Arkansas Blog

Never underestimate the slyness factor in everything Mike Huckabee does and says.

Item A: The sly question about whether Romney's fellow Mormons believe Satan is Jesus' brother.

Item B: The sly use of the cross in the Christmas commercial.

Item C: His sly sotto voce aside, "which one" when Romney asked him during the debatenot to rmisrepresent Romney's position on issues.

Huckabee knows EXACTLY to whom he he is appealing in these smirking stunts, and, as the dog whistle metaphor says, he knows his salivating "base" listeners know exactly what he's really saying.

i remember that bush was taught certain ways to talk in code to make sure these clowns knew he was one of them. i guess this is what they mean. we need to find out the rest of this secret language and the handshake. maybe they even have strippers at their initation parties and have more fun that we know about.

Brummett couldn't remember what W did to gain "regular guy" cred. I submit that it was his inarticulateness and failure to remember "General General's" name, etc. (i would still bet money that somewhere in some local tv station's archives is a piece of film from either his failed 1978 campaign or during the 1980's showing W pronouncing the word "Nuclear" in perfect dictionary form... perhaps it will be a main attraction at his book depository in Dallas?)

"dog whistles" may be an evolved (pardon the pun) form of "innoculation/triangulation".

Huckabee's mastery of this form of "communication" makes sense, considering where he comes from.

But Obama wins the prize for last year's "Best Dog Whistle" innoculation with the Reverend McClurkin episode, a.k.a. as 'Sister Souljah in South Carolina'

Both Huckabee and Obama have proven that they can wield a knife while smiling (thus keeping intact, even promoting the perception of themselves as "NICE GUYS")

Neither has yet proven that they can take a hit (as in, below expectations in vote countings)

gonna be a fun damn year.

p.s. bloggers are having a bit of fun with Kristol's first NYTimes column. seems BK erred again, citing Michelle Malkin for a quote that came from Michael Medved. oh well... i'm still available and would pay to work beside (under?) Maureen Dowd.

See if this is a silent signal

http://www.bartcop.com/no-such-allign2.jpg

Then click on Cato

I'm a Republican evangelical -- more specifically, a conservative Baptist -- and I'd never heard of "vertical leadership" before Huckabee started talking about it. Even now I'm really not sure what he's talking about. It sounds to me suspiciously like the usual creative jargon and mumbo-jumbo you can find in the 29,342 business leadership books down at Barnes & Noble. There's also a subset of these leadership books devoted to the Christian market, so he may have picked it up from one of those. But no, there's no "code word" involved here, because few if any of us evangelicals have any idea what he's referring to.

Bush, as zonker commented, certainly used "dog whistle" words not infrequently. He had a regular team designated to toss in some dog whistles into most of his speeches.

Huck says "I think America is looking for someone vertical, who is thinking, Let's take America up and not down."
Two ideas come to mind:
one is dog whistle for getting the nation ready for the rapture, maybe issuing mandates that all cars and trucks have larger sliding roof windows. He could extend the mandate to 18-Wheelers too and maybe have it cover trains just in case.

two. is that it's code talk for rockers. After all, anyone who claims he wants the Stones to play his Inaugural must have an inkling about going "higher and higher." Kinda like the opposite of "let's get down tonite."

a pagan cynic, such as myself, "vertical leadership" sounds to me like a slight revision (for an election year) of the holy trinity.

the Father, the Son, the Holy POTUS ?

I found this:

Church Profile
Shaping Vertical Habits

by Nathan Bierma
Issue #82

Vertical Habits as a Way of Life

The Vertical Habits series did more than just shape Sunday worship, though. The series aimed to nourish the idea of worship as formative as well as expressive-a way of life rather than a discrete event.

"The intent was to talk about a life of worship and what it looks like. How do we encourage it, not just on Sunday corporately, but also throughout the week, wherever we are?" Vander Woude said. "At Daybreak, we have people from a lot of different backgrounds, and we wanted to be sure that we share these particular elements, and have people see how each part is important in our lives, not just when we go to church."

"It encouraged an attitude of praise as a lifestyle, rather than just on Sunday morning," said member Bob Haan. "Sometimes you really want to [praise], sometimes you only do it out of obligation, but when it becomes a habit, you get the results despite that fact."

speaking of 'dog whistles' (a.k.a. "synchronicity")

has anyone noticed how during the past ten days the corruption trial, rigged elections, killings, bombings, from a particular continent have become daily front-page news (the way burma, uh, myanmar was for a couple of weeks during the summer) ?

notably including a 'homeland' connected to a particularly successful POTUS candidate.

coincidence? (not in politics)

I think I prefer horizontal habits. It's easier on the back. However, I do have to get vertical for it.

notably including a 'homeland' connected to a particularly successful POTUS candidate.<<

Oh CNN really did it this afternoon Muleboy. They did a story on Barack's grandmother who lives in Kenya
interspersed with shots of violence in the town. While grandma was carving corn, shots of the rioting in
Kenya were interspersed. Quite upsetting to the great unread who could not recognize the non-coincidental nature of the "news" clip.

Somebody ought to ask Huck if he's ever had birth pangs...

dakar, algiers, kenya, nigeria, and now darfur/chad again... i expect it to continue and grow.

meanwhile, there must be a lot of dogs out there responding to the whistle,

Huckabee now leads in a NATIONAL POLL (for the first time, iirc)

huckabee poll name/link

I just rounded up all the stray dogs on this end of the lake, we get a lot as folks dump
them back here, walked down to waters edge with the snarling pack and blew my verticle
whistle,,,,,dogs just kept snarling and biting at my heels but my old cat dropped dead.
Wonder what Hickbilly would say about that??
Hach oh shalba de hagha

"Huckabee repeated his claim to have made 94 tax cuts including the "first broad-based tax cut" in the history of Arkansas, though he actually signed tax bills that resulted in a net increase in taxes of $500 million."

---Factcheck.org

Let's all calm down folks, the election is 11 months away.
None of us knows the identity of the next POTUS. Polls change, opinions change, circumstances change, but one thing is clear.
Anybody would be an improvement over what we have now.
Just in case, I told hubby this past weekend to start sorting through our stuff for a big yard sale in the summer. If it looks like another Republican is going to be elected, Im prepared to get gone.
Canada's too damn cold, I'd have to swim the Rio to get into Mexico (Is that right?) Or travel to there in a smelly truck? (Will there be room for my furniture - it's kind of nice.)
Any suggestions?

huck used his vertical refrence on letterman.

...and in the Chris Matthews short "ambush" interview, did you catch Janet chomping away on her gum (my wife said "cud") or tabacky?

How in this world can you not understand verticle politics? Huckabee's not the only one talking about this. Barack Hussein Obama is, too.

He explains what he means on his website...

Everywhere I go on the campaign trail I meet folks with a real thirst for a healthy discussion of the issues. Ultimately, people don't care about whether an issue comes from the left or the right, what they want to hear about is an idea that lifts America up and makes us better. It's what I call Vertical Politics.

Vertical Day is our way of sharing with voters our ideas, our hopes for America and the challenges facing us. We will answer some of your questions, hear from some of our friends, promote my positions on the issues through video and personal blogs of mine and try some fun things online.

http://www.mikehuckabee.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=VerticalDay.Home

we had better warn people that vertical day is hucks way to indoctrinate people into his ways. this is more a method like tony alamo used.

I didn't see Jethrine popping the gum but sure did see her scarfing down food, with both
hands yet, in some little eatin place yesterday.....I could only think of Jackie Kennedy and
what a lady she was..................................
Another black eye for Arkansas.

Oh, Holy Shit....now I hear Jethrine was eating a HUCK-A-BURGER and a fried pickle!!!!!