Yesterday afternoon, I suggested that Mike Huckabee’s rivals should try to puncture his image of likable authenticity, not by pointing to his more liberal positions per se, but to use his flip-flops to paint him as this year’s Man from Hope — a slick-talking pol who will tell people what they want to hear.
Last night, at the GOP candidate forum, Mitt Romney questioned Huckabee’s honesty on the issue of taxes.
If you watch the video of the Fox focus group Allahpundit posted at HotAir, you will see Romney’s needling hurt Huckabee, with one participant calling him a waffler.
Michelle Malkin comments:
Loud agreement among focus group members that Huckabee came across as slick and evasive. I’m telling ya: Shuckabee. (Bold mine.)
The NotHuckabees may figure this out yet.
What do you do?
The Name Game.
I do take Ric’s positions seriously, though. Romney (who already has the Mormon thing to overcome with many Evangelicals), McCain and other Republicans must pick out tactics carefully and not belittle either Huck’s or his supporters’ faith.
That requires pretending that they’re not belittling their own faith all by themselves.
happy
The MSM and fellow travelers have spent the better part of the last few decades finding and showcasing extreme pro-lifer nutcases in an attempt to belittle anyone who didn’t support the pro-abortion agenda. Yet, more people and even more significantly more young people, support restricting abortion than ever.
Darleen,
Agreed. I think this approach is more directed to showing the Huckabase that Huckabee is: (a) not who they think he is; and (b) no more likely to advance their agenda than some of the others.
Ok, I’ll play…
Huck, Huck, bo-buck,
Banana-fana, fo, …
… oh.
I agree Darleen, I said the same thing about abortion but these people are deeply silly and what’s worse is that Ric is right that they already think people are laughing at them so to talk to them you have to keep a really really straight face.
Oh. I had links for the abortion thing and the silly thing.
All right, one more time, then I have other fish to fry. You’re clearly getting bored by my bulls*t anyway.
These are strategies for defeating Huckabee. There is every possibility that they will work to that end. What they are not is an attempt to provide Huckabee’s supporters with a credible alternative — a way to get support for their views. They continue what might be called a traditionalist approach, which is an attempt to placate and marginalize — “Your views are ridiculous and not supportable. Go away and let the grownups handle it, and be satisfied with the occasional crumbs that fall your way.” Except that in this case another element is added to the first sentence: “Your views are ridiculous and not supportable, as demonstrated by the nutcase you’ve appointed to front for them.”
Given recent history, I cannot conceive of a tactic better calculated to solidify sentiment among those you sneer at as “the Huckabloc” and recruit waverers to it. Huckabee’s supporters aren’t a majority. They aren’t even a majority of Evangelicals and Pentecostals. Do you want them to be?
The other day I used the image “juggling hand grenades without checking for pins”. You might do well to investigate demographics as a first step.
Regards,
Ric
Why is that the job of anyone except Huckabee’s supporters? Why is it not up to them to find someone they like, that enough other people will also like, that he can get elected?
Ric, your position seems to be that the “Huckabloc” is incapable of functioning in our political system without Big GOP Brother handholding them through it. That doesn’t exactly strike me as upholding their dignity either.
Swooning women who go to church regularly comprise the majority of Hucks voters.
Sorry, but there it is. He’s pretty obviously tapped into social conservative values (which I generally support, when properly executed consistent with our laws & traditions) and the traditional desire of most women for security when he adds in the nanny-state talk. It’s emotional donut holes for them… mmmmmmm… yummy. Puttin’ Jesus in charge of national defense and foreign policy sounds wonderful, until you ask the particular questions about “what does God think about ‘right-sizing’ the Army,” and “Dear God, sorry to bug you, but we have to pick sides in this little tribal battle in sub-Saharan Africa and we were wondering which tribe you favor?” His chat preys on a weak spot in those voters, the same way that a scantily dressed Pam Anderson (or any similarly blessed woman) can knock 30 points off any given straight man’s IQ just by walking in the room. Huck just sits in nature’s sweet spot, just like Pam Anderson… Karl was right yesterday – I don’t think you’re going to be able to argue logic with Huck’s core constituency. I know a single, 40-something professional who is awfully bright, worked her way around a couple conservative think tanks on her way to a high executive position, and *hates* social conservatism and evangelicals generally, and she thinks Huck is simply a wonderful person who would make a great, great president. She’s going to vote for him, and evidently the fact that there’s no rational basis for it – the fact he stands for most of the things she despises – does not trouble her. She is likely the smartest Huck supporter I’ll ever meet, and I hold out no hope for getting her to change her mind.
As for male supporters… I can’t figure out why any rational man would support Huck, except to think either (1) Fred Thompson’s wife knocks 30 points off the IQ of every man in every state where she campaigns with Fred, based on the First Rule of Pamandersondynamics; or, (2) we conservatives have decided that we like the Vacation Home From History, the Fukuyama designed place, and decided we’d like to go back there again, nevermind how the sand gets in your hair every time you bury your head in it… plus the prosperity gospel tells us that if we’re nice to people we’ll get rich and have two or three big screens and a Hummer.
What to do about Huck? Defeat him in the primaries. Don’t worry about the supporters, they’ll find somebody to vote for if they want. Hey that Obama is a nice guy…
I’m not convinced that he’ll lose the general election any more, based on seeing how otherwise intelligent women swoon over him, but I am convinced that if he gets through the primaries, win or lose in the general he’ll be the worst possible thing that could happen to conservative and libertarian ideals. Win – he’ll be Bush x 10 on growing government for purposes of social control. Lose in the general, and it will likely be the result of an epic Howard Dean style flameout, and he’ll take a bunch of senators and house members down with him.
Ugh. I’m tired of this year already, precisely because of this kind of general bullshit that we’re going to have to put up with until November.
Will somebody please wake me up sometime around Christmas?
Ric,
I’m not tiring of your comments. I agree with many of them.
However, given that the title — and topic — is “What do you do with a candidate like Huckabee?,†it should not be surprising (let alone a criticism) that what I have set forth is are strategies for defeating Huckabee.
Second, when I use terms like “Huckabloc,” or “Huckabase,” it’s not intended as a sneer. If the software had a macro for “that segment of the evangelical and fundamentalist Christian community which supports Huckabee,” I might consider using it, except that having “that segment of the evangelical and fundamentalist Christian community which supports Huckabee” in most every sentence would be damn near unreadable.
Third, I think you are assuming that these strategies will only draw more evangelicals and protestants into the Huckabloc. If you have non-anecdotal data to support that premise, I would be glad to see it. If not, I can just as easily argue from anecdotal evidence that evangelicals/ protestants/ fundamentalists are far from monolithic in their political philosophies, and many are not interested in voting for Huckabee, even if he is blatantly attacked. Many are (for example) pro-life and anti-gay marriage, but see Huckabee as Jimmy Carter redux. I would suggest that is precisely why Huckabee did not command a majority of the evangelical vote, even in a caucus situation as against a field that has not made an effort to appeal to social cons generally.
Fourth, I have looked at all sorts of demographic data in the course of looking ahead to the future primaries. I have not found any that supports the theory that evangelicals/ protestants/ fundamentalists not inclined to vote vote for Huckabee for policy reasons will switch if he is exposed as a double-talker. If you have such data, I would be glad to look at it.
Fifth, at the risk of putting words in your mouth (and I apologize in advance if I am incorrect about this), I infer from your comments in prior threads that your solution is for the GOP to do something like pass the FMA. Yet the GOP could not muster a supermajority vote to pass the FMA as a majority party, cannot do so as a minority party, and any candidate who promised to do so would be properly called a snake-oil salesman.
The cold political reality — as I think you admit — is that the segment of the community that holds an active grudge over the lack of advancement of the social con agenda cannot muster the numbers to advance it now. Assuming for the sake of argument that your theory about attacking Huckabee only makes the Huckabase larger, they could theoretically nominate him. The GOP would then be every bit as fractured as it would be if Giuliani gets the nod and the Dobson folk and/or the Huckabloc stay at home or go third-party. The result is worse — neither the social nor fiscal con agenda advances, as HRC or Obama run roughshod over that agenda. I think the Huckabloc is adult enough to have that discussion and figure out what it wants to do short- and long-term. Indeed, that discussion would be healthy. The Huckabloc could listen to the group that is masssively ticked that we have made no progress on entitlements, gov’t overspending, bloated bureaucracies, etc., either. A Festivus-style airing of grievances could be quite cleansing.
As noted above, it is possible I have drawn the wrong inferences from your prior comments. And as I am not tired of your comments, I invite you to explicitly state what you think can realistically be done for Huckabee’s supporters. My experience has been that you are generally not shy about such things.
“Loud agreement among focus group members that Huckabee came across as slick and evasive. I’m telling ya: Shuckabee.”
They thought Huckabee was slick and evasive? With Romney standing up there? I’m sorry guys, but Romney’s about the biggest empty suit I’ve seen since well…Edwards.
I think Karl and and Ric have it about right. If you’re interested in defeating Huckabee, do it with sound arguments showing where his positions fall apart or better yet where he himself has shown he doesn’t really believe in them. Telling Christians they are being “childish” is at least as condescending as the left usually is, so it would by definition be idiotic to do so. At worst, it will get your ass kicked by the less charitable among them. Jesus said to turn the other cheek, but many Christians, especially the Southern kind, figure he was just joking.
Me, I like the notion of a marketplace of ideas. Everybody gets to say what they want, the way they want to, and to reap the consequences, for good or ill. I think if there are people in the body politic who are unfit to participate in it, you don’t suppress or marginalize them, you empower so they can marginalize themselves. And if they find that’s not an acceptable result, they’ll learn from the experience and grow up just fine without having to be told to grow up.
Can anyone deny that Barack Obama is a “better” candidate, in terms of presenting his message in a manner more people are willing to take seriously, than Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton ever were?
If the people supporting Huckabee need to grow up, they’re far more likely to do it, sooner, if we don’t suppress or marginalize them, or treat them like they shouldn’t have to take their licks like the grown-ups do.
In “Part 1,” I suggested that candidates who had shifted their own positions were not as well-suited to this strategy. But Romney did it, and it worked. Whether it would work for Romney in South Carolina is another matter. I would not go so far as to call Romney an empty suit, but he’s probably seen by folks in New Hampshire — many of whom are recent transplants from Massachussetts — as a more credible messenger than he would be in other parts of the country.
McGehee,
I agree with you in general terms, but think everyone should be looking at the particular context. The GOP (like the Dems) is a coalition. We generally do not think of telling people in our coalition to “grow up” or think about them “having to take their licks.” We tend to do so in the context of of the nominating process because that is where intra-party rivalry gets played out (for the most part). Yet after (and outside) that process, it would be preferable to have relative unity, which is why I have suggested the above strategy as a stop-gap measure.
As I have noted in at least one prior thread, I (imo) understand why the segment shorthanded here as the Huckabloc is disgruntled. They have, in their view, got precious little to show for their decades in the coalition. What until recently seemed like a Giuliani nomination represents to them a regression adding insult to injury. Though I have been writing about strategy for the NotHuckabees, it may well be that Huckabee is surfing the wave of the NotGiuliani. I think there’s antipathy to Romney as well, though I think that’s more recent.
What do you do? You goad him into debating policy. Ask him why we should believe he’d lobby to keep taxes down as President when he had no record of doing that in Arkansas.
I’d like to also agree that completely alienating Huckabee’s supporters could lead to an ugly scenario come election day.
Sorry about the rant. I’m really frustrated by this guy and view him as dangerous in the way Huey Long was.
The way to stop him is to pin him down on specific policy issues, asking questions along the lines of, “you stated your policy would be to [Jesus up foreign policy, make morals the standard by which we conduct foreign policy, pick on], how would you deal with [specific world problem.] Make him get specific. Most boobs can say a lot of generalized platitudes, but when forced to do something that is actually hard, suggest viable solutions, they slip up and say something stupid.
This will maybe stop some of the spread of Huckamania, though his core supporters – the swooning women – aren’t going to be swayed no matter how stupid his answers are. And they will be stupid – see e.g. his notion that we have to go after corporations, shut down free trade but open the borders for illegals, in order to make the lot of the average American worker better.
The guy should be a cinch to defeat on logical points – it would be a mistake to try to get his core voters back, the goal should be to stop the bleeding from the mainstream of conservatism into Huck’s left/right religious populist fusion crew.
Karl, when I say this…
…I’m not advocating a tough-love, “tell them to grow up by other means” attitude. What I’m saying is, to me it sounds like some of us here are saying they’re not capable of growing up.
I’m for having enough respect for them to know that whatever problems there may be within the coalition over Huckabee, his supporters are not a bunch of whiny-babies who have to be coddled or everything collapses around our (and their) ears.
Ric said:
I say, why not? If they can do it, that’s how the marketplace works. We don’t get stronger by winning, or by giving up. We get stronger by fighting it out amongst ourselves and, yes, taking our licks.
Even if Huckabee is some kind of existential phenomenon for the GOP, I don’t think it’s an existential threat. It won’t kill us.
You know how the rest of that saying goes.
I think what’s missing really is that the Shiny Vertical Hill peoples will at some point have to decide who they want appointing judges. Bush done good for them in that respect. I think he did good anyway. If they want another Roberts they’re gonna have to help us get a for real president and enough of a Senate to get a justice confirmed. If not then they so bad won’t like the consequences and also they will have really made me not want to be their friend.
The reason I won’t vote for Governor Huckabee is that he is an open borders, illegal alien enabling jackass. He INVITED the mexican government to open a consulate in Little Rock, enticing them with $1 a month rent on offices. What other country on this planet would consider opening a consulate in Little Rock? Any Republican candidate who won’t shut the border down and start enforcing our laws doesn’t deserve to be President. Also, he is nothing more than another billy boob klintoon. Slicker than eel shit and just as big a self-serving piece of garbage.
Karl,
Looking back, I can see where you got that, and how McGehee departs from it. That is a fault of my exposition, not a feature of the situation.
What conservative Christians want, and feel they aren’t getting, is honest advocacy. As members of a coalition, allies, they feel that the other members have an obligation to present their views fairly and work toward them. This is not to say that they would win in all cases; in fact, most of them that I know recognize that their issues are pretty far out for mainline politics and can’t be enacted in anything like a pure form. What they do feel, and feel fairly strongly, is that if their views were presented forcefully and fairly they would win at least the occasional minor skirmish, and that isn’t happening.
Now it could be that their views really are so far out they can’t be accommodated at all. If that’s the case, sincerity Hollywood-style is called for: “The important thing in acting is sincerity. Once you learn to fake that you’ve got it made.” What disgruntles them is the impression that their supposed allies don’t even think they’re important enough to be worth that sort of effort. If your supposed allies aren’t even willing to make token efforts, and are found, often enough, sneering at your aims and desires, what kind of allies are they?
McGehee, I understand your objections but consider them orthagonal to the issue. Please note Darleen’s input. Conservative Christians are actually somewhat heartened by recent societal trends — they are starting to see backlash against PC, the movement in demographics regarding abortion is in their favor, and the antics of the Left have become so extreme that even moderate Leftists are starting to notice and look askance. If that tendency were not there, Huckabee would never have appeared at all.
Honest advocacy, or at the very least an evident attempt to appear to be honest advocates; that’s what they want. As for actual changes in the society, that’s a matter of going out and teaching, and they’re prepared for that; they are, after all, Evangelicals. “Go ye therefore and teach all the Nations” is the definition.
Regards,
Ric
Shave his belly with a rusty razor,
earl-aye in the mornin’…
I like Evangelicals, mostly. That one I linked the other day is pretty unmitigatedly kooky, but in real life we get along fine, me and Evangelicals. Huckabee is ridiculousness though. I need to call and make sure my brother and sister in law aren’t supporting him. They have a lot more Jesus than I do in a day in day out kind of way. It’s unlikely they are, cause they love America, but these are strange times.
When Jeff gets back all this will get sorted. I’m sure of it.
McGehee,
Fair enough.
Ric,
I’m glad you responded, as I apparently misunderstood your prior comments to some extent. I certainly agree that Huckabee supporters are owed honest advocacy of their issues. I also think that those other candidates who can honestly advocate them should do so, more often and with more volume. Indeed, I previously said that McCain should be touting his pro-life record, and would expect the same from Thompson (he shouldn’t be relying on the NRLC entirely to get that msg out in SC and hope he will not). I think Romney would do the same, but doubt the Huckabee bloc would buy it. And I would say the same as to most of the traditional social con issues.
The conflict in these primaries, however, comes from the fact that Huckabee is not a traditional social con on other issues. I will confess that I do not know whether those positions are part of the foundation of Huckabee’s appeal. You have noted that they don’t mind certain types of government assistance, which is (obvs.) not the same as a touchstone.
For example, in the abstract, I would hypothesize that a bloc that is concerned about the culture would be more concerned about illegal immigration than Huckabee has been. And even if national security is not a top tier issue to them, I would think that there are some in the Huckabloc that would prefer a little more hawkish stance.
Maybe I’m wrong. If this bloc is truly a discrete subset of the social cons, I doubt anyone but Huckabee can speak for them. If it is not a discrete group, then I would think that a rival who shows the proper effort and respect on their core issues could be an acceptable alternative (McCain isn’t even really tough on illegal immigration).
At the risk of repeating my prior comments, my impression listening to Huckabee supporters is that Huckabee’s support is based on two main pillars: (1) the perception that the party has not only dissed them, but also may regress on their issues if Giuliani (possibly Romney, possibly McCain) is the nominee; (2) Huckabee’s personal appeal, by which I mean not only his personality, but also that his background as a pastor gives him credibility on moral issues and allows him to naturally speak to them in a style and on terms to which they relate. (You can see/hear this in the structure of his speeches, as well as the vocab.)
I suggested the strategy I did because I suspect that a good chunk of his supporters are not aware of his tendency to double-talk to groups like the NEA — not because they are nitwits, but because his candidacy flourished under the radar of the establishment media (like many aspects of the born-again Christian community). And his rivals foolishly ceded the field to him.
This strategy won’t work for those supporters who really are engaging in identity politics. It won’t work at all if it is done without respect for his supporters and the issues that matter most to them. But pointing out his double-talk on various issues would allow his rivals to also make the case that they are taking those issues seriously and want to appeal to that group on those issues. A candidate can say (although I’m going to put it far too crudely here for the sake of brevity), “I care about the way some public schools contribute to the decay in our culture. Huckabee says he does too, but he courted and was endorsed by the teachers’ union in NH.” He can say, “I care about the culture. Being tough on illegal immigration helps the melting pot work. Huckabee now claims to be tough, but called people with that position un-Christian and un-American. At the very least, people can disagree on this issue without resorting to that sort of attack.” Again, these are crude, “Message: I care” formulations that would need to be fleshed out. But I think they could be fleshed out to provide honest advocacy of various social con issues in a way that would at least prevent the Huckabloc from increasing.
On that we certainly agree — anyone seeking to have an honest impact on the political agenda deserves nothing less, and anyone who would deny it to them, or to any other voting bloc (such as by suppressing, marginalizing or coddling), deserves to suffer the consequences.
What we can agree on I think is that Huckleberry is disturbing and the media done it on purpose and they’re smarter than we are I’m starting to think.
Ric: You better stick around here or I’ll bail. What a whimpy claim, I know. But you get a hard-ass like me to respect your opinion enough to truly consider it, you have something to say. I’m a nobody, and maybe you are too, but I come here to head-butt the bad righties, and that either makes me stronger or weaker. Either way, I still have a vote.
cynn, I’m not going anywhere voluntarily. But my Internet service is damnably intermittent; I describe my status as “aphid on a leaf node”. I can’t always comment in a timely fashion.
Karl, put that way I will agree with you. The trouble is, I haven’t seen any others of the Republican candidates responding that way, and one of the problems is that there’s a certain style involved. Have you ever attended a Protestant Christian revival meeting? There’s a specific vernacular involved that is probably fairly opaque to outsiders; I grew up with it, and can interject “Amen!” at all the proper places, but it’s a complex ritual. Huckabee does it the same way he breathes, and it speaks to conservative Christians in a way that appeals to reason (and even Scripture) cannot. (This, by the way, is also the problem in setting up dialogue with Catholics. They’re saying mostly the same things, especially nowadays, but doing so in different metalanguages. Communication often does not occur.) Thompson could probably do it, but his entire campaign style is based on calm reason and sense, at least as he sees it, so pulpit manners aren’t something he’s likely to take up. It might be marginally possible for McCain, but Romney and Giuliani would look like John Kerry at Wendy’s — they might have the words, but the music is just discordant.
This is not to say any or all of them couldn’t say the same things in a different way and get the message across! It’s merely a way for Huckabee to hit his base where they live that isn’t accessible to someone not part of the culture. Note, too, that it’s cultural rather than specifically religious. Brother Al’s Traveling Globe-Warming Show could be swapped with Kenneth Copeland without anybody taking serious notice.
I think we have to more or less slide on by Al Maviva’s observations. Oh, they’re true enough, but when women in their fertile years respond that way there is apparently nothing, including beating them to a bloody pulp, that can affect it. Ask a Domestic Affairs cop sometime — or just recall Bill Clinton.
Rational conservative Christians respond to rational arguments, but you have to at least make an effort to find a common set of concepts to base those arguments on. And yes, cynn, they are rational — they just start from a somewhat different set of base assumptions, postulates if you will. Demonstrate your grasp of cultural relativism by accepting that and working with it, hmm?
Regards,
Ric
Ric:
Point 1 – Agreed. As I noted above, they ceded the field. (In part, imo, because Giuliani and Romey were in the lead and not courting this group. Looking like a big mistake now.)
I have not attended a revival of the sort you mean, but I am passingly familiar with some of style prevalent in the megachurches and was reminded of it by Bryan at HotAir:
Karl, if all they’d done is cede that audience there would be no Huckabee.
What they did was dismiss it as of no significance.
We on the Right are sometimes prone to wonder why it is that blacks don’t realize they are more kept than supported, and are simply taken for granted as part of the Democrats’ support. Motes and beams. Republicans and Conservatives — the two sets have a large intersection but are not identical — have been taking conservative Christians for granted for a long time. After all, the reasoning goes, where are they gonna go? So they’ve been pointing their arguments at (what they consider) sophisticates, and assuming support from the Church People as a given; no need to address them or their concerns.
Now you know who they’re gonna call.
As for the speaking style you describe: <fx:: open-mouthed, gobsmacked expression> this is supposed to be new?
Evangelical and to a lesser extent Pentecostal churches have a tradition. Once a year, usually in the summer, they have a “revival meeting”, intended to energize the congregation and attract new members. For this purpose they import a preacher, and nowadays the preacher also often comes with a musical group, depending on the style of the church — staid established First Baptists probably don’t, for instance. Revival meetings usually last a week and a day, from Sunday to Sunday, and during the week there will be at least daily services, up to three a day, with the visiting preacher thundering from the pulpit, supported by music, pot-luck suppers (called “dinner on the ground” where I live), extra religious school classes, and a wide range of other social activities. This is an industry. I would guess off the top of my head that there are a thousand to two thousand people who make a nice upper-middle-class living off of doing three to ten such revival meetings a year; their support infrastructure closely resembles that of a touring rock band, complete with bus, special sound and video gear, advance arrangers, and groupies of both sexes. Of that number there may be as many as a hundred who not only support themselves in a very comfortable lifestyle, they also finance anywhere from ten to a hundred missionaries in places like Africa, mostly from their own efforts but also with second-tier support from the rest.
The style is superficially similar to that of the megachurch preachers, but megachurches are fixed installations; the preachers (it’s usually a team) live in and interact with the community and have to (publicly at least) meet community standards. Revival preachers are itinerants, with all the foibles of any other category of travelin’ man. At least at the larger churches, one thing that almost always happens is at least one female responding as Al Maviva describes, and the resulting rush to cover it up. This is normal, accepted, even regarded as part of the charm. And that, not the megachurch system, is the set of cultural imperatives that Huckabee is tapping into. You won’t get anywhere near as strong a reaction from establishing that he’s hypocritical as you appear to expect. To a close first approximation, revival preachers are supposed to be “fallen from Grace” in one or more sometimes-significant ways. It’s part of the system.
Regards,
Ric
Karl, Ric
If one wants just a glimpse how the Dems will go after a Huck nomination …and I don’t necessarily mean the kosskiddie spitflying … but the sort of “I was saved from the muck Huck is stuck in…” The Huckabee win is America’s loss
“Have you ever attended a Protestant Christian revival meeting?”
In a tent, if you want to experience the real deal. Or do they still do that? My first couple were tent revivals with itenerant preachers who scared me so bad I still have nightmares forty years later. Don’t believe any of it, really, but I still have bad dreams.
Hmmm… I attended a couple Billy Graham things at Angel Stadium about 1969 or 70. Closest I’ve been to a revival, I guess.
I grew up Presbyterian… with Jewish and Catholic family and friends … and took Catholic instruction as an adult
My exposure to Protestant Christian revival as described by Ric is non-existent.
When I was a kid I managed a restaurant and one of the waitresses was a Pentecostal. She was a great employee but pretty nuts, always regurgitating – you could tell she was just repeating stuff – all sorts of craziness. She asked me one day if I could hire a friend of hers and well yes of course. This lady was amazing. Never pontificatey but she would tell you what she believed and why. Her husband had been laid off so she was working, and I think I came to regard her as something of an earthly saint. Pentecostals are big people mostly cause they are very food and work centric, big in a healthy way, but big. No makeup allowed, and they have tons of kids – this lady had five – and she was amazingly beautiful in this saintly way for all that, and she looked ten years younger than she was. Very hard to explain. After her husband got another job there was no question of her staying on and I never saw her again. Mostly though when I feel protective and respectful towards fundamentalists I think of her. Huckabee is different.
Ric,
I’m in pretty close to full agreement as to everything you said. Though I wrote “ceded,” I could have easily written “ignored” or dismissed.”
I quoted the HotAir precisely because there really isn’t anything new about the speaking style, though they are (as you note) a bit more genteel with respect to the behavior of the preacher. FWIW, my father’s current church has the traveling preachers, staying in town, shaking the can for the missionaries and such, but not on the scale you describe. That’s why I earlier referred to “a revival of the sort you mean.” I figured you meant the big shows.
And though I did not touch specifically on it, I would expect that Huckabee will get cut slack by his base, not only for the reason you mention, but also because he is so very Clintonesque. Bill was cut tons of slack for his wascally ways by his base; Huckabee is a social con version of that. (It’s more complex, I know; Bill also hauled out the phonebook-sized Bible whenever he got in trouble, but this is a blog comment, not a doctoral thesis.)
While I think my proposed strategy can be effective, I would never describe it as a “magic bullet.” Rather, the point is marginally erode his base — or at least to slow or stop themomentum of its growth, while getting in and seriously contesting the social con vote. After all, we are still dealing with a multi-candidate field with no strong front-runner. In this context, difference of one or two points can be a big deal in states with decent-sized evangelical populations, so long as their voter participation is not disproportionate. For that matter, zero growth would look much better to his rivals than a +8 bounce.
Karl, I agree with you that it can be done, that it should be done, and that the methods you outline constitute at least a valid starting point. I simply don’t think that it will be done, and that is because I don’t see any indication that the candidates we have understand the problem.
What I have been trying to do, here, is not so much argue with you over whys and wherefores as it is to give folks an insight into a subculture that is clearly (from the various responses) as unfamiliar to them as the daily life of New Guinea Highland tribes. If we ever develop a school of sociologists interested in data rather than dogma, a very interesting question for them would be to investigate just where and when that subculture split off from the main line of American life and became isolated. In the beginning its predecessors were part of the main thread of the thought processes and emotional imperatives that led to the establishment of America, and its influence has waxed and waned throughout the developments leading to what we have today, sometimes benign, sometimes malign, always present as at least an undercurrent. We are currently in a waxing phase, of which the Rev. Mike Huckabee is visible evidence. The previous phase, in which it both retreated and was pushed out of the limelight and the mainstream, was both longer and deeper than average, and today we find that many people have completely lost touch with it — and in the meantime it, like any culture under pressure, has changed in significant ways. It’s clear from the reactions that, to many, its re-emergence is rather like the sudden arrival of Martians. Nelson Rockefeller could communicate and engage with it, even in opposition; Mitt Romney, putatively an ally, seems not to have a ghost of a clue.
They’re baaaack. Deal with it.
Regards,
Ric
“Sincerity is the key. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”