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On Huck and the next-best thing Tuesday, Apr 22, 2008 By John Brummett I couldn't get Mike Huckabee on the phone, either because he hasn't any use for me or, as related for the record, he was too busy on a national tour. He's been out there making money, to which I say more power to him. He was speaking at colleges and giving interviews to cable television and even the Club for Growth, that outfit of conservative economic elitists with which he'd exchanged such delicious disdain only weeks ago. It looks as though he'd have had some free time Monday, when he was not running in the Boston Marathon. He withdrew, citing a knee injury. I suspect as well that he's been too occupied to do proper training. By the way, Huckabee told the Club for Growth that any talk that John McCain might pick Joe Lieberman as his running mate should be a "nonstarter." Republicans need to stay Republican for the occasion, he said. He said he wasn't going to talk about his own prospects of getting chosen, which no longer seem very good. Always ready with the pedestrian metaphor, he said the cheerleader doesn't publicly call on the quarterback to ask her to the prom. I did get a few minutes on the phone with what appears to be the new next best thing to Huckabee. That would be his daughter, Sarah, who has become a serious political player. She won plaudits as national field director for her dad's campaign. Now she's executive director of the new Huck PAC, the political action committee that Huckabee intends to use to raise money from fair-tax zealots and Christian conservatives to dole out dollars to ingratiate himself with Republican candidates. Sarah offered to field my questions and speak for the PAC, and she did so with reasonable grace and savvy. She is plainly the daughter of Mike and Janet, proving it with sassiness. When I complained good-naturedly that she'd managed to tell me approximately nothing, she said it wasn't her fault that I didn't ask good questions. I did manage to whittle down a bit the meaning of Huckabee's signing with that big Hollywood talent agency, an arrangement that, his daughter said, the talent agency, not Huckabee, initiated. He's not going to go into acting or on tour with his rock cover band. Apparently, this agency will handle many if not all of his bookings and help design and market Huckabee's surely inevitable foray into a political talk show either on radio or television or both. Ever glib and media-savvy, and now possessed of nationally recognized political talent and prominence, Huckabee brings tailor-made credentials to such an undertaking. Honestly, I could see a bid war among CNN, Fox, MSNBC and Comedy Central. But he needs to do it right. The contemporary landscape is littered with the remains of talking heads whose cable television talk shows failed. Remember John McEnroe's show? How about Alan Keyes'? Paula Zahn's? Aaron Brown's? Tucker Carlson's? Charles Grodin's? Even Rush Limbaugh failed on TV. You need a shtick, be it O'Reilly's contemptible bullying or Chris Matthews' inane bluster or the clever spoofing of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Huckabee indeed brings a rare blend of attributes and associations. He is funny enough and gifted sufficiently with timing to do a nightly monologue. He could front his own house band. His connections ought to land him guests from Chuck Norris to McCain to Hillary to Bill and even to Barack Obama, who once told Stewart that, of the Republican candidates, Huckabee seemed like a swell guy. Huckabee gets that a lot from people who don't really know him, and from a few who really do. It's fairly certain that one of two things awaits Our Boy Mike. One is stardom. The other is a failed attempt at it. I wish for him such wealth and stardom that he would transcend politics and never again threaten to become president. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
