Friday, December 21, 2007

In Hoc Signo Huckabee Vinces

I keep the TV on a a lot but it is usually behind me, as background noise (it’s a tic). Anyway, my point is that tonight is the first time I actually saw the vaunted Huckabee Christmas commercial (here). I agree with Mark Shields (from PBS) that this thing is a masterpiece, $15 million in free publicity.

But let me throw in just one other note that I don’t recall seeing mentioned elsewhere. That is: how sophisticated this pieced is. That floating cross—it didn’t just happen. And don’t give me that “bookcase” stuff either. Okay, maybe it is a bookcase, but my point is that nobody gets that lucky. Somebody had to see that if you put the candidate just so and the tree just so, you’d have a—a what? You don’t say! How interesting! Why, yes, maybe you could mistake it for a cross! I don’t suppose you have a problem with that?

I say that for a guy with holes in his sox, he has a dynamite media operation.

Bonus Huckabee Extra: As Mark Shields said (or meant to—I think he bobbled the line), the only kind of populism this country buys is William Jennings Bryan populism—economic warfare and social conservatism. So, how about the dream ticket—Mike Huckabee and John Edwards?

Unsettling Afterthought: Is it more than just coincidence that these two guys are about the most likeable in the race--the only ones you might actually want to spend any time with? I think their economics is bollox (and in the case of Huckabee, the religion downright creepy). But they come across as easy going, warm hearted, genuine, sincere. And that is the really spooky part: they may actually believe this stuff.

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