OPINION:
HUCKABEE: THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY
By Scott Lamb
Thomas Nelson, $24.99, 346 pages
It all began in a place called Hope.
Sound familiar? As Scott Lamb puts it, “Everyone comes from somewhere, and Mike Huckabee’s somewhere was Hope, the same childhood home of President Bill Clinton.” Bill Clinton’s family would move to Hot Springs, Ark., when he was eight, and his name wasn’t linked with Hope again until he gained national prominence.
” ’Of course, it sounds better,’ said Mike Huckabee. ’You know I believe in a place called Hope,’ and Hope certainly embraced him.”
Had Mr. Huckabee been born first (he was born in 1955, Mr. Clinton in 1946), “he could have used this line for his own campaigns.” But as it was, he titled his first campaign book “From Hope to Higher Ground” (2007), “showing that even if you’re the second man to run for president from a small town of ten thousand, a bit of creativity will allow you to tap into your small town roots.”
And that’s what Mike Huckabee did, quickly rising through the upper ranks of state politics, from lieutenant governor in 1993 (a rare feat for a Republican, so abhorrent to Arkansas Democrats they nailed his office door shut), to governor, from 1996 to 2007.
Although serving as chairman of the National Governors Association from 2005 to 2006, he was relatively unknown when in 2007 he became a candidate in the Republican presidential primaries. And in 2008, he startled the political world by winning the Iowa caucuses over Mitt Romney by a margin of 10,000 votes.
As a result of that victory, writes Mr. Lamb, there was a spike in donations, without which Mr. Huckabee would have probably had to drop out, as Mr. Romney did, after Super Tuesday. But with the Iowa win, he went on to take seven more states, with 4.2 million votes and 20 percent of the vote total. Given his showing in 2008, he might well have been an early favorite in 2012. But he chose not to run. As Mr. Huckabee explains it, writes Scott Lamb, there are four things you need to succeed in politics: a message, the ability to motivate volunteers, knowing how to work with the media to get your message out. And finally, “you’ve got to raise money.” Lots of it.
“How might the remainder of the Huckabee 2008 campaign have been different if Mr. Huckabee had had a few more million in his campaign coffers?”
An unanswerable question. But he did go on to write a series of best-selling books, host a popular nationally television show, as well as a radio program, and establish himself as a trusted spokesman for conservative positions and causes. He has retained the ability to tap into those small town roots. But he no longer has to worry about insufficient funds.
Students of politics will value Mr. Lamb’s well-written, highly readable, and thoroughly researched biography. But it’s just that — a biography, and not a campaign book in this season of campaign books. In fact, the book, divided into four parts, devotes only the last part completely to politics.
The first three parts deal with childhood, people important in his early life, schooling, graduation from Ouachita Baptist University, attendance at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and experiences as director of communications for the James Robison Evangelistic Association, an organization instrumental in the founding of the Moral Majority and the increasing involvement of evangelical Christians in national politics.
There are fascinating discussions here of the Southern Baptist Convention, of which Mr. Huckabee served as president, including Baptist theology inherently interesting to anyone interested in the history of religion — and the role played by religion in shaping Mike Huckabee’s life and character.
Although this is not a campaign book — for that read Mr. Huckabee’s latest — “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy” (2015) — it’ll be read for political reasons. Mr. Huckabee is an announced candidate, and he’s still in the race.
There a great deal of chatter just now about who is winning and who is losing. But no one has voted yet, and all those heated discussions are based on results from extremely suspicious and unreliable polls, which in turn are the sole determinants of who participates in the televised debates.
Meanwhile, for the first time in decades, there’s serious talk about a brokered convention. And that’s not a bad place at all to be for a skilled politician who’s also a man of faith — and, of course, of hope.
• John R. Coyne Jr., a former White House speechwriter, is co-author of “Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement” (Wiley).
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