“Huckabee embracing Obama myths as he eyes Republican candidacy - Regina Leader-Post” |
| Huckabee embracing Obama myths as he eyes Republican candidacy - Regina Leader-Post Posted: WASHINGTON — As he prepares to mount a possible 2012 White House campaign, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has for a long while seemed intent on casting himself as the lovable lug of the Republican field. Soft-spoken and good-humoured even in heated debate, Huckabee recently risked alienating the GOP base by defending first lady Michelle Obama's effort to promote good nutrition among America's children — even as Rush Limbaugh and others accused her of socially engineering the nation's diet. He subsequently expressed a personal belief that Barack Obama was indeed born in the U.S.A. Hardly an out-on-a-limb declaration, to be sure, but it was still risky given the baffling percentage of Republican voters who cling to conspiracy theories that claim the president is a radical Muslim revolutionary from Kenya. Huckabee, however, has taken a hatchet to his image as a gregarious and reality-based contender in the past week. In a series of interviews with right-wing radio, Huckabee resurrected fictions about Obama growing up in Africa and spending a childhood under the spell of Islamic madrassas. The innuendoes stirred outrage among Democrats and were met with astonishment in mainstream news organizations familiar with the well-established details of Obama's childhood. But no one in the Republican Party's leadership called Huckabee out. One potential reason? Trafficking in falsehoods about Obama's background, and questioning his American values, may be key to winning the Republican nomination. "Sadly there are people who are immune to facts," says Mark Rozell, a political scientist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "The polling data shows that the Americans who are most inclined to believe that Obama is not a genuine Christian, that he is either a Muslim or something else, are very heavily the conservative evangelicals in the core of the Republican party." Huckabee's characterizations of Obama as something other than a red-white-and-blue American began Monday in a radio spot with conservative host Steve Malzberg, who wondered why no one was asking the president for proof of his citizenship. "I would love to know more," Huckabee responded. "What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example — very different than the average American." Huckabee added that by having a "Kenyan father and Kenyan grandfather," Obama may have been influenced by the "Mau Mau revolution" and a belief that "the Brits were imperialist persecutors." Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961. He released a copy of his certification of live birth during the 2008 campaign, a document verified by state authorities. He grew up with his white mother and grandparents in Hawaii and Indonesia. He first visited Kenya in his 20s. After getting called out for being flat-out wrong, Huckabee professed to having "simply misspoke when I alluded to President Obama growing up in Kenya and meant to say Indonesia." He criticized U.S. media for sensationalizing a "slip of the tongue." Once might be a mistake, but twice smacks of strategy. In a subsequent interview with the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer, Huckabee seized on the host's assertion that there is "some fundamental anti-Americanism in this president." Huckabee said "that's exactly the point" he makes in a new book. "I do think he has a different world view and I think it is, in part, moulded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas," Huckabee said. During his boyhood years in Indonesia, Obama attended a secular public school and a Catholic school in Jakarta. Another perceived Obama failing, according to Huckabee: the president did not grow up "playing Little League baseball in a small town." Obama did, however, did play basketball on a Hawaii state champion team in 1979. There was no word from Huckabee on the influence — negative or positive — that shooting hoops that might have had on Obama's world view. Even though Obama's personal history received a thorough vetting in the 2008 election, myths about his birthplace, upbringing and faith have proven remarkably resistant to facts. A Pew poll in August 2010 found that 18 per cent of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. Among conservative Republicans, 34 per cent believe the president is Muslim. "Huckabee is a smart guy. He is also very ambitious and, like many politicians, calculating about how he can maximize his base of support," Rozell says. "The obvious question is why is he saying these things, and why now? It suggests he is putting serious consideration into a presidential run and is trying to activate his core constituency." Huckabee won the 2008 Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa — where evangelicals hold significant sway — before losing the nomination race to Arizona Senator John McCain. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this week showed Huckabee leading the field of potential 2012 Republican candidates with 25 per cent support, with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in second at 21 per cent. Huckabee polls even stronger in the U.S. South. A Winthrop University survey found he had 22 per cent support across the 11 southern states, well ahead of both Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. That Huckabee is courting social conservatives is beyond dispute. In addition to questioning Obama's American values, Huckabee generated headlines this week by criticizing the Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman for celebrating her "out-of-wedlock" pregnancy at last week's Academy Awards. "People see a Natalie Portman who boasts, 'We're not married but we're having these children and they're doing just fine,' " Huckabee said. "I think it gives a distorted image. It's unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out-of-wedlock children." Huckabee's ad hominem attack on Portman, at least, represents a long-standing view of family values promoted by social conservative voters. But peddling myths about Obama's upbringing is a more dangerous proposition should Huckabee actually become the Republican candidate and face voters in a general election, Rozell says. "The overwhelming majority of Americans don't believe these things (about Obama) and very many of them are turned off by these types of political appeals," he says. "There's the rub for Huckabee. What he is saying now might mobilize a constituency in a GOP primary campaign, but that strategy may backfire over the long run." © Copyright (c) Postmedia News This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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