Posted by
michelangelo on Sunday, February 10, 2008 12:26:48 AM
Governor Huckabee is a great communicator, and I've enjoyed many of his one liners as well as some well-articulated comments on the campaign trail...but this sappy CPAC speech was a flop. His faith at the first of the campaign felt like a natural part of him, but it has become a very apparent political device. He goes out of his way to bring it up ("a 'PASTOR' used to tell me such-and-such when I was young", instead of leaving it "SOMEONE" or "A WISE MAN" --a more wise and tempered version, not wanting to distract from the such-and-such). He can't resist pushing the Faith button, and it's starting to feel like the same piano key being banged incessantly---the repetition of a certain note in a song is perfectly natural (like the Faith note might be on the campaign trail) unless it obnoxiously draws attention to itself over and over.
This speech was shallow and trite, terribly unpresidential, and transparently pandering. Who wants a president who says "I didn't major in math, I majored in miracles"??? How does that bode well for his economic philosophy, foriegn policy, etc. etc.?
What a contrast to Mitt Romney's speech. His was powerfully expansive and patriotic, giving up on a much better chance at the nomination for the sake of helping the Republican Party win the White House and protect the nation. How smallishly selfish is Huckabee, whose intentions are typified in today's speech with rhetoric like "me, me, me, when I were a boy" and "me, me, me, and my fairy-tale tax" and "me, me, me, I'm staying in this dern race, 'cause this ain't no campaign for president, this is a campaign for selling-a-bunch-faith-promotin'-books-next-year and livin'-the-high-life-through-speaking-engagements-as-I-milk-the-Bible-Belt-of every-last-widow's-mite".
Huckabee has shown he’s the Al Sharpton of Christian Conservatism, playing up stereotypes on the campaign trail to rally voters who are prone to special interest. He’s a weasel trying to use the unsuspecting believer's faith as a tool to get what he wants. It's enough to make the discerning Christian cringe.