Short little story.
I've lived under the rule of Guiliani and Huckabee both. Of Guiliani, all I can say is God help us if the thug wins. But this diary is just a story about Huckabee and his wife, Janet. Nothing big, but an interesting story about perspective and idiocy. You'll see why. Of course, maybe my reaction was just me (and uh it was). Either way, I don't want another complete idiot as President.
So, Janet goes to Germany (or Poland, I forget).
(ps, I don't have many links or sources or anything, just my memory, but it's something I remember quite clearly).
From farmer roots in Louisiana, I ended up living in NYC. Prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center (where I worked for many years), I decided I didn't want to be a New Yorker anymore (New Yorkers will know what I'm talking about; it's like quitting heroin). A terrorist bust down the street from me that would have destroyed my main train stop at Atlantic was the final straw.
Ended up after a while in Little Rock. Worked in big advertising agency.
Which of course meant I dreadfully had to attend the Tourism Convention (tourism is really important to Arkansas). Oh boy. As a shy, misanthropic recovering NYer, it was tough to do the meet-and-shmooze. Anyway, I lived.
Here's the good part: Usually the gov gives the big speech, but he was off campaigning or accepting huge amounts of clothes as political gifts or something. So hundreds of us advertising people and business owners waited calmly for Janet's speech.
What was the content? An uplifting story? An apt metaphor? A tearful analogy? Yes! She did it!
See, she took her daughter to a concentration camp one time. Looking at the pictures of the dead, they were overcome (cue tears in Janet's sparkling eyes). Her daughter looked up at her and asked (paraphrasing a bit here, but cue the quavering voice) "Why? Why mommy did this happen? Why did people let this happen?" I can't remember her response, but I think it was something along the line of "I don't know" while they both wept.
Then she promptly compared the horrors of Nazi Germany and concentration camps to the Tourism Industry in Arkansas. Will the future look back and ask "Why? Why didn't we act to save the Tourism Industry?" Good question.
Course, my jaw dropped. I looked around, but no one else seemed even vaguely phased. Back in Little Rock, I mentioned it to my newspaper editor friends, who were shocked, but I don't think wrote about it. What shocked them was that Mike had apparently used the same story in another speech about different issue. I don't have any proof of that, though, and can't find that tourism speech either, so it's all recollection.
----Oh, and another thing. She was running for Secretary of State. You know, the office that kind of oversees corruption and elections. Since Mike was having a hard time with some election fund tactics, it seemed a wise move :)
I'll try a block quote from Almanac of American Politics:
Another self-inflicted wound came in March 2002, when Huckabee's wife announced she was running for secretary of state. Janet Huckabee was known for her daredevil antics--bungee jumping, skydiving, jet skiing, kayaking--and for her oversight of the two-year renovation of the Governor's Mansion, a time when the Huckabees lived in a triple-wide on the mansion grounds. She insisted on a 24-hour state police detail while campaigning across the state; when that was challenged, she at first said she had no control over it, then promised to pay the cost, then said she would pay only up to $500.
Just an antecdote, but I guess what I'm saying is: anyone who would recycle a speech comparing nazi Germany to losing a few tourists would maybe not make a nice first lady. Oh, and she was kind of nuts with that election dealio she ran; it raised a bit of a stink.
No big story, but a really crappy memory :)