Gov. Mike Huckabee is featured in a recent issue of Esquire magazine. The article, which refers to the 2008 presidential candidate as "the nicest guy in [the Republican] party", is available at Esquire.com.
Here's an excerpt:
This is Mike Huckabee, postelection. You think he was gonna go home to Arkansas and toss lawn darts? The man is busier than he was during the Iowa caucuses. He's sleeping four hours a night, jogging five miles a day, flogging his new book on a fifty-six-city tour. He's interviewing the occasional Baldwin, doing daily commentary for ABC Radio, signing T-shirts that read HUCK YEAH! Just four years till 2012.
The first time I meet him is the day before the Baldwin sighting. Two Huckabee volunteers are driving him from his Times Square hotel to an event in New Jersey. He's wearing a gray suit and black kangaroo boots and scrolling through his BlackBerry. He looks young for fifty-three, if a bit more slope-shouldered than I expected. Today he's got a speaking gig at a fundraiser for the New Jersey Family Policy Council to promote his book Do the Right Thing.
The book tells his unlikely tale: A barely known former Arkansas governor and onetime Baptist pastor most famous for writing a diet book suddenly becomes front-runner — if only briefly — for the Republican nomination for president. It's an inspirational tale. You want to win the Iowa caucuses? You don't need big money. All you need is a combination of hardcore conservative values, economic populism, a self-deprecating sense of humor, a TV ad with Chuck Norris, some Wall Street bashing, pheasant hunting, and a Tonight Show appearance with you jamming on bass guitar.
Huckabee also spells out his plan to fix the Republican party. The short answer: Return to conservative moral values, including an emphasis on pro-life issues and a ban on gay marriage, and stop spending money like Democrats. Oh, and gag Mitt Romney. Huckabee caused a mini firestorm by taking a couple of uncharacteristically harsh swipes at Romney, whom he considered phony and high-handed. ("He was usually accompanied by a phalanx of eager young aides who bullied their way through events as if they were all carrying badges, guns, and the authority to move the 'little people' out of Mitt's way. It did not go unnoticed by other candidates or by the 'little people' who spoke with open contempt of the treatment.")
Huckabee salts the pages with his trademark borscht-belt one-liners. At one point, he slams his fellow Republicans for flip-flopping. They "change positions as easily as Cher can change costumes in one of her many farewell tours." The Baptist in him apparently had a pang of guilt over the unkind words. The next sentence reads: "I think Cher is on her third or fourth 'Farewell Tour' — saying good-bye is a hard thing to do, and frankly, it would be a shame if she did quit given that I have to admit that her show is an amazing blend of rock concert, circus and fashion show."
Read the entire article at www.esquire.com.
Mike Huckabee is a former governor of Arkansas and currently shows a TV show (Fox New's Huckabee) and a daily radio commentary (ABC Radio's The Huckabee Report). For information on how to bring him to your next event, visit www.premierespeakers.com/mike_huckabee.
