Huckabee has history of winning support, or at least attention, with 'bumper sticker' style
The Associated Press
Monday, January 7, 2008
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas: Mike Huckabee's offbeat antics — what some would call stunts — helped propel him to the front of the Republican presidential pack after a decade honing that "bumper sticker" style as governor of Arkansas.
This is a man who moved with his wife into a triple-wide trailer while the governor's mansion was being renovated. Who wedded her again, before a crowd at a sports arena, to show support for a marriage law he had just signed. Who, five weeks into Arkansas' top job, worked a day in the state motor vehicle office sporting a "Cashier Trainee" tag before launching and winning a fight to streamline the agency.
During his decade as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee's style drew criticism from opponents who bristled at his lighthearted approach to serious public policy debates. But it also got the attention and often the support of voters Huckabee needed most.
Transferred to the opening round of the 2008 presidential nominating contest, Huckabee's wit charmed even his Republican opponents — before they saw him as a threat. Among those listening to the affable Arkansas governor were evangelical Christians, who on Thursday night helped propel Huckabee past millionaire Mitt Romney to win the race's first test of strength, the Iowa caucuses.
Touching down a day later in New Hampshire, Huckabee tried to reassure skeptics in a famously independent northeastern state that holds its primary on Tuesday.
"Being president is a serious job. Running this country is serious business. The issues we face are serious," he told about 175 people in Henniker, New Hampshire, on Friday. "The reason I have fun is because I love America."
By that reasoning, he adored Arkansas.
Huckabee's antics earned criticism from lawmakers and groans from reporters, but helped the Republican win re-election twice in a Democratic-leaning state.
"Here in Arkansas, obviously, he knew coming in with one of the most heavily Democratic legislatures in the country he would have to have a strategy of going around the Legislature, around some of the traditional media, around some of the traditional power makers in politics," former Huckabee aide Rex Nelson said. "He had a superb ability at doing that."
Jay Barth, a political scientist at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, said Huckabee's gimmicks in national politics echo those in Arkansas because they were met with criticism but helped Huckabee win over the voters he needed. In Iowa that meant evangelical Christians; in Arkansas, rural white voters.
Barth cited Huckabee's opening campaign ad for president, a tongue-in-cheek spot that featured an endorsement by action star and Internet cult hero Chuck Norris.
"Most of these gimmicks all said the same thing: 'I am one of you. I get the entertainment value of Chuck Norris. I want to celebrate Christmas. I'm sick of negative ads and I know you are too,'" said Barth, a member of the state Democratic committee.
Huckabee's penchant for gimmicks to get his message out began with his first year in office, 1996, when he traveled the Arkansas River by bass boat to drum up support for a one-eighth of 1 percent sales tax for conservation efforts.
Months after his one-day stint at a state motor vehicle office, Huckabee successfully fought to drop annual vehicle inspections and streamline renewals for driver's licenses and car tags.
In 2001, Huckabee created a "tax me more" fund to chide legislators who suggested targeted tax increases to offset $142 million in budget cuts.
"It's put up or shut up time," Huckabee said then. "Either put up the money, write the check and let us see if you're serious, or quit telling me that Arkansans want their taxes raised."
By 2003, the fund held between $2,000 and $3,000.
Legislators lamented the governor's "bumper sticker" approach to serious state budget problems. Senate Majority Leader John Riggs, a Democrat from Little Rock, then called Huckabee's fund a "grandstand act and what you would expect of somebody who takes on clownish behavior."
Nelson, Huckabee's aide, said the criticism was not a major concern and came from people who were not going to support the governor anyway.
Huckabee even used his home and his marriage to gain publicity. In 2001, Huckabee signed into law an option for couples to enter into covenant marriages, which can be ended only after counseling and only on certain grounds — adultery, criminal activity, physical or sexual abuse or a two-year separation.
To mark the occasion, Huckabee and wife Janet converted their 30-year union to a covenant marriage in front of a crowd of 6,400 people at Alltel Arena in 2005.
"We hope to say to others, 'Marriage is tough, but it's best to work through those difficulties,'" he said.
That was five years after the Huckabees moved into a triple-wide manufactured home so the governor's mansion could be renovated. Huckabee went along with plenty of jokes — including an appearance on NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" — when the first family moved into the once-wheeled dwelling. Mrs. Huckabee jokingly referred to herself as the queen of the triple-wide — and received more than $6,000 in honoraria from mobile home industry trade groups grateful for the publicity.
"We're blowing the stereotypes by letting people see that this is not some pull-behind-the-truck trailer," the governor said at the time. "This is a beautiful, very nice home. We're thrilled to death to have it."
Barth said the mobile home may have looked like a public relations disaster, but actually was a political gain for Huckabee.
"It was ridiculed mercilessly, but if you look at the counties where he needed to win, those white, rural, swing counties, those were the places where there are a lot of mobile homes," Barth said.
