Up Close With Mike Huckabee…

Zev Chafets piece for this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine on Mike Huckabee is already available online. It’s very well worth a read. Here are some selected quotations…

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.

I’m unclear why Mr. Chafets thinks the Olive Garden is better than Fridays. Fridays’ Jack Daniels shrimp and rib dinner is fantastic. Regardless, it’s still an odd spot to meet.

Note To Huckabee: It is strategically wise to compare your foreign policy credentials to those of George W. Bush’s, it will not play well in the Republican primary when people will consider electability and the kinds of attacks that such an admission will make:

In his defense, Huckabee mentioned that as governor, he had visited ‘‘35 or 40 countries,’’ where he sometimes negotiated trade deals. ‘‘In some ways, this kind of experience is more significant than that of senators who sit on some committee,’’ he said gamely. He also noted that George W. Bush came to office as a Southern governor without foreign-policy experience.

It’s important for a presidential candidate to be able to command respect, I get the feeling that Huckabee did not impress Mr. Chafets with his command of foreign policy:

At lunch, when I asked him who influences his thinking on foreign affairs, he mentioned Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, and Frank Gaffney, a neoconservative and the founder of a research group called the Center for Security Policy. This is like taking travel advice from Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, but the governor seemed unaware of the incongruity. When I pressed him, he mentioned he had once ‘‘visited’’ with Richard Haass, the middle-of-the-road president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Huckabee has no military experience beyond commanding the Arkansas National Guard, but he doesn’t see this as an insuperable problem. ‘‘What you do,’’ he explained, ‘‘is surround yourself with the best possible advice.’’ The only name he mentioned was Representative Duncan Hunter of California. ‘‘Duncan is extraordinarily well qualified to be secretary of Defense,’’ he said.

I can relate, but I’m not sure how useful this anectdote is in a presidential stage. Just imagine Huckabee in a uniform, being laughed it…it doesn’t really conjure up any useful image:

In the supremely macho culture of small-town Arkansas, he stood out as a klutz. One of Huckabee’s lasting childhood memories is how, in seventh grade, the gym teacher put him on a team of the worst basketball players and made him perform for the amusement of the entire class. ‘‘It was just to get others to laugh at us,’’ he says. ‘‘I remember how humiliated I felt, being singled out.’’

An example of Huckabee dealing with major “crisis”:

What happened next is related in the first 31 pages of ‘‘Character Makes a Difference.’’ This is Huckabee’s ‘‘Profiles in Courage’’ (if J.F.K. had been writing autobiography). He gives the book to reporters as a testament to his skill at crisis management. The crisis in question took place on July 15, 1996. Governor Tucker was supposed to resign, and Huckabee was scheduled to be sworn in at 2 p.m. But at 1:55, Tucker called to say that he had changed his mind. He wasn’t quitting.

This was ‘‘arguably the greatest constitutional crisis in Arkansas history,’’ Huckabee writes, as though his state never seceded from the Union or had its capital’s high school forcibly integrated by the 101st Airborne. Still, Tucker’s change of heart was a big moment. As Huckabee recalls it, the Arkansas State Legislature fell into chaos. ‘‘Many of the old-time Democrats all but fell on the floor and ripped their garments in twain. . . . Keeping your word is a sacred thing in Arkansas.’’ When it became clear that garment-rending wouldn’t get Tucker to go away quietly, Huckabee took direct action. He addressed the people in a statewide telecast, informing them that he was now in control; he threatened impeachment proceedings against Tucker; state troopers were mobilized to protect the capital. All this activity had the desired effect. Tucker re-resigned. In fact, the whole affair was wrapped up by the 6 o’clock news.

Something about that seems unnecessarily dramatic. Anytime I hear some assert that they are in control, I think of Alexander Haig’s misstep when Reagan was shot. Again, not exactly the kind of image you want to conjure up. It would probably be better for Huckabee to talk about national disasters or other major situations that he’s been involved in in order to demonstrate his ability to remain calm under pressure.

A telling example of how weak Huckabee’s operation is:

On the first Sunday afternoon in December, the very day that Huckabee took the lead in the Register poll, I stopped by his Des Moines headquarters. The place is about the size of Floyd’s Mayberry barbershop and not as busy. Janet Huckabee was there, decking the walls for Christmas. A few young staff members and volunteers sat at phones that didn’t ring. I came in with Steve Penland, a burly man in a Marines baseball cap who wanted to know if Huckabee was planning to repeal Nafta. This is a big deal in Iowa, but no one in the office, including the resident ‘‘issues’’ man, had any idea where the candidate stood. (I asked Huckabee the next day; he’s for keeping it.) Penland walked away from the exchange a dissatisfied customer, although he did get a holiday mint from Janet Huckabee.

In all, I’d say it’s a pretty damming piece that portrays Huckabee as uninformed, a bit too religious and somewhat of a square (to use an antiquated term). Overall, it’s a really interesting piece, but there were a couple unnecessary cheap shots at religion that will probably diminish the story’s influence with readers that may have otherwise been affected by it.

[Photo Credits: Flickr user candid and Wikipedia]