Salt Lake Tribune: Huckabee campaign "specialized in sanctimony layered on top of disingenuousness"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Lowry: Republican campaign field muddled by the Huckabee hoax
Rich Lowry
Article Last Updated: 01/18/2008 08:34:09 PM MST



Mike Huckabee has pulled a neat trick. His appeal so far has been limited exclusively to evangelicals, yet the press has taken him seriously as a new populist force in the Republican Party who could at any moment ''break out'' to appeal to lower-income voters. Who knew a candidate of Christian identity politics would be afforded such respect? But Huckabee has managed it, which is one reason why he should open a strategic-communications firm the day after he leaves the presidential race. The ability to gull analysts into making so much from so little is a rare and potentially lucrative talent.

Huckabee won Iowa for one reason - he won an overwhelming plurality of evangelical voters in a GOP caucus where they made up an astonishing 60 percent of the electorate. Huckabee won 47 percent of evangelical voters, and only 14 percent of nonevangelicals - less than John McCain and Fred Thompson, who tied for third in Iowa, and barely more than Ron Paul, who finished fifth. On this basis, E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post declared ''a revolution in Republican politics.'' David Brooks of The New York Times opined that Huckabee's win ''opens up the way for a new coalition,'' given how profoundly he understands ''middle-class anxiety.'' Huckabee's national campaign chairman Ed Rollins talked in similarly grand terms of rallying working-class voters to the GOP. But working-class haven't cooperated. In New Hampshire, where Huckabee finished a distant third, he won 33 percent of evangelicals, but just 7 percent of nonevangelicals - less than Ron Paul. In Michigan, he lost evangelicals to Mitt Romney 34-29, and got just 8 percent of nonevangelicals - again, less than Ron Paul. So among nonevangelicals, Huckabee is as much a fringe candidate as the sometimes bizarre libertarian purist.

Huckabee is a kinder and gentler Pat Robertson. His twinkle-in-the-eye and skill as a performer make him an upgrade over previous Christian conservative candidates, but don't give the average voter any reason to vote for him. His campaign has specialized in sanctimony layered on top of disingenuousness, low demagoguery and policy incoherence. In Iowa, Huckabee played the religion card against his Mormon rival, all the while pretending he was doing no such thing. Then, he became enamored of his line that people should vote for a candidate who looks like someone they work with rather than someone who lays them off - another shot at Romney. He concluded his TV ad in Michigan with the line, but it got him nothing. Ordinary looks don't constitute an economic policy.

Huckabee's campaign has been run on, to invoke two of his favorite substances, duct tape and WD-40. When reporters asked who his foreign-policy advisers were, he cited former ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton as someone with whom he has ''spoken or will continue to speak.'' But he never had. His advisers then said he had e-mailed Bolton, which he had once without ever following up. It was vintage Huckabee - slippery and laughably unserious.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_8012983

[sufrommich]

1. The republicans created the "sanctimony" monster,

now it threatens to tear apart their party.Sweet,delicious irony.

[Fresh_Start]

2. I want a copy of the Christian Bible that says

lying is okay just as long as it helps you get what you want
ignoring poverty is okay as long as you give money to your church
being blind to suffering is okay as long as you attend church once a week

[TwilightGardener]

3. This guy really nails Huckabilly. I still can't figure out why he's taken seriously, at all.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

4. I've got to believe that it's the first sentence of the third paragraph:

"Huckabee is a kinder and gentler Pat Robertson. His twinkle-in-the-eye and skill as a performer make him an upgrade over previous Christian conservative candidates..."

It's like people who watch a movie or TV show and feel that they "know" and "like" the actor or actress. In reality, all that they "know" is what that person is choosing to share with them in that moment. The same is true for Huckabee. Pandering to the evangelicals was a no-brainer. It's all Marketing 101 and the people who are amused by shiny objects dangled in front of them really respond to that "twinkle in the eye."

The rest of us see a crazy son of a bitch with a questionable resume and ridiculous plans (beginning with "The Fair Tax / National Sales Tax").

:patriot:

[gratuitous]

5. Rich Lowry lecturing America on sanctimony and disingenuousness?

:rofl:

Oh please, now that the unstoppable monster has slipped his bonds and lurched out of Castle Frankenstein, good Republicans like Lowry are running around, panicked, to tell us what their pandering has wrought. As if liberals and progressives haven't been screaming it in their vapid little faces for the last quarter century or more.

Now you're all worried about "slippery and laughably unserious" candidates, Mr. Lowry? Where the fuck has your head been for the last decade? Oh yeah, three feet up George W. Bush's colon. Fuck you, Rich Lowry.