Music to His Ears
Mike Huckabee Hit a Chord in Iowa and Is Off and Running
By Sridhar Pappu
Washington Post
Sarah Huckabee has known her father, Mike, as many things. When she was little, he was the man whose wallet she could dig into with any sentence that began "Daddy, I need . . . ." Later, he was the man whose ascent to the Arkansas governor's office ripped her away from her friends and familiar surroundings the summer before she entered high school. Now, as his national field director, she's known him as a Republican Party candidate for president and charismatic speaker. But, she says, she's never known him as "hip."
"We'd have to work on some of his clothing options before I'd say that," the 25-year-old Huckabee says during lunch Wednesday at a brew pub here where her father -- sporting a prep-school ensemble of a blue-striped oxford shirt and blue blazer -- eats with a local newspaper columnist.
But hip is precisely what Huckabee has become in the weeks since he placed second in the Iowa Straw Poll on Aug. 11. Indeed, since walking into the media filing room that night and being swarmed by the media as if he were -- these are his words -- "Britney Spears being released from prison," Huckabee has been seen as the cuddly antidote to what has been an awfully tough-talking Republican field. He's the affable, compassionate, good guy and rock-and-roll evangelical who plays guitar and wants to hang with the Rolling Stones.
It's hard to think of a candidate in recent political history who felt such a bounce and media hug after a second-place finish in a nonbinding contest where three of the top-tier candidates or almost-candidates -- John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson -- didn't bother to show. But man, is he working it.
"Oh, gosh," Huckabee says when asked to recall the media appearances he's done since his surprise showing at the straw poll. "I did Colbert, Maher. I did Fox News Sunday. 'Face the Nation.' I can't even remember them all. It's just a blur." (Bill Maher, who had Huckabee on his HBO program on Friday, the candidate's 52nd birthday, ended his interview with the former governor by saying, "Rudy Giuliani scares the hell out of me, so I hope you win.")
(Continued here.)
By Sridhar Pappu
Washington Post
Sarah Huckabee has known her father, Mike, as many things. When she was little, he was the man whose wallet she could dig into with any sentence that began "Daddy, I need . . . ." Later, he was the man whose ascent to the Arkansas governor's office ripped her away from her friends and familiar surroundings the summer before she entered high school. Now, as his national field director, she's known him as a Republican Party candidate for president and charismatic speaker. But, she says, she's never known him as "hip."
"We'd have to work on some of his clothing options before I'd say that," the 25-year-old Huckabee says during lunch Wednesday at a brew pub here where her father -- sporting a prep-school ensemble of a blue-striped oxford shirt and blue blazer -- eats with a local newspaper columnist.
But hip is precisely what Huckabee has become in the weeks since he placed second in the Iowa Straw Poll on Aug. 11. Indeed, since walking into the media filing room that night and being swarmed by the media as if he were -- these are his words -- "Britney Spears being released from prison," Huckabee has been seen as the cuddly antidote to what has been an awfully tough-talking Republican field. He's the affable, compassionate, good guy and rock-and-roll evangelical who plays guitar and wants to hang with the Rolling Stones.
It's hard to think of a candidate in recent political history who felt such a bounce and media hug after a second-place finish in a nonbinding contest where three of the top-tier candidates or almost-candidates -- John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson -- didn't bother to show. But man, is he working it.
"Oh, gosh," Huckabee says when asked to recall the media appearances he's done since his surprise showing at the straw poll. "I did Colbert, Maher. I did Fox News Sunday. 'Face the Nation.' I can't even remember them all. It's just a blur." (Bill Maher, who had Huckabee on his HBO program on Friday, the candidate's 52nd birthday, ended his interview with the former governor by saying, "Rudy Giuliani scares the hell out of me, so I hope you win.")
(Continued here.)
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