First, an op-ed by Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley and DLC Chairman and former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford Jr. O’Malley and Ford issue a centrist political manifesto to the candidates seeking the party’s nomination, perhaps in response to their recent no-show at the DLC Nashville gathering, as Dan Balz reported for the Washington Post. Rebuffing the party’s center, the candidates instead attended the YearlyKos blogger convention.
O’Malley and Ford caution these Democrats about “the temptation to ignore the vital center” in the heat of the primary nomination. Rather, they propose capturing the center—and creating a lasting majority. “But for Democrats, taking the center for granted next year would be a greater mistake than ever before. George W. Bush is handing us Democrats our Hoover moment. Independents, swing voters and even some Republicans who haven’t voted our way in more than a decade are willing to hear us out.”
The Weekly Standard has an in-depth profile of another one-time presidential hopeful and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Despite occasionally focusing on the “horse race”—and Huckabee’s flavorless poll numbers and dollors, Terry Eastland—publisher of Standard, unearths one of the dozen low-profile GOP contenders often ignored by the mainstream media. Huckabee’s authenticity—as an open critic of President Bush and staunch religious conservative—his “I feel your pain” rhetoric, and his unifying manner all point to a different, and familiar native of Hope, Arkansas. (Eastland writes, “Huckabee was reelected governor in 1998, winning the support of 48 percent of black voters, according to CNN’s exit polls.”) Eastland traces his career path (“a faith journey”) from Protestant ministry to politics, and his nine-month weight-lose journey as chronicled in Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork.
While the article is somewhat digressive, it still manages to illuminate an unfamiliar candidate, and his passion, like former President Clinton, for communicating his message. “Probably the best preparation I ever had to be a governor was to be a pastor of a local congregation,” Huckabee says. In fact, Eastland recounts his personal history, “At age 14 he took a job with a 1,000-watt radio station in Hope…At Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia…he worked on-air 40 hours each week at a local radio station. After a year and a half at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, he left to become communications director for a ministry headed up by the evangelist James Robison. At the time, he was only 21.” Even if he bows out of the race early, this is the preview of a serious VP prospect.
Alexander Heffner is an intern at CJR.