, 2007

This new Huckabee commercial is a must watch. It is an advertisement where Huck denounces traditional political ads and reminds us that the importance of this season is “the celebration of the birth of Christ.”

Home Cooking

By Mark Silk — December 17, 2007

Good piece in the Washington Post today on the role of home schoolers in the Huckabee campaign. These make for a perfect network in a caucus state–reminiscent of Robertson’s use of church-based organizing to propel him into a second-place finish in Iowa in 1988. The numbers get tougher where there are true primaries–even in states […]

Present at the Creation

By Mark Silk — December 15, 2007

Those anxious to get up to speed on Huckabee and religion should hie themselves to Zev Chafets’ New York Times Magazine piece (“The Huckabee Factor”) and to Liz Clarke’s story in today’s Washington Post (“A Higher Power”). Chafets has the longer and fuller account, but Clarke has some critical additional information–most critically, in my view, […]

The Scrutiny Begins

By Mark Silk — December 13, 2007

A useful if hostile review of Huckabee’s career qua Christian Right Governor of Arkansas. It is dawning on liberals that, yes Virginia, there is still a Christian Right out there.

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