His name is Mike Huckabee, not Hucka(whatever)
Be forewarned, this may be considered a rant and may also offend some people, including some supporters of Mike Huckabee.
During Mike Huckabee’s campaign, I have sat idly by and watched the media and other personalities put him through a series of tests that no other candidate had to go through. Every idle word he uttered was scrutinized and put through the ringer. He has been called a religious bigot and other names that I do not care to mention. Some of the comments I have read on different blog posts have been simply stupid, accusing him of all manner of things. One of the things that has grated on my nerves is the way they use his name.
You can ask my wife and she will tell you, I hate nicknames. There were several different people that tried to pin nicknames on my daughters and I fought them with a passion. It is just one of my pet peeves simply because I believe nicknames can be very disrespectful to the person in question. Huckabee has been called everything from the Huckster and on down. Even some of his supporters have made lists that name his sayings or Huckisms, as they like to call them. All I can say about that is, shame on us for doing so.
This morning, I came across a blog that starts off with the following paragraph. Here is the link to the entire article. It is just an example of what I am talking about.
Mike is “da Huckabomb,” the Huckabullet liberals wouldn’t be able to dodge, the Huckismatic Huck-a- leader who could bring about the reHuckification of the United States of Huckmerica. He’s the Huckmeister, the Huckassiah, the Huckling Huck of all things Huck.
And he is Huck-a-Finished.
If you are unlucky enough to read the blog that makes the above statement, you will find a blog author who simply does not get what Mike Huckabee is all about. He completely misrepresents the support that Huckabee had and still has, claiming he only won Iowa. Somehow, he fails to mention the seven other states he won after Iowa, not to mention states like Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, where he came in a very close second. Several million people voted for Mike Huckabee, something the author of the above quote doesn’t seem to get. As I said above, this is just one example of how Mike Huckabee has not been taken seriously by a lot of people. They want to poke fun at his name and at the man himself and they fail to really examine his record and how he conducted himself as Governor of Arkansas and as a Presidential candidate.
Sorry folks, but the plays that have been made on his name are disrespectful to our candidate and lessen the image that needs to be put forth, that of a man who is serious about running for President and serious about solving the issues and problems our country is facing. As supporters of Mike Huckabee, maybe we need to ask ourselves a question. Have we made statements that cause others to make light of Mike Huckabee? Have we caused potential supporters to fail to take him as the serious candidate he really is? Just something to think about.
That’s my take!
Larry
I have been disgusted by this name obliteration as well. It is clearly a sign of disrespect and seems to be used more and more. Besides this article you have referred to, the worse ridicule he suffered in this regard was from the Fox news channel. They invited two comedians to ridicule Huckabee personally and their ridiculous comments included making fun of his name. At length they demeaned him with their attempts at humor. It was disgraceful, and any presidential candidate deserves better, especially when Fox purports to be “Fair and Balanced.” We are all sick of the media’s biased coverage of our candidate, and I am glad to see you have called them on it.
Good one Larry,
Yes, submit to RCP. I saw that blog too, and posted about it on Hucks Army.I was so mad!! But I guess in many ways, he only exaggerates what some of us started. Or really the media / drudge with Huckaboooom, right before Iowa.
I feel really bad because he mentioned my huckabullet article
But as a newspaper advisor, I’ve learned that in a sea of headlines, you use what you have to to reel them in to the story, and I guess it worked, for better or worse.
Thanks Larry. I have found it most appalling from Gov. Huckabee’s supporters … you can look through his blogroll to see how many supporting bloggers disrespected the Governor in their blog title. (“Huck This” comes to mind). He deserves better from the media and certainly from his own supporters.
I read your rant with a chuckle.
It sounds so funny hearing someone from the right complaining about name calling. How often have I heard champions of the left being put down with name calling in order to silence their message. John Kerry wasn’t able to get much of his message out because of the din of name calling. Do you remember “flip-flops?”
Of course, the right seems justified when the name calling supports their cause. But, when a Christian is called names and his message is quelled the shoe is on the other foot and it doesn’t seem to fit just right.
Ha Ha! It is just to funny for me to write any more….
As someone who destroyed his name repeatedly I still cannot help agree.
Compare his record as Governor to that of Bill Clinton’s and you realize that this guy is infinitely more capable than the man who lead the free world during America’s height of power.
Looking at his ability to fight his way to the top for a time with no resources or name recognition attests to his skill as a communicator and politician.
His graceful exit (no he was not late and benefited McCain by staying) and comentary in regards to other presidential candidates continue to remind us that he a person of humble spirit and sincere belief in his fellow American, even if they have different political persuasions.
The level to which he was marginalized by th media, especially surrogates and supporters of Romney, I found utterly disgusting.
He and Duncan Hunter both had my keen interest, I would consider strongly supporting Governor Huckabee in the future.
Dr. Forbush,
I do not engage in name calling. Calling John Kerry on his flip-flops is not name calling, even though I didn’t do that either. Mike Huckabee is one of the best presidential candidates we have had in a very long time and it was sad to see him marginialized as he was, for no other reason than because the Republican establishment was so completely against him. People like Rush Limbaugh and others used his name in a way that was and still is shameful.
Laugh all you want, Sir, but Mike Huckabee isn’t finished.
Dr. Forbush,
I hate to break it to you but Kerry was amazingly inconsistent in his message.
Dr. Forbush,
You aren’t breaking anything to me about Kerry. I realize very much how inconsistent he was. All I said was that calling him on his flip flops was not name calling. I am really not sure where we are headed with this conversation.
Made up names, and worse, made up words, abound on the Internet and in the blogosphere. It is the nature of the ignorant beast. Of course, Huckabee isn’t the only one.
I agree with you completely, Larry.
But Dr. Forbush has a point … If you’ve listened to Rush Limbaugh, for example, you have heard “Algore,” a reference to the Igor character and Al Gore’s somewhat-wooden personality, and a number of others and a lot of name-mocking.
I’ve also heard (from various sources) “Hilarious Clinton,” “Clinocchio,” “Barack Osama,” and many, many others. I think it’s absolutely wrong, whether the offender is on the right or left.
More than that, it’s childish. Are we really trying to choose a President using grade school-style conversation?
Almost 4 million people voted for Huckabee and I can tell you from calls I made all over the country that there are millions more who liked him best but didn’t believe he could win because of media smear so decided they had to “use their vote” to vote for the easier Democrat to beat, or “fall in line with McCain” to unite the party and wrap up the nomination. I did hear alot of “he will make a good vp” as if this would happen just by their telling this to me. Others just didn’t get a chance to vote for Huckabee in their states because McCain got the 1191.
I believe the GOP has vastly underestimated Governor Huckabee’s appeal and, if they don’t wake up, the Republican Party will be the one to lose.
I have faith in Senator McCain that he will do the right thing as he has always been known to do and pick Huckabee as his running mate. Both men have the character and conviction to stand for princple above trying to just say anything to win. Both men fought back when others told them to give up. They were the last two standing. They should stand together for the win!!!
Clearly for some, there was just a visceral hostility to Mike Huckabee throughout the campaign. I speculated that some conservatives were just uncomfortable with the soft edge of his rhetoric, epitomized in his “I’m a conservative, but I’m not angry at anyone about it.” For some conservatives, that’s effectivly a contradiction in terms.
Big money traders also don’t like The Fair Tax. Big-money luxuries would be taxed at 23% instead of written off by accounting teams. As I said, when you are accustomed to privilege, “fairness” doesn’t sound so great.
But the biggest source of animosity, I think was just a reaction to his outspoken confession of faith. Again, My faith doesn’t just inform me, it really defines me.”
Now, I can very well understand why this might give high-church-low-profile Christians and especially secularist unbelievers a little bit of a skin-crawling feeling. But most interesting and not so simply explained was that about half of evangelical Christians were mildly or surely repelled by him. Why was that?
Oh, for some there was great overlap with the first group I mentioned of dyspeptic conservatives. And maybe some have come to accept the misguided political decorum of modesty about a Christian profession in political realms. Maybe they just thought a bare-faced Christian faith in political forums wasn’t “cool.”
Some probably accepted the fiscal and foreign policy criticismsthat I think were really grounded in some of the other problems I’ve mentioned. But, though I’m an assertively pro-life Christian, I was a conservative before Roe v. Wade or “social conservatives” existed, and I see those criticisms as groundless, except for some empathetic rhetoric. Anyway, these evangelical Christians who shunned Huckabee were the hardest for me to explain.
I think that the evangelicals who rejected Gov. Huckabee were more or less giving in to other pressures. There are people who do spell “GOD” G-O-P, to borrow the phrase from a certain Presidential candidate.
That’s really the only explanation I’ve ever had … and that’s even knowing some of them in real life.