John Brummet has an entertaining piece about his favorite son candidate Mike Huckabee:
Huckabee was a radio man before he was a preacher and he has remained more decidedly a media man than a pulpit man.
His superficially likable nature, which provides the essence of his oddly succeeding presidential campaign, comes via a disc jockey's shtick rather than a pastor's. I refer to the rich intonations of his professional voice, the music, the hip topicality, the impersonations, the jokes, the Mr. Glib.As a midteen, Huckabee found work, including some on-air, on a Hope radio station. Then he had one of those seminal religious moments. So he figured he'd apply his talents and interests to serve Jesus through Christian broadcasting.
That led him to the seminary, after which, almost by accident, he got preaching work in Pine Bluff, then Texarkana. In both towns, he supplemented the preaching with work for which he was better-suited and that he more enjoyed. That would be a local cable television show.
When Huckabee was lieutenant governor, needing something to do in that pointless job, he accepted an invitation to substitute for a vacationing radio talk show host. He invited me to be his guest, mainly so he and his callers could berate me. He was fully at home and adept in the radio booth.As Huckabee prepared to become governor, he said one of his dreams was to do radio play-by-play for a Razorback football game. Naturally, as the new governor, he was obliged. He described a few downs, smoothly and ably, of course.
From time to time I've written an unoriginal but incisive line, which is that Huckabee is really running for his own show on Fox or MSNBC. I'm sticking with that.
But I'll admit there are moments lately when I wonder if he'll have to go through the motions of being the Republican presidential or vice presidential nominee first.
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