HUCKALIAR CHANNELS LUCIFER FOR AD PLOY
The next time you see the Huckster on TV look closely. Are those horns sprouting from his head? And is there the beginnings of a tail that is barely poking through his $1000 populist inspired suit?
Is Mike Huckabee morphing into Satan right before our eyes?
The devil, as we all know, is extremely clever. And frankly, there has been no more clever, or underhanded, or downright dispicable stunt pulled by a campaign than Huckaliar’s “rope a dope” of the press yesterday.
You’ve all heard by now that Huckadope called a press conference in order to unveil a new attack ad. But then, according to “top aide” Charmaine Yoest, the holy spirit descended from heaven and the candidate decided not to run the ad sliming Romney. Actually, Charmaine said no such thing but it would be a perfect explanation given Huckabee’s now blatant use of his Christian religion and Christian symbols in his advertising. Huckasaint has abandoned any pretext of secularism in his bid for the presidency and has now made his campaign a mobile tent revival meeting.
I can’t wait for the healings to start.
And then, in an act of cynicism so profoundly disturbing that the assembled press broke into nervous laughter, Huckabee went ahead and showed the ad to the press anyway, hoping the assembled cameras would do his dirty work for him and spread the ad’s message across the country while flanking the candidate were 5 screens highlighting charges against Romney’s flip flopping.
Elmer Gantry couldn’t have done it better. Aimee Semple McPherson has got nothing on Huck when it comes to pure “hucksterism.” And what made this little episode so nauseating was the dripping, oily, insincere explanations of the candidate himself:
But he then opened his press conference by saying that while the ad was expected to start appearing on local television at noon, he had decided an hour before to pull it. Conventional wisdom is to attack back if one is attacked, he said, but he had decided there was much negativity and he wanted to tell voters about why he should be president, not why Mr. Romney should not.
What a crock.
“The people of Iowa deserve better,†he said.
In the past few days on the campaign trail, Mr. Huckabee has painted Mr. Romney in the harshest of terms, flatly calling him “dishonest.†He vowed today that in addition to stopping the ad, he would stop criticizing him in his speeches.
“It’s not worth it,†he said.
Asked if he wasn’t being hypocritical by showing the ad to a roomful of cameras that were likely to replay it, Mr. Huckabee said he was showing it only because reporters were so cynical that if he didn’t show it, they would not believe that he really had made it. “You’d say, ‘Where’s the ad?’ †he said.
“It’s never too late to do the right thing,†he said.
Unless you want to believe that the Huckabee campaign is a complete amatuer hour organization, this little drama put on by the Huckster and his staff has taken political cynicism to a new low.
Will this bit of blatant dishonesty matter to his base of holy rollers? Given everything else about the candidate that has come to light in the last months, I sincerely doubt it.
UPDATE
At a Huckabee rally this morning at a Pizza Ranch restaurant in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, Huckabee’s longest applause line came when he talked about pulling the ad. “If I can’t do it with self respect, and can’t do it with decency, it isn’t worth doing,†he told the crowd from a podium next to the salad bar.
Jesus effing Christ! What a pompous, gut churning lump of hypocritical milquetoast. A pox on the party if they nominate this slug. And a pox on those of you who think this guy is qualified to be anything other than an itinerant preacher who doubles as a snake oil salesman.
I will never again respect anyone from Iowa if Huckabee wins there!
Comment by Cory — 1/1/2008 @ 5:43 pm
A pox on the Republican base? This political season is going to be a laugh riot!
Comment by Melanie — 1/1/2008 @ 5:57 pm
Cory
Based of past known statistics here is what you are looking at.
Republicans will bring to the table about 85,000 voters..not in a county, that’s the whole state.
45% of those voters are evangelical Christians, note not just religious which I support strongly but a very identifiable interest class.
Iowa tends historically to vote for the most conservative of the pack, not necessarily the most electable.
Comment by SlimGuy — 1/1/2008 @ 6:56 pm
Don’t you think you went a little easy on Huckabee there? Come on, show some teeth.
Comment by Slublog — 1/1/2008 @ 7:11 pm
You gotta admit, while the bait-and-switch ad was a low point morally, it was pretty slick. Huck gets the best of both worlds — he slimes Romney with the sleaziest muck (which normally he would never get away with), and ends up scoring points with his wingnut base for decency and good manners.
Nice to know the voters pay attention to the details. Makes me feel safe for the Republic.
Comment by busboy33 — 1/1/2008 @ 7:33 pm
BTW…a picture of the Church Lady would be perfect at the top of this post.
Comment by Slublog — 1/1/2008 @ 7:55 pm
The worst part is that the ad is FULL OF LIES. Romney left office with a big deficit? Um, no. Romney raised $700 million in taxes? Um, no.
And yet, when the MSM plays this ad for free on their news programs, there is no one from the Romney Camp to disavow the content.
What BS.
Comment by Bill Mitchell, Raleigh, NC — 1/1/2008 @ 8:12 pm
Even the Bible says that demons “appear as an angle of light”. Huck proves that.
It is one thing for a Godless man like Clinton to be a liar, but when a man hides under the cloak of Godliness and says “believe in me because I believe in God” and then HE lies to my face, to me that is despicable.
Comment by Bill Mitchell, Raleigh, NC — 1/1/2008 @ 8:13 pm
Does no one understand that Huckabee has no real support? His “supporters” are simply making a point about the tax plan he supports, and will never make him the candidate.
Comment by jafo — 1/1/2008 @ 8:19 pm
The Huckster is living well by the first two clauses in Lincoln’s famous maxim: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” Apparently when it comes to Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two clauses are enough to get you to the head of the line. As it is, I live in abiding fear that the November election will see Obama v. Huckabee. If that’s the case, I’m pulling the blankets over my head and abstaining. Even duplicitous, corrupt, cackling Hillary would be better than those two.
Comment by Bookworm — 1/1/2008 @ 10:26 pm
Is it even legal for Jay Leno to offer free airtime to one single candidate the night before an election when he does not offer that same airtime to the other candidates?
Isn’t that an FEC violation?
Comment by Bill Mitchell, Raleigh, NC — 1/2/2008 @ 6:53 am
This whole business with the ad and the reporters reminds me of Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians to watch out for “phonies who have fooled you into thinking they are Christ’s apostles… Satan can change himself into an angel of light, so it is no wonder his servants can do it too, and seem like godly ministers. In the end they will get every bit of punishment their wicked deeds deserve.”
Huckabee may have been a very good and godly Baptist minister at one time, but politics persuades good people to do bad things.
Comment by BubbaJ — 1/2/2008 @ 7:55 am
[...] In other words: Huckabee may get the support of the Evangelical base, but what about the other voting blocs? Running a campaign like this may result in victories in some states, but too many other Republicans in other states will turn against him and vote for whomever his main rival will be. In order to win the Republican nomination it’s not suffice to appeal to just one of the member-groups of the conservative coalition. You’ve got to have the support of all of them, or at least of parts of all of them. [...]
Pingback by PoliGazette » Pandering to the Religious Right — 1/2/2008 @ 9:00 am
No, Bill Mitchell from Raleigh, NC, it isn’t an FEC violation for Huckabee to be on Leno the night before the election.
Comment by Melanie — 1/2/2008 @ 12:39 pm
I’m an Iowan who’ll be at the caucus for Rudy tomorrow night. I agree with the comments on Schmuckabee. I could see Romney, Thompson or McCain (although I’m still ticked about his opposition to the Bush tax cuts and his support for campaign finance reform and shamnasty), but Huckabee is turning the election into a religious referendum. Almost anyone else would be a better choice.
Comment by Bob — 1/2/2008 @ 1:46 pm
I think we are seeing the beginnings of the Huckabee melt down. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy. Although it should have happened sooner. Yes, his support of the FairTax was the beginning for him. I apologize over and over.
Comment by Jim — 1/2/2008 @ 9:34 pm