Campaigns and Elections' Politics - January 2008 - (Page 31)

The candidate found his Oprah when he won the endorsement of tough-guy movie icon Chuck Norris, here with his wife, Gena, at a Huckabee press conference in Washington, D.C. and a ﬁreﬁghter in Hope, Ark., he grew up in a family where none of the men in memory had completed high school. He describes his home as a place of stern discipline, little luxury and—inevitably—empty calories. “I grew up on fried chicken, fried okra,” he writes, “fried green tomatoes, fried catﬁsh, fried pork chops, chicken fried steak, fried potatoes, fried onion rings, fried pies, fried squash and fried ham.” But from the start, his ambitions were far from ordinary. “Prior to coming to politics,” Huckabee told the Family Research Council’s Values Voters Summit in October, “I was a pastor.” And prior to being a pastor, he was a teenage politician. His peers elected him governor of Boys’ State at 17, president of Hope High School at 18. And even before that, Huckabee found a way to broadcast himself and build a constituency. He started working for a local radio station at 14, a career that eventually ﬂowered into advertising, public relations, and television work. And he’s founded and headed an Arkansas television station and run an Arkansas communications ﬁrm. All of which tends to get de-emphasized in press coverage that plays up his time as the pastor of several Arkansas churches and head of the Arkansas Baptist Convention. “He is uncommonly articulate and glib,” says John Brummett, a political columnist with the Arkansas News Bureau who “He can become the darling of the media with a couple of wins, but it’s very difﬁcult to convert that spotlight into soldiers on the ground.” has been covering Huckabee since his ﬁrst campaign. “Some people attribute that to the pulpit, and I think that’s part of it, but more of it is radio. If you’ll notice his inﬂection, his enunciation, it’s radio, not preaching.” H is media experience left him master of the heartwarming anecdote and the snappy sound bite. “From Hope to Higher Ground,” his campaign manifesto, offers 12 “stops” to restoring America’s greatness, as in “stop thinking horizontally” and “stop being a selﬁsh citizen.” These are followed by January 2008 Politics 31

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Campaigns and Elections' Politics - January 2008

Campaigns and Elections' Politics - January 2008 Contents GOP Retirement Woes Getting Girls to Think Politics Movers & Shakers: Karen Hanretty If I Had It To Do Over: Mike McCurry Eve Fairbanks Column Cover Story: Mike Huckabee Hopping the Pond GOP: The Next Generation 5 “Truths” About Women Voters Reds & Blues: States in the Spotlight High Road/Campaign Doc Bookshelf Dick Morris Column John Zogby Column Techbytes Playbook Coming & Going: Who's Where Campaign Sign-ups Marketplace Quips & Slips

Campaigns and Elections' Politics - January 2008

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