Blatant Reality

Today, Mike Huckabee was in Columbia, South Carolina campaigning for the January 24th presidential primary. He visited a local restaurant called “Lizards Thicket” where they serve home style southern food all day long. Since he was here at 8 AM on a Saturday, he got to meet with mostly older potential voters that were joined only by a few young die hard Huckabee supporters (aka me) from the University of South Carolina. This would have been a more laid back gathering had it not been for Huckabee’s dramatic surge in the polls this past month. The place was so packed that by the time he was set to arrive, the line was stretched out the door with every aisle in the restaurant packed with bystanders.

This increase in popularity has the unfortunate side affect of attracting every single news agency around and, to be honest, I really don’t understand why they were allowed there in the first place. The restaurant was a small enough place as it is and when you add the unnecessary bulk of multiple different news agencies toting around huge still and video cameras, it just gets obnoxious. They surrounded Huckabee like a protective bubble, forcing him to consciously push outside this bubble to actually meet people which was the whole reason he was there. Sure, the cameras may focus on the person Huckabee is meeting with for a brief second and give the illusion that they actually care what they are saying, but the second he moves on, the bubble closes back around him and pushes the person to the outside.

The mob of news agencies is surely a somewhat recent addition to the Huckabee campaign because back in September, when he visited the University of South Carolina, I could have sworn that maybe only one local station was there to get some footage. Oh well, maybe its because I am still new to this political campaigning stuff that this invasion of new agencies bothered me. The rational side of me knows that Huckabee needs all the media attention he can get right now and media attention in a state with such an important primary as South Carolina, is a must. I guess I would just rather not have camera men bumping into my table and almost knocking my drink over every five seconds.

Well, now that I got that out of my system, lets talk about Huckabee’s 16 minute long speech. He didn’t cover anything new, just reiterated his “fair tax” idea and gave the example about a family whose father would be more able to pay for his daughter’s tuition by not working that if he worked. It was a classic Huckabee speech where he eloquently presented his points and got the crowd laughing. If you want to watch his whole speech, I posted it on YouTube in three, bite size clips. You can get them in order starting with Part 1, then Part 2, and ending with Part 3. Sorry that the audio isn’t the best. He didn’t have a speaker system there but you can mostly make out what he says.