AMES, Iowa--Mike Huckabee may not have constructed his "
What Really Matters"
Christmas ad as political appeal to his fellow Christians. "I wish we
had been so smart to contrive every frame of the spot," he says.
But out here on the trail, he's been quick to capitalize on the uproar it's causing.
At the Gateway Hotel in Ames tonight, Christmas was the first thing on the schedule. "When Gov. Huckabee walks in
these doors," said State Chair Bob Vander Plaats, "let's give him a
surprise."
Enter Huckabee--to applause, and, on Vander Plaats' cue, a "very special greeting."
"Merry Christmas!" shouted 350 supporters. (Ever objective, the 20 or so journalists abstained.)
"And you know what," said Huckabee, laughing. "It's okay if you say that." Everyone I asked in Ames agreed.
The
Christmas spot, it seems, gave Huckabee a gift: the opportunity to
transform an innocuous Yuletide greeting into a political rallying
cry. I'm not saying the former Arkansas governor is insincere; he's actually wishing folks a "Merry Christmas." But as I wrote before, Huckabee's ad proved that
he would put religion in the public square as president by putting
religion in the public square today. Now that he's riled up the
"Wall Street, Washington axis of power," as he puts it, the former
Baptist pastor gets to hit that note again and again--only now with
audience participation.
Here's how he frames it: "Folks, it has occurred to me that if I had used
the name of Jesus Christ in vain and blurted it out as profanity no one
would be talking about that. It would’ve simply been ignored and
accepted as the way we talk these days. But because I invoked his name
on his birthday to say to America, "Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas,"
somehow, everyone sees it as something that isn’t even there. Have we
so lost our national soul, have we become so coarse, that even the
attempt to bring some civility to the political arena is met with
nothing more than scorn and disdain and disbelief?"
Notice
the transition--somehow, "Jesus Christ" becomes a symbol of "civility"
rather than Christianity. No one, of course, is offended by civility;
in fact, it's a bit of a straw man. But that's why Huckabee's
"Christmas Card" will work. Conservatives who believe in the "War on Christmas" may see him as a crusader against inane political
correctness. He won't stop them. But really, he says, he's just a guy
who's trying to be nice.
At the end of speech, Huckabee smiled and said it again: "Merry Christmas."
Only a Grinch could argue with that. And that's precisely his point.
BONUS: The story behind "What Really Matters," in Huckabee's words:
As
you know we launched a commercial in which I just simply said, "Let’s
take a few days, dial this rhetoric down. Let’s even spend a little
time with our friends and family. Celebrate the birth of Christ and
have a merry Christmas." [Applause] There was no hidden agenda. There
was no floating cross. [Laughter] That is a bookshelf. [Laughter} But
if people are seeing a floating cross in it, so be it. [Laughter]
Hallelujah! [Looks up, palms open]
I wish we had been so
smart to contrive every frame of the shot. But the reality is, it was
done at the end of the day. We had been taping… we were two hours
behind schedule, I was fighting a throat infection, I was exhausted and
I told the production crew, "Guys, I’m out of gas. There’s not much
left in me.” They said, “We want you to do one thing, a Christmas spot,
we may use it on the website.” And I said, “We’d better do it in one
take because I can’t sit here for another 30 minutes and do this over
and over again... So
whatever you’re going to do, do it.” So they set up the camera, moved
the Christmas tree. There was no script. There was no teleprompter. I
ad-libbed the spot. It was not something carefully crafted so it
could say hidden things.
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