OMG WTF
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, famous for a) losing like a bajillion pounds, b) creating a pointless "covenant marriage" statute that, like, totally means you really really really x infinity love your spouse and would never ever consider getting a divorce, and c) coming in second in the Iowa Republican Presidential Straw Poll and still being able to raise less money that a Planned Parenthood telethon on The 700 Club, has a new ad featuring his campaign's most prestigious endorser: Chuck Norris.
The ad plays on the oh-so-hilarious "Chuck Norris is insanely bad ass" internet meme, first exploited by the mainstream in 2004 comedy classic Dodgeball, and earlier this year in an admittedly amusing Mountain Dew commercial. You can watch it above (obv.), but basically it's Huckabee and Norris trading lines; Norris touting Huckabee's "authentic" conservative credentials (he evidently wants to put the IRS out of business - but who would collect the taxes? Oh, I see), while Huckabee spouts out stale Chuck Norris one-liners ("There's no chin behind Chuck Norris's beard; only another fist.")
Michael Scherer of Salon considers the spot, which he views as a sly jab at the GOP's macho image, something of a coup: not only does it manage to grab the viewer's attention via humor (Scherer characterizes the ad as "damn funny"), but it sets up Huckabee as a straight shooter - "the candidate equivalent of Jon Stewart." Scherer also sees the ad as somewhat unrebuttable, noting that Fred Thompson's counterattack - "Huckabee's position on immigration is closer to Ted Kennedy than to conservatives" - seems flaccid and overblown by comparison. (Of course, Fred Thompson himself seems flaccid and overblown these days, but that's another issue.)
I can see Scherer's point, and for Huckabee, who is at best a second tier candidate clearly staking everything on the Iowa caucuses, the Chuck Norris ad is a risk worth taking. Still, the spot underlines the Governor's predicament: in a Republican race characterized by the absence of a Reaganesque authority figure capable of steering the party back to its "conservative" roots and psychically divorcing the GOP from the excesses (and ever-decreasing popularity) of the Bush presidency, Huckabee is the candidate who can most convincingly lay claim to Reagan's substance - but not, most importantly, his style. Indeed, time and again he has shown the ability to connect with conservative voters unenthused at the prospect of picking over the Romney-Giuliani-Thompson-McCain pu pu platter; however, despite the fact that he is running strong in Iowa, there is no sense of national momentum to his candidacy, marked by its anemic fundraising and virtually non-existent media profile.
Part of Huckabee's problem is that he comes off more like Bill Clinton than Ronald Reagan: his signature public factoid, regarding his amazing weight loss and concurrent embrace of physical fitness while governor, is a classic "I feel your pain" anecdote - an Oprah story. Contrast that with Rudy Giuliani, who has managed to skirt the inconvenient gay-friendly, pro-choice, anti-welfare reform aspects of his mayoralty by playing up his law and order credentials and his Churchill-esque performance on 9/11. Or John McCain, who spent seven years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. Or Fred Thompson, who plays Rudy Giuliani on Law & Order, as Giuliani himself has astutely pointed out. These are the Republican candidates of 2008: warchief-cum-father figures whose principal qualification is the amount of raw authority they evince. Huckabee, in many respects, is a throwback to the "compassionate conservatism" of the 2000 Bush campaign - itself largely an attempt to out-Clinton the then-inert, emotionless humanoid known as Al Gore.
But what about Mitt Romney, you ask? Indeed, of the four (well, three, if you don't count Fred Thompson) GOP front-runners, Romney's the only one not positively oozing machismo. However, being ever the savvy business consultant, Mitt has managed to identify the substantive gaps in the Republican field and insert himself into them, regardless of how contrary these new policy contortions might seem to his previously espoused beliefs - indeed it seems the more Damascene the conversion, the better. By all rights, Romney is standing on Huckabee's rhetorical turf - actually, it's Mitt's turf because he bought it. Indeed, Romney has two enormous advantages Huckabee lacks: access to a tremendous amount of cash, and an extremely professional and efficient ground operation in Iowa and New Hampshire. Mitt has employed both to take significant, though far from immutable leads in both early battleground states.
Against this backdrop, Huckabee's Norris ad might be seen as a smart play; a good way to highlight the candidate's conservative credentials in the one state where he's got some traction. After all, if you consider Romney to be your primary competition for the "real conservative" vote, then why not showcase yourself as being at ease with your sincerely held positions - as opposed to Romney, whose authenticity is only second in line to his religion as liability. However, pairing up with Chuck Norris - the value of whose endorsement I question (I mean, that's like asking who Schwarzenegger is for...oh) - undercuts Huckabee's ability to appear, well, presidential. Norris is a kitsch celebrity, whose present cultural currency is completely bound up in his ability to laugh at himself - something he does with good humor and great aplomb. But is this really the guy you want to be standing next when you're trying to make your case to be the next leader of the free world? Walker, Texas Ranger?
Perhaps I am off-base; in the YouTube era, maybe every little bit does count - according to Huckabee's website, the spot has been viewed a hair over 450,000 times, making it the third most-watched news and politics video on the site. Yet, even if Chuck Norris' endorsement gives Huckabee a significant boost, he's still behind the 8 ball, even in Iowa, where the state's complicated caucus system requires significant organization in order to win - according to CNN, the Governor's staff recently doubled in size, from six to thirteen people. Well, perhaps professional wrestler Ric Flair's endorsement (no video, sadly) can get Huck over the top.
The ad plays on the oh-so-hilarious "Chuck Norris is insanely bad ass" internet meme, first exploited by the mainstream in 2004 comedy classic Dodgeball, and earlier this year in an admittedly amusing Mountain Dew commercial. You can watch it above (obv.), but basically it's Huckabee and Norris trading lines; Norris touting Huckabee's "authentic" conservative credentials (he evidently wants to put the IRS out of business - but who would collect the taxes? Oh, I see), while Huckabee spouts out stale Chuck Norris one-liners ("There's no chin behind Chuck Norris's beard; only another fist.")
Michael Scherer of Salon considers the spot, which he views as a sly jab at the GOP's macho image, something of a coup: not only does it manage to grab the viewer's attention via humor (Scherer characterizes the ad as "damn funny"), but it sets up Huckabee as a straight shooter - "the candidate equivalent of Jon Stewart." Scherer also sees the ad as somewhat unrebuttable, noting that Fred Thompson's counterattack - "Huckabee's position on immigration is closer to Ted Kennedy than to conservatives" - seems flaccid and overblown by comparison. (Of course, Fred Thompson himself seems flaccid and overblown these days, but that's another issue.)
I can see Scherer's point, and for Huckabee, who is at best a second tier candidate clearly staking everything on the Iowa caucuses, the Chuck Norris ad is a risk worth taking. Still, the spot underlines the Governor's predicament: in a Republican race characterized by the absence of a Reaganesque authority figure capable of steering the party back to its "conservative" roots and psychically divorcing the GOP from the excesses (and ever-decreasing popularity) of the Bush presidency, Huckabee is the candidate who can most convincingly lay claim to Reagan's substance - but not, most importantly, his style. Indeed, time and again he has shown the ability to connect with conservative voters unenthused at the prospect of picking over the Romney-Giuliani-Thompson-McCain pu pu platter; however, despite the fact that he is running strong in Iowa, there is no sense of national momentum to his candidacy, marked by its anemic fundraising and virtually non-existent media profile.
Part of Huckabee's problem is that he comes off more like Bill Clinton than Ronald Reagan: his signature public factoid, regarding his amazing weight loss and concurrent embrace of physical fitness while governor, is a classic "I feel your pain" anecdote - an Oprah story. Contrast that with Rudy Giuliani, who has managed to skirt the inconvenient gay-friendly, pro-choice, anti-welfare reform aspects of his mayoralty by playing up his law and order credentials and his Churchill-esque performance on 9/11. Or John McCain, who spent seven years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. Or Fred Thompson, who plays Rudy Giuliani on Law & Order, as Giuliani himself has astutely pointed out. These are the Republican candidates of 2008: warchief-cum-father figures whose principal qualification is the amount of raw authority they evince. Huckabee, in many respects, is a throwback to the "compassionate conservatism" of the 2000 Bush campaign - itself largely an attempt to out-Clinton the then-inert, emotionless humanoid known as Al Gore.
But what about Mitt Romney, you ask? Indeed, of the four (well, three, if you don't count Fred Thompson) GOP front-runners, Romney's the only one not positively oozing machismo. However, being ever the savvy business consultant, Mitt has managed to identify the substantive gaps in the Republican field and insert himself into them, regardless of how contrary these new policy contortions might seem to his previously espoused beliefs - indeed it seems the more Damascene the conversion, the better. By all rights, Romney is standing on Huckabee's rhetorical turf - actually, it's Mitt's turf because he bought it. Indeed, Romney has two enormous advantages Huckabee lacks: access to a tremendous amount of cash, and an extremely professional and efficient ground operation in Iowa and New Hampshire. Mitt has employed both to take significant, though far from immutable leads in both early battleground states.
Against this backdrop, Huckabee's Norris ad might be seen as a smart play; a good way to highlight the candidate's conservative credentials in the one state where he's got some traction. After all, if you consider Romney to be your primary competition for the "real conservative" vote, then why not showcase yourself as being at ease with your sincerely held positions - as opposed to Romney, whose authenticity is only second in line to his religion as liability. However, pairing up with Chuck Norris - the value of whose endorsement I question (I mean, that's like asking who Schwarzenegger is for...oh) - undercuts Huckabee's ability to appear, well, presidential. Norris is a kitsch celebrity, whose present cultural currency is completely bound up in his ability to laugh at himself - something he does with good humor and great aplomb. But is this really the guy you want to be standing next when you're trying to make your case to be the next leader of the free world? Walker, Texas Ranger?
Perhaps I am off-base; in the YouTube era, maybe every little bit does count - according to Huckabee's website, the spot has been viewed a hair over 450,000 times, making it the third most-watched news and politics video on the site. Yet, even if Chuck Norris' endorsement gives Huckabee a significant boost, he's still behind the 8 ball, even in Iowa, where the state's complicated caucus system requires significant organization in order to win - according to CNN, the Governor's staff recently doubled in size, from six to thirteen people. Well, perhaps professional wrestler Ric Flair's endorsement (no video, sadly) can get Huck over the top.
