A SUNDAY CONVERSATION MIKE HUCKABEE : Made-for-television
Posted on Sunday, August 10, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Perspective/233938/
Mike Huckabee snuck in on me. You’d think Mike Huckabee would have a hard time sneaking in on anybody, anywhere, after all the small-screen time he enjoyed during the presidential campaign. Did anybody get more media bang for their two-bits than Michael Dale Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and, at least for the next few years, former Republican candidate for president of the United States ?
The Huck was on talk shows and magazine covers more than Britney and Paris, if not Barack Obama.
But there he was all alone on a recent Friday morning, hiding behind a tabloid newspaper. He’d arrived at the agreed-upon hour for our interview at the Starbucks in his once-in-a-while hometown of North Little Rock. He stood there for several seconds, leafing through the tab, before I realized, Hey, that fella over there sure looks a lot like... Mike Huckabee ? Is that you ?
Sure enough. The man wearing the khaki shorts, light summer shirt and Crocs is the same politician who ran second to presumptive-nominee John McCain in the GOP derby. He’s scanning Sync, a weekly tabloid published by the company that owns this newspaper.
“I’ve never seen it before,” says the ex-Guv. It’s been out more than a year. But, hey, he’s been busyrunning for president and television star and all.
One outta two ain’t bad.
The week after our interview, Huckabee was scheduled to fly to New York to shoot a pilot for his new TV show this fall on FOX. His new book about the campaign, Do the Right Thing, is to hit stores on November 17 th. He had just returned from a business trip to Japan, while a trip to Rwanda with other politicos loomed. Oh, and he would also be subbing on the radio for Paul Harvey during his stint in Manhattan.
“I’m spread thinner than a spoonful of peanut butter on a loaf of bread,” he says in trademark Huckabee one-liner.
First, the TV bit. It seems such a natural as to be a stereotype. Huck TV. What else but ? Mike Huckabee is to radio, television, Internet, YouTube, multi-media and anything involving a microphone-and-camera as leaves are to trees. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
Of his show, Huckabee offers only generalities: “I can say it’s gonna be unlike anything else that’s on FOX and maybe on cable.”
When asked if it’s a talk show, Huckabee says, “yes and no. Not a talk show like you’ve seen. We’ll have a live studio audience and some very innovative features.” But surely it’ll be about politics, right ?
“Politics will be a part of it, but it certainly won’t be all of it,” Huckabee says. “I mean, what isn’t politics a part of now ? There are entertainment shows that have a political overtone. I think this may be a political show that has an entertainment overtone.”
Images of the Howard Cosell variety hour come frighteningly to mind in the worst-case, fish-out-of-water scenario. In the best case, a conservative version of Jon Stewart without the snarkiness. Regardless, it’s hard to imagine any show that could be unlike anything on cable. What hasn’t been done, you know ?
Here’s a possible clue: One of the producers working with Huckabee is a man named Woody Fraser, who was the original producer of the Mike Douglas Show and Good Morning America.
A word of advice to Mr. Fraser: Let Huck be Huck—occasional bad joke, scatological reference, nutty idea and all. The man kept us inky wretches in copy for more than a decade. Bless him. He delivered !
In other words, all you TV types in the Big City, give the man a mic, a camera, and stay out of his way. Which is what I’ll do for the rest of this Conversation. I’ll ask and let him answer straight up.
You’re filming the show in New York. Will you be living there ?
Oh, Lord no. I may have to go up there every weekend, but again I don’t know until we map it out. But I’ll spend a lot of time there. I’m getting ready to do some remodeling to my house [in North Little Rock ] so I’m certainly not doing that so I can move to New York. I plan to keep my feet here.
What does your wife Janet think about it ?
Oh, she doesn’t care. [He laughs. ] Keeps me out of the house. Send the checks home.
Was Fox the only network that offered you your own show ?
No. I had good conversations with [MSNBC, CNN and Fox ], and I liked all of them. There were some very tempting pieces to each of the offers. And, you know, I used an agent because I didn’t know how to navigate this. It’s a totally different world.... The guy who represented me is the guy who represented Katie Couric and a whole lot of other people.
What agent or agency ?
Creative Artists Agency. CAA.
Is this gonna be a daily show ?
Probably the weekend.
Have you finished your book ?
Yes. The editors have now done their first round of edits, and they’ve gotten it back to me. And I’m about three to four chapters away from my final revisions, corrections, to send back. And then I hope I’m done.
This will be book number... ?
Six.
This is about the campaign ?
It is. There are a lot of campaign stories. I tell some behind-the-scenes stuff. It also is a pretty serious book about the state of the conservative movement. It’s my analysis of why things are so splintered in the Republican Party and what we can do to fix it. It’ll raise some eyebrows. It’ll have some harsh reactions.... And there’s some fun stuff. Any political junkie will enjoy it from a standpoint of what really happens in a campaign like that, especially on such a low budget.
Have you run the numbers and figured out what you spent ?
We had by the end around $ 16 million total. About half of that came in the last six weeks. [By contrast, McCain raised $ 21 million in June alone. ]
What were some of the things that surprised you about running for president ?
The biggest surprise I had was how running for office in Arkansas was much more difficult and savage and meanspirited than anything I experienced running for president. And for all the talk about, boy, this is gonna be so brutal at the national level, I walked away from it and, if this were a baseball game, I came out of the batter’s box, looked at the pitcher and said, “Is that the best you got ?” Tell me you got a better fastball than that one. I seen better in the little leagues, man.
Looking back, is there something you would have done differently ?
I’m not sure what we would have done differently without more money. If we’d had more money in South Carolina, we would have been better able to counter-attack. There were really three enemies against us in South Carolina. Fred Thompson, whose only purpose in South Carolina was to beat me. He obviously knew he wasn’t going anywhere, so he spent his entire time attacking me in the two areas we needed most, Greenville and Spartanburg. [Both are in the conservative northwest corner of the state. ] Mitt Romney, whose donors funded the Club for Growth attacks. And then Mitt’s attacks in trying to brand me a liberal. I never could get that. [The third enemy was the weather. Snow in Greenville and Spartanburg on primary Tuesday kept potential voters home. ]
After finishing third in New Hampshire, why didn’t you go directly to South Carolina and stay there ? Why did you waste time and money in Michigan, which was clearly going to be Romney ?
We made two very quick trips to Michigan. We didn’t spend a lot of time there.... The reason was, we were being branded as a one-trick pony, that we were only appealing to all the religious people. We did enough coming out of Michigan to show that we did have a constituency, and it wasn’t just evangelicals and it wasn’t just Southerners.
Let’s play What If. What if you had won South Carolina ?
I’d be the nominee.
Have you been vetted or approached about this vice presidential business ? Would you know if you had been vetted ? What can you tell me about that ?
I can tell you the truth. Nobody has contacted me from the McCain campaign and said, you know, we want a credit report. First of all, they probably wouldn’t have to. I’ve been a candidate. I’ve been about as vetted as a guy can get. But have they contacted me specifically ? No. They have not. And I don’t expect to be. I’m not being coy. I just don’t think I’m on their list. I’ve no reason to think that I am.
Who do you think he’ll pick ?
I am totally in a fog about where his thinking is. I can’t figure out where he’s going.
Do you know what your role will be at the Republican convention ?
I don’t know what I’m going to be doing officially.... It would be beyond imagination if I didn’t get a prime speaking spot. I came in second. I would think that I’ve earned the right to be there.
If McCain wins and offers you a position in his administration, would you consider it ?
No. No way.
Why ?
Why would I want to do that ? What possible reason ? I’m gonna have a good life out here in the private sector. Why would I go back to telling everybody in the world how much money I make and being limited to what I can make and living in a very expensive city and barely surviving to have some obscure Cabinet post and have some 20-year-old from the White House telling me what I’m gonna do ? Thanks but no thanks. I have better things to do with my life.
If McCain loses, will you run in 2012 ?
You know, I don’t know. … I’d be foolish to say, oh no, I would never consider it. A couple of things, I’m the only guy who came out of this thing better off than I started. I do have the experience of what it’s like. What to do and what not to do. Youngest guy on the stage. I’ll be 53 in August. That’s maybe not young but as I look at the landscape in our party, I’m a kid. I wouldn’t rule anything out.
[Somehow the conversation turns to the Clintons. ]
I had an interesting lunch the other day in California with one of my agents at CAA and [controversial Bill Clinton associate ] Ron Burkle, whom I met out on the campaign. In Florida, he was getting out of his plane, I was getting into mine. So we had an interesting exchange. … A lot of these hardcore Democratic operatives, I like these guys. Harold Ford. Paul Begala. Anyway, Burkle was there. We had a great conversation. He’s an interesting guy. We were talking mostly about how much it must have hurt for the loyal Clintonistas to have abandoned them and gone and endorsed Obama. … There’s a certain level of gloom and pain there. You want to say, what happened to the loyalty ?
Why do you think that was ?
Opportunism.
But some did it early. Like Leon Panetta. I think he had his own reasons.
Some of them may have felt they were burned at some point. But you know what, look, you left that administration and went out in the private sector and made more money than you ever thought you’d make and the only reason you were marketable in that way is because of Bill Clinton. He may have treated you poorly in the political world. But his brand on you is what made you marketable in that way. And the least you could do is just keep your mouth shut and stay out of it.
You sound very sympathetic toward Hillary.
I am. I’m very sympathetic. I know how painful it is when you’ve had trust in others, and then one day... well, I’m trying to be less crude in my illustrations. I’ve been taken to task many times for my scatological humor. So I’ll try to refrain.
Which brings up the Obama comment. [At a speech before the National Rifle Association, Huckabee was interrupted by a loud noise. He quipped, “That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He’s getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he, he dove for the floor.” ]
Stupid.
Did you know it immediately ?
No.
I mean when you said it, did you know you’d said something stupid ?
Absolutely not.
You’re kidding.
No. In fact, I was so stunned. I don’t remember having said it. I gave the speech. No big deal. I go out and sign books, visit with people, nobody says anything. No reporter at the event comes and says anything. Nothing. Nobody. An hour and a half later, [an aide’s ] Blackberry is going off, reporters calling and saying would you like to comment on this. He turns around and says to me, ‘What’d you say ?’ I don’t know. What are they saying I said ? He tells me and I said, I didn’t say that. I honestly was oblivious. So I got on my laptop in the car and listened to myself on the Internet and I said, I’ll be dang. It’s true … And here’s the thing. In my mind, the joke is on the NRA, not Obama. The joke was that everybody thinks y’all are a bunch of gun-toting nuts … the perception is if we hear a noise, we all pull our guns out and start aiming.
Did you feel compelled to call Obama and apologize ?
I did.
You did talk to him directly ?
Oh yeah. He blew it off.
What do you think of him ?
I like him. Personally. I think he’s intelligent, he’s personable and warm. All of his personal attributes I admire. I don’t think he would be a good president. I don’t think he’s prepared. I told a lot of Republican audiences that we all should celebrate that Barack Obama has made it to this point. It is an affirmation of our country. Not just Obama. It should not be lost on us that something I never could have imagined growing up in Hope, Arkansas, has now happened. That we have moved past what color he is and he has become the nominee not because he is a black man but because he is a charismatic leader and a smart person. … Now, having said that, he’s gone far enough because his policies are wrong for America.
What’s the one policy that he …
That he’ll destroy small businesses. Small business is the backbone of the American economy. What has he done to prepare himself for overseeing the government ? Does he understand the private sector ? When he talks about taxing the rich, do you know how many small business owners that affects ?
Back to your plans. What else besides the book and TV show ?
I will not be a lobbyist. But the speaking gigs have been good. The book has taken a lot of time, the media and the campaigning. Can’t get to all the campaigning I’m asked to do. And I’ve got a few other things I can’t say yes or no to yet.
What kind of things ?
More business opportunities. Some entrepreneurial opportunities.
When you were a youngster and doing radio, was this a dream of yours, having your own TV show ?
When I was first in radio, my dream was to do the play-by-play for the Arkansas Razorbacks. To be Bud Campbell was the ultimate, pinnacle of broadcasting success. Or maybe be Jack Buck. Or to be Chris Stevens at WLS and be a disc jockey.
WLS ?
I listened to it every night.
Where was that ?
Chicago.
You got WLS in Hope ?
Like a son of a gun. Because it was a figure-eight clear channel station. We also got WWL out of New Orleans. But WLS was the clearest channel we got. And they had the best disc jockeys. When I went to Chicago, I was being interviewed in the WLS station and I looked around and I was like, “Dang. Guys, can I just walk around a minute ?” These people from WLS were looking at me and said, “You must have been from a real small town.” And I said, actually, I was.