Huckabee

by Scott Lamb

  When asked in 2015 why he thought he had what it took to be the president of the United States, Huckabee gave a multi-angled response. “I think some people who run for the office of president can’t handle it, to be honest”—the “it” referring to the actual serving as president. “I always say the most dangerous man in the room is the man who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. There’s a certain level of wisdom and experience necessary—and I don’t think there’s any fast track to some of that.”10

  So, outside of pure narcissism, how does anyone look in the mirror and see a future president? Huckabee’s Christian faith informs his answer: “I look at it in light of Philippians 4:13, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’ [NKJV]. It’s been the verse that I’ve depended on since I was fifteen. I really do look at it like that—anything that I am empowered to do and have been thrust into, I’ll be able to handle. I believe that I have a source that is beyond me that will be able to make it work.”11

  Too often, people misunderstand what Huckabee means when he speaks about being led by God to run for office. He isn’t making a prediction that God is going to give him victory, only that God has led him to run the race. Huckabee knows that God is free to act however He desires, and it may be His desire for a person to both campaign for office and be defeated in the campaign. His ways are not our ways.

  Finally, where does personal ambition fit into all of this? Is political ambition anathema to the Christian faith? It can be, but it does not need to be. Consider what Huckabee wrote about then president Bill Clinton in 1997:

  Although President Bill Clinton and I obviously differ greatly on political issues, in many ways the president represents what Republicans promote in their public policy: self-determination, setting goals, and overcoming adversity on your own. Young Bill Clinton was poor and disadvantaged, but from the time he was young, he was focused like a laser on becoming president of the US. It’s what he wanted; it’s what he worked for and sacrificed for, and through the years he managed to remove all the barriers to his goal. While there are 260 million Americans who can say whatever they want about him, he’ll sleep in the White House tonight and the rest of us won’t. In that way, Bill Clinton’s rise to success epitomizes the American dream.12

  Coming from similar economic backgrounds, both Huckabee and Clinton put personal ambition to work in getting themselves to high positions. Would either of them have made those achievements without ambition? Absolutely not. So for Huckabee, ambition itself is not wrong. But what is the result of the ambition? The apostle Paul wrote, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known” (Romans 15:20).

  When asked how he would advise a young person who is equally interested (and has aptitude) in both politics and the ministry, Huckabee said he would recommend politics, because “the ministry ought to be something you ought to be so compelled to do, where you wouldn’t be comfortable doing anything else.” Beyond that, however, Huckabee would also say, “Don’t deny the fact that there is a ministry in politics.” He doesn’t think there should be such a wall of division between clergy and laity, nor a false dichotomy between “secular” and “sacred” service to God. Huckabee asked, “Does he feel like one is serving God and one is not? If pastoring is serving God then what is politics? Is that not serving God? Are you abandoning God? If that is what is thought, then you don’t understand what serving God means because it’s not true that serving God in the church is the only way to serve God.”13

  When influential conservative political blogger Erick Erickson entered a program of study at a seminary, he told the Atlantic “he felt ‘called’ to learn more about the faith that forms the backbone of his world view. ‘Some of my most-read posts involve faith. At some point, I just accepted that I have a ministry, even if I never get in a pulpit.’ ”14

  Not everyone agrees with Huckabee’s take on mixing ministry and politics. Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio host and author, argues that Christian pastors should keep far away from politics. He wrote, “If you are a seminarian who wants to plan a ministry career that will intertwine with politics, as Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson has done, please put it [Hewitt’s book] down.” Hewitt reasoned, “Influence in the world is difficult to obtain and requires skills and disciplines that are not at all like those I have observed in the great leaders of the church.” In other words, pastors shouldn’t enter politics because they won’t be good at it, which, by his earlier sentence, implies that Falwell and Robertson were not entirely good at it. Hewitt continued, “It is true that a very few pastors have on a very few occasions served the church and the world at the same time. Augustine, Thomas More, and Thomas Becket, as well as the pastors of revolutionary America, are examples of such unique individuals.” So Hewitt acknowledges that there are exceptions to the rule, but that for the most part pastors should stay in their area of specialized expertise and skills. The people who can wade into both waters are a rare find and have “extraordinarily talented intellects,” according to Hewitt. He knows such people and counts them as his good friends. But outside that circle, Hewitt thinks pastors mostly act as rubes when they enter into the public arena. “If you are ordained, leave the world to others, and tend to your flock,” Hewitt wrote. “Both will be better served as a result.”15

  Beyond the simple elitism implied in Hewitt’s argument, he also assumes a sharp divide between secular and sacred ministry. Contrast that with the viewpoint of Charmaine Yoest, an executive campaign staff member for Huckabee’s 2008 campaign and now the president of Americans United for Life. Yoest said, “I’m a believer in politics. I think that it can be a noble calling if you bring principle to it. Politics is the essence of how people come together, live, work, worship and negotiate the rules of our living and our life together. Politics can be a really high calling to be a part of that and as Christians, I think we have to take that very seriously. I know Mike does and I respect him for that.”16

  Huckabee also does not make such a sharp division between secular and sacred callings. He believes that all Christians are called to serve Jesus, and some people will choose to do that in full-time vocational ministry within a local church. But Huckabee does not believe that pastoral ministry is a greater divine calling to serve than any other vocational choice. He says, “Even though everyone talks about how I left the pastorate for politics, I tell them, ‘The pastorate was my detour, not my destination.’ ”17

  The pastorate may have been a detour, but it also provided the source of inspiration for Huckabee’s vocational pivot into politics. His statewide travels and interaction during his two years spent as the president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention brought continual streams of encouragement from people who saw his potential role in government. He recalled how “people started saying . . . ‘have you ever thought about running for office? Have you ever thought about getting involved in politics?’ Well, the truth is, I had thought about it. I loved politics.”18

  That was the positive encouragement he needed. But it was also during Huckabee’s tenure as president that Governor Bill Clinton called him to ask him for assistance, and in the process helped reawaken Huckabee to the idea of his entering politics. At the time, Joycelyn Elders served as Bill Clinton’s director of the Department of Health. A few years later, as Clinton’s surgeon general of the United States, Elders would make national news for her intemperate comments advocating masturbation education for public school children. And she traveled the country to dedicate new Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, being a strong and vocal advocate of abortion.

  Elders got her start in controversial speechmaking while back in Arkansas. Huckabee recalled, “While I was president of the ABSC, we were pushing for a pro-life bill. That is when, in a committee meeting, Elders said, ‘Preachers need to get over their love affair with the fetus.’ Needless to say, it went nuclear. Clinton called
me and asked me would I be willing to sit down with Elders to discuss why that statement was so very offensive. I agreed to do it and he set up the meeting. After my visit with her, I went home and told Janet ‘We need to get out of the stands and on the field if people like her are setting policy that will affect our kids.’ In many ways, it was the tipping point for me.”19

  Which is to say, the brash mouth on an appointee of Bill Clinton helped ignite the fire of Mike Huckabee’s political ambitions.

  Finally, there is one response to Huckabee’s announcement that carried special weight. One week after he announced to his parents that he was moving away from pastoral ministry to run for the United States Senate, his mother, Mae, was rushed to the hospital. A ruptured aneurysm in her brain would nearly kill her that day. Though she lived on until 1999, she never regained her full health. But in that one week she still had left before the aneurysm took part of her mental capacity away, she wrote a letter. It is dated December 30, 1991—the day before her son made the announcement to his church, a “no going back” moment for the Huckabees. Mae wrote of her love and support for her son and her desire for him to always “seek and do God’s will.” Here is an excerpt of this final coherent word from his mother:

  Dear Mike,

  We realize that we do not have a gift with words or the gift of saying the right thing at the right time, but we do want to say a few words at this time. Of course, you realize that this is your earthly mother and father speaking and not your Heavenly Father speaking. . . .

  We are so very thankful to God for what you both have turned out to be, and we always thank God in our prayers for this.

  Now that you both are grown up, married and are parents yourselves, we have tried hard not to tell you what to do with yourselves, etc. . . . (even though it is hard sometimes), and it is because of this that we have not interfered with any of your decisions. Instead, we will swallow real hard and pray very much that God will help you both in everything you do.

  To make a long story a little shorter, we love you both so very much, ask for your forgiveness wherein we have failed you, and shall continue to pray that you both will always seek and do God’s will.

  With much love,

  Mom20

  Mike Huckabee has been around long enough to know that praying for God’s will to be done doesn’t mean your life will be free from pain and sorrow. Mothers have strokes and become incapacitated. A new wife has cancer. Husbands sell sentimental items in order to buy peanut butter and to pay bills. Huckabee believes that following God’s will does not mean that you always get what you want. As even Jesus prayed the night before his death, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

  PART 4

  THE CITY OF MAN

  CHAPTER 22

  YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT

  1991–1992

  I really thought I wanted to get into politics, but now I just don’t know if I like politics at all. I just don’t know.

  —MIKE HUCKABEE

  MONTHS BEFORE TELLING HIS PARENTS AND CHURCH FAMILY about his idea to enter politics, Mike Huckabee talked the decision over with friends and potential supporters. Rick Caldwell remembers the phone call: “Hey, I want to come by and see you. I want to tell you something,” Huckabee said. “I know this comes as a shock, but I’m thinking of running for the Senate.”

  Huckabee responded, “No, the United States Senate.”1

  Randy Sims got a call too. “Hey, it’s Mike. I’m thinking about running against Dale Bumpers,” Huckabee told him. “And you need to help me.” Sims became one of Huckabee’s county chairmen for that election, a position he has held for all the rest of his campaigns too. “He is my most expensive friend I’ve ever had,” Sims joked.2

  When Huckabee told his plans to his brother-in-law, Jim Harris, he tried to persuade him otherwise. “Don’t do that—you can’t win,” Harris said. “Not only is Dale Bumpers still very popular in the state, but with Bill Clinton running for president, there’s going to be a very large Democratic turnout in the general election.”3

  Harris’s prophecy raises an important question—Did Huckabee sincerely think he could defeat Bumpers? Bumpers first won election to the Senate in 1974 by knocking off the beloved Fulbright in the Democratic primary—the very same week the Huckabees were wed. Before that, Bumpers had been the governor of Arkansas (he was the governor who sent Huckabee a personal letter of congratulations after Boys State). Then, in the general election of 1974, he defeated the Republican challenger by winning 85 percent of the vote. Commenting on his victory, Time magazine wrote, “Many to their sorrow have had trouble taking Bumpers seriously . . . Dandy Dale, the man with one speech, a shoeshine, and a smile.”4

  In the general election of 1980, Bumpers defeated Republican challenger Bill Clark by a margin of 57 to 43. This would be the closest a Republican ever came to Bumpers. In 1986, Bumpers faced off against Asa Hutchinson, then the state chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party. Bumpers again earned reelection, this time winning with 62 percent of the votes, 170,000 more than Hutchinson.

  Despite this history, Huckabee must have thought he would be able to find at least 85,000 more votes than Hutchinson had been able to muster. Remember, Arkansas had not sent a Republican senator to Washington, DC, since Reconstruction ended in 1877. Did Huckabee really think he would be the first? Or was his 1992 campaign a sacrificial lamb designed to build name recognition for himself, making him a more viable candidate for a future election—perhaps a U.S. Congressional seat? This is a common political strategy for political newcomers and, most would argue, nothing to be ashamed of doing.

  In hindsight, you could even make the case that Huckabee was a brilliant chess strategist, seeing two or three moves ahead of the present. This scenario posits that Huckabee believed Clinton would win the White House in 1992, pulling current lieutenant governor Jim Tucker into the governor’s seat in Little Rock. That would immediately create a vacancy in the lieutenant governor’s office; Arkansas would follow protocol and hold a special election to fill the vacancy. And a Republican with statewide name recognition might get lucky and win the election, moving into the lieutenant governor’s office. In fact, that is exactly what did happen, so one cannot be faulted for taking that as a working hypothesis of what Huckabee planned to achieve in his campaign against Bumpers.

  But when asked if the above scenario correctly described what had taken place, Huckabee responded emphatically that he had never run a race that he didn’t expect to win and desire to win. “I wish I was that smart, to have thought two or three moves ahead,” he said. “But I’m not. And I really did think I would beat Bumpers in ’92.”5

  “Yes, Mike ran to win,” Lester Sitzes affirmed. He served as Huckabee’s chairman for Hempstead County and saw firsthand Huckabee’s determination to defeat Bumpers. “He wasn’t thinking about anything beyond getting elected and doing good as the senator from Arkansas. That was his sole aim.”6

  Randy Sims said, “I looked at him and I said, ‘Do you really, really think you’re going to win this?’ And he did. He was convinced he was going to win it. I knew we’d have to work hard to get it done.”7

  Huckabee’s boxes of archived records from the 1992 campaign reveal his genuine intent and plan to win the election. He had mapped out a county-by-county grassroots organizational system to make his case to the people. Huckabee knew up front that he would be outspent five to one or even ten to one, but he intended to make up for the lack of funding through sweat equity and retail politics. For a first-time candidate, the campaign showed a high level of organization and personal investment into the process. No friend was left uncalled. No volunteer sat on the sidelines waiting for something to do. The paper trail alone offers enough evidence that
Huckabee was “in it to win it.”8

  Pundits, conservative or liberal, didn’t give Huckabee any chance against Bumpers. Sitzes remembers inviting John Brummett, a liberal-leaning newspaper editor from Little Rock, as a speaker for the Rotary club in Hope. It was Brummett who in 1991 had made a prediction about Huckabee’s potential in politics based on Huckabee’s leadership within the Arkansas Baptist Convention. Brummett wrote, “He’s the kind of young man who might succeed in secular politics.”9 Now, however, Brummett told Sitzes, “Your buddy Mike is a good guy, but he doesn’t have a future in politics.” Sitzes replied, “I’m going to tell you one thing John, just remember this—Mike Huckabee grows on you. Get to know him and he’ll grow on you.”10

  Sitzes also brought John Starr, a conservative columnist in Arkansas, as a guest speaker. Starr said nearly the same thing to Sitzes: “Huckabee’s a good guy, but he doesn’t have a future in politics.” Sitzes responded the same way he had to Brummett: “Mr. Starr, I want you to remember one thing. Mike Huckabee grows on you.” Sitzes said that in one of Starr’s final columns before his death in 2000, he admitted that he thought Huckabee was a good governor. Sitzes’ word had proven to be true.11

  On a personal level, the campaign helped the Huckabees discover who their true friends were. “What we were least prepared for was the abandonment of the people we thought were friends,” he said. “We expected broadside opposition from the Democratic-party people, political opponents. . . . But there were others, people we had been through the fires with, and they turned on us immediately. For some of them, they were Democrats first and Christians second. How dare I not only run for office, but the real insult was that I would run as a Republican!”12