Mike Huckabee - Presidential Election of 2008 - Elections - Evangelical Movement - Reli... Page 1 of 13 December 12, 2007 The Huckabee Factor By ZEV CHAFETS Correction Appended Mike Huckabee walked into the lobby of the Des Moines Marriott at 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 3, deposited an armful of dirty laundry at the desk and checked to make sure he was being credited with Marriott Rewards points toward his next stay. Then, accompanied by his wife, Janet, his daughter, Sarah, and his press secretary, Alice Stewart — who doubles as his Boston Marathon trainer — he walked into the dark, freezing morning, climbed into a waiting S.U.V. and headed for Central College in Pella, Iowa. Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, was in a buoyant mood on three hours of sleep. The night before, his commercial flight suffered a long Chicago holdover on the way from Boston, but he had reason to hope that his days at the mercy of the airlines might be numbered. A Des Moines Register opinion poll had just shown Huckabee passing Mitt Romney to take the lead in the run-up to the Jan. 3 caucus. His picture, he already knew, was on the front page of that morning’s USA Today. Now he was headed to Central College, to appear, surrounded by enthusiastic students, on ‘‘The Early Show’’ on CBS . This kind of momentum, he hoped, would finally produce enough cash to allow him to charter his own plane. The governor was especially happy that morning about an impending endorsement he expected (and received the following day) from Tim LaHaye, the author of the apocalyptic ‘‘Left Behind’’ series of novels. ‘‘Left Behind’’ is wildly popular among evangelicals, who have bought more than 65 million copies, making LaHaye a very rich man and one of the few writers who is also a major philanthropist. Recently he donated a hockey rink to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, although some members of the faculty there deride ‘‘Left Behind’’ as science fiction. Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, has no such reservations. He considers the ‘‘Left Behind’’ books, in which the world comes to a violent end as Jesus triumphs over Satan, a ‘‘compelling story written for nontheologians.’’ Huckabee’s affability and populist economic and social views have sometimes been misinterpreted as a moderate brand of evangelical Christianity. In fact, as he wrote in his book ‘‘Character Makes a Difference,’’ he considers liberalism to be a cancer on Christianity. Huckabee is an admirer of the late Jerry Falwell (whose son, Jerry Jr., recently endorsed his candidacy) and subscribes wholeheartedly to the principles of the Moral Majority. He also affirms the Baptist Faith and Message statement: ‘‘The Holy Bible . has truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.’’ On the road to Pella, Huckabee talked about the enthusiasm he now encounters everywhere he goes. For example, he said, his driver in California not only declined payment but also wrote the governor a $50 personal check right on the spot. It was, I thought, a dangerous anecdote to tell within earshot of a professional driver traveling along an icy highway at high speed, but Huckabee was feeling invulnerable, and http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/magazine/16huckabee.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=... 4/27/2010 Mike Huckabee - Presidential Election of 2008 - Elections - Evangelical Movement - Reli... Page 2 of 13 the driver, I later realized, was already on the governor’s team. Huckabee normally starts his mornings by running 6 to 10 miles and reading a chapter from the Book of Proverbs. Today he was too pressed to do either, but he planned to catch up later. Anyway, he knew much of the day’s assignment, Chapter 3, by heart. ‘‘Trust in the Lord,’’ he quoted, ‘‘and lean not upon thine own understanding.’’ Not a bad motto for a campaign that is still too broke to do any independent polling. Chapter 3 also contains the admonition to ‘‘keep sound wisdom and discretion.’’ Huckabee is, indeed, a discreet fellow, but he has no trouble making his feelings known. He mentioned how much he respected his fellow candidates John McCain and Rudolph W. Giuliani. The name of his principal rival in Iowa, Mitt Romney, went unmentioned. Romney, a Mormon, had promised that he would be addressing the subject of his religion a few days later. I asked Huckabee, who describes himself as the only Republican candidate with a degree in theology, if he considered Mormonism a cult or a religion. ‘‘I think it’s a religion,’’ he said. ‘‘I really don’t know much about it.’’ I was about to jot down this piece of boilerplate when Huckabee surprised me with a question of his own: ‘‘Don’t Mormons,’’ he asked in an innocent voice, ‘‘believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?’’ In this unpredictable primary season, Mike Huckabee’s surge in Iowa — and beyond — is perhaps the greatest surprise. Iowa was supposed to be a pushover for Mitt Romney. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, began working the state more than a year ago. He commands an army of trained professionals and a vast ad budget. Mitt Romney’s message flows like Muzak out of every radio and TV in the state. All this effort has reportedly cost Romney more than $7 million. Huckabee, by contrast, has spent less than $400,000 in Iowa. His paid staff in the state is not much bigger than a softball team. Televised Huckabee ads have been harder to catch than ‘‘I Love Lucy’’ reruns. Even more amazing, when the Register poll came out Dec. 2, Huckabee hadn’t been in the state for three weeks. In campaign time, that’s approximately three centuries. But absence made hearts grow only fonder. Not only was Huckabee leading in Iowa, he was also five points ahead of Romney, 29 percent to 24 percent, and double digits away from the rest of the field. The movement was catching hold beyond Iowa too. On Dec. 5, a Rasmussen daily tracking poll showed Huckabee leading the Republican field nationally, ahead of Giuliani by three points, 20 percent to 17 percent. This represented an eight-point jump for Huckabee in only a week. Other polls still had Giuliani in the lead, but the Real Clear Politics Web site, which averages national surveys, showed Huckabee in a virtual tie for second. Still, in spite of this surge in popularity, Huckabee has almost no money or organization. He has no national finance chairman, no speechwriters and a policy staff of three. His ‘‘national field director’’ is his 25-year-old daughter, Sarah. Huckabee does have a pollster, Dick Dresner, but so far there hasn’t been enough cash to take any polls. ‘‘I think we can go until the beginning of the year,’’ Dresner told me. ‘‘If we start by then to raise some money, we can begin to acquire the trappings of a campaign. Which, at the moment, we don’t really have.’’ Scott Reed, who ran Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, doubts that Huckabee will come up with the money. ‘‘He spends more time in cable TV studios than he does meeting with his finance committee,’’ he says. ‘‘A big win in Iowa will get him enough to go on for a couple weeks. Then, if he comes in second or third http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/magazine/16huckabee.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=... 4/27/2010 Mike Huckabee - Presidential Election of 2008 - Elections - Evangelical Movement - Reli... Page 3 of 13 in New Hampshire, he’s in the race. Short of that, he’s a one-night stand.’’ Many Republican strategists remain dubious about Huckabee’s chances. ‘‘He’ll get hammered in New Hampshire,’’ the Republican consultant Mike Murphy told me. ‘‘A primary campaign is like a book. Iowa is just the first chapter. After that come more chapters. Opponents will hit Huckabee for being soft on immigration, Arkansas allegations, that kind of thing. And at some point, Republican elites will begin to ask, Is what we need a smallstate governor who doesn’t believe in Darwin?’’ Huckabee himself speaks about a Nascar strategy, with his opponents crashing into walls or one another and him, as the last man on wheels, winning the race. Other candidates, especially Romney and Fred Thompson, have already begun bumping up against him, and of course, he bumps back. And Rudy Giuliani, the putative winner of a Romney flameout in Iowa, is starting to look for Huckabee in his Florida rearview mirror. Huckabee may lose the race, but he has already scrambled it. The Republican presidential contest was expected to focus on foreign policy, national security and executive competence. Huckabee has moved it to issues of character, religion and personality. Regardless of what happens, he is now a real player in the Republican Party, a man to be taken seriously. It has been a startlingly quick transformation. Six weeks ago, I met Huckabee for lunch at an Olive Garden restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. (I had offered to take him anywhere he wanted and then vetoed his first choice, T.G.I. Friday’s.) He walked through the room in such total anonymity that I felt sorry for him. Our waiter, Corey, had no idea who he was, or even that he was supposed to be somebody. Lunch with Mike Huckabee is a study in faith-based dieting. He has lost 110 pounds in recent years, a feat he chronicled in a book, ‘‘Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork.’’ This has given Huckabee something to talk about on daytime television.