Huckabee’s still in it, but barely.  Just barely.  Or maybe not.  Either way, here are two encomia to the man and his wife.  The first is an article about Janet Huckabee with a title that belies the irony of a healthy marriage: ”Shoots Bear, Submits to Husband.” 

She likes her pie, is middleweight boxing champ Jermain Taylor’s biggest fan, and, with the help of her Baptist decorator, made a hash of the Arkansas governor’s mansion, jettisoning draperies to let the light in and stowing antiques in favor of faux. She slams doors, packs heat, and, like most of us, will never be confused with Jackie Kennedy: “Janet is not White House material; I doubt she’s learned which fork to use,” says one of her Little Rock detractors, who was apolitical before Mrs. H. made him apoplectic. “She’s such a big old horsy woman, she has no grace. I’ve seen her chew gum on television!” So it’s a shame she doesn’t give more speeches and interviews, because what a lot of Americans would say to a person of such poor comportment and little breeding is: Come and sit here, by me.

The second article is an older one about Huckabee the Joker and how it’s both good and bad to have a funny president. 

Some of our most popular recent presidents have been able to keep people smiling. John Kennedy was a first-class wit who delighted in humor for its own sake. Reagan was more of a grandfatherly teller of set-piece jokes with some famous quips. “Honey, I forgot to duck,” he told his wife after he was shot. To the surgeons he said, “I hope you’re all Republicans.” Clinton was a great storyteller and knew how to make fun of himself.

So what’s wrong with Huckabee’s sense of humor?  Does it belie a lack of seriousness?

The Orlando Sentinel styled today’s Florida primary election a wide-open race that could be decided by white evangelicals, a voter-bloc comprising 25 to 35 percent of likely GOP voters. But evangelicals there aren’t necessarily aligning with Huckabee, the Baptist minister on the ballot. In fact, they seem evenly split among three of the major GOP candidates:

“Each candidate speaks to a different interest of the evangelical perspective, and each is getting a share of the pocketbook and family-values vote,” said Pastor Joel Hunter, author of A New Kind of Conservative…A Mason-Dixon Florida Poll conducted this week showed 27 percent of self-described “born again” voters backed Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister who combined a “FairTax” campaign pitch aimed at blue-collar voters with conservative “biblical” values to win a victory in the Iowa caucuses.

But 28 percent favored former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who once made much of his anti-abortion, anti-gay-marriage credentials but is now touting himself as a businessman who can fix a “broken” Washington establishment. And 23 percent chose Arizona Sen. John McCain, a maverick conservative and supporter of the Iraq war who in 2000 blasted some evangelical leaders as “agents of intolerance.”

At this point, only Giuliani is already looking like an also-ran, polling just 9 percent. Let’s pretend we’re the Sunshine State. If you were voting today in Florida, which GOP candidate would you vote for and why? Tomorrow, we’ll see if our winner matches the one down south.

Of the problems that conservatives seem to have with Huckabee, it’s that he doesn’t always seems conservative.  He’s raised a lot of eyebrows (and won a lot of centrist and even some leftist hearts) with his talk of social justice and his record of spending, and he’s done little to correct those raised eyebrows.  Some of us are just afraid that he’ll try to fix things with programs, and cost us money, and make us wonder what we were thinking in electing him.  The Wash Times says Huckabee’s been fighting with the Arkansas Republican party for a decade and that a win might mean that he keeps up the fighting as president.

Well, race seems to be a theme today.  Christopher Hitchens is wondering why the media seem to be ignoring Huckabee’s comments in South Carolina about the Confederate flag.  This is a fair question, but Hitchens’s tirade against the flag and the Confederacy come off as a bit silly, and a bit misinformed (read it here). 

If Hitchens’s vehemence and invective are any kind of clue, then neither God, nor the South, is really dead.  According to what Huckabee said, yes, the Arkansan does seem to be appealing to a very specific demographic, but he also seems to be appealing to those who prefer local government over Federal government.  Was Huckabee being racist, or was he appealing to a general (Southern) loathing of Big Government?  A little of both, I think, and not enough to warrant the lynching that Hitchens seems to want.

Today is M-Day, the Michigan primaries. Word is, it could be Romney’s last chance to stay in the race. Meanwhile, John McCain and Mike Huckabee spent yesterday scouting each other’s voters. The Washington Times reports:

John McCain and Mike Huckabee traded places yesterday, with the war-hawk senator preaching Judeo-Christian values and the ordained Southern Baptist minister talking bullets and bombs at an armored-vehicle plant…Mr. McCain, who won the New Hampshire primary last week and vaulted into the front-runner position for the Republican presidential nomination, has spent the last week trying to lock down independent voters, including evangelicals, who delivered a win to Mr. Huckabee in the Iowa caucuses two weeks ago…

Looking to swipe voters from Mr. McCain, Mr. Huckabee pitched national security and military strength yesterday during a stop in Lansing. With a huge armored truck as a backdrop, he said Michigan has long led the nation with “its capacity to build and manufacture our airplanes and our tanks and our armored vehicles, our bullets and our bombs.”

With presidential primaries based on a combination of voters’ real “druthers” and their perceptions of candidates’ electability in November, which candidate — Huckabee or McCain — has the better shot at swinging the other guy’s voters his way?

Everyone knows that Mike Huckabee was endorsed by martial arts master and warrior of The Octagon, Mr. Chuck Norris. But Mitt Romney wants to know, “Who really deserves the roundhouse kick?” Romney’s answer: “Not me.”

Last night, after the Lessons and Carols service at my church, a friend said, “Hey, a buddy from work told me to ask you all at WORLD to stop writing all that pro-Huckabee stuff.”  He and his friend, I think, like Ron Paul, and that Huckabee is no good.  I’m undecided, but I have to say, Huckabee, in many respects, seems like just a more well-spoken, modest version of the current president.  When President Bush was running in 2000, he ran as a plain-spoken, sometimes funny candidate (like Huckabee now).  He had little foreign policy experience (also like Huckabee).  And he seemed to be a non-politician in a field of Washington regulars (yet again, like Huckabee).  Finally, he appealed to Evangelicals and Good Country People as folkish and regular (Huckabee). 

If conservatives have learned something from Bush, it’s that plain-spoken regular nice guys might make good neighbors, but not necessarily the best presidents.  Here’s Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Huckabee.  Is there really a Huckabee/Bush similarity, or am I just looking for reasons not to like Mike?

Of course, the title of this post belies the content.  This is not a post about how Huckabee is going to bring back Old Tyme Religion.  I’m not sure I want it back.  No, this is not a post about Huckabee the Preacher.  It’s a post about Huckabee the Candidate. 

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This is news Republicans like to hear: The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey reveals that Mike Huckabee has pulled to within a single percentage point of Hillary Clinton and is only four points shy of Barack Obama. Of course, poll numbers are to be taken with a grain of salt, but it sure looks like the next couple of months are going to be interesting.

The Times wonders why social conservatives aren’t hearting Huckabee: 

Unlike any of the major candidates, he’s still on his first wife and first position on abortion. Once we start getting into the inevitable personal stories of redemption, Americans would have a much better time listening to Huckabee tell how he lost 110 pounds than sitting through Rudy’s 9/11 story again or looking at pictures of Mitt’s 10 grandchildren.

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