My second Huckabee story won’t tell you anything about my unwillingness to vote for him, but is relevant anyway.
So, the summer *before* Governor’s School — so this would be summer 1993, I attended a two-week French immersion program at Arkansas Tech University (yes, kids, I was *really* into summer school-ish things in high school!). There, I befriended a guy from North Little Rock named Robert, who subsequently became an occasional and short-lived penpal. Subsequent to French camp, Robert began sending me “Mike Huckabee for Lt. Gov.!” paraphernalia. For whatever reason, Robert was a fan of Huckabee, and sent me several bumper stickers and eager encouragements to recruit others to Huckabee’s cause.
Our correspondence fell off pretty quickly, and as mentioned before, I became pretty disgusted with Huckabee’s politics the next summer when he spoke at Governor’s School.
So, fast forward to 1996 or 97 … I was a sophomore at GW (Go Colonials!), and was recruited to talk to a freshman class about getting involved on campus. Lo and behold, who should be in that class than good ol’ Robert! It took me a while to place him, but I knew I recognized him. When we did make the connection after the class, I reminded him that he’d sent me all that Huckabee stuff. His reaction was one of utter embarassment — clearly, he had come to see the error of his ways. I was so proud. 🙂
So, there you have it — my two Mike Huckabee stories. As I said, I did find Huckabee’s voice in the primary election (and even subsequent to his primary election loss) to be refreshing and amusing. He reminds me a lot of the McCain I used to love — a media darling, who is entertaining and eager to chum around with people like Jon Stewart. McCain has abandoned that personality, and so I’m happy to have Mike around to pick up the baton. But I could never, ever vote for him.