God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy
by Gov. Mike Huckabee (R, AR)


(Click for Amazon book review)

OnTheIssues.org BOOK REVIEW:

People like Mike Huckabee who live in America's heartland and who hunt and literally eat grits and gravy would like big city elites in their "Bubblevilles" to respect and understand down-home country folk in their "Bubbavilles" much more than they do, and to recognize their importance in society. Huckabee wrote this book because he is an arch-Bubba is running for president.

Mike Huckabee shares many Bubbaville values, such as "only pay for something you have earned" (which underlies his policy goal of ending most entitlements). Like most residents of Bubbavilles, he enjoys hunting and is afraid that the liberal elites in Bubblevilles want to take away his guns.

Mike Huckabee rips on celebrity culture especially: he despises big cities like New York and Washington, D.C. This reviewer thinks his narrow mind set would not serve well on the international political level, if he maintains this anti-elite attitude when dealing with international elites.

To this reviewer he sounds more like a preacher than a politician. Mike Huckabee takes an anti-gay marriage stance and asserts that businesses have the right to discriminate against gays. He is, like must residents of Bubbavilles, pro-Chick-fil-A: he claims that they have a right to stand by their religious convictions and not bow down to government interference. (In 2012, the head of Chick-fil-A publicly declared his opposition to same-sex marriage, and the restaurant chain hence became the focus of LGBT-supported boycotts_.

Huckabee wants to eliminate the IRS. He is so worried about big government that he would eliminate or curtail most entitlements and thinks fraud in them is rampant. He wants to destroy ObamaCare, on grounds of both anti-big government and anti-entitlement -- and presumably as ObamaCare matures, he will find rampant fraud in ObamaCare as well.

Overall, the "Bubbleville" vs. "Bubbaville" framework, while charming when Huckabee says it, does not make a persuasive political argument. Huckabee's goal is to attract residents of "Bubbavilles": but he attacks basic Bubbaville economics such as entitlements and ObamaCare. That is not unique to Huckabee -- it is common among all conservatives. But Huckabee claims to represent Bubba, and Bubba appreciates entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and eventually ObamaCare) much more than does Huckabee. This reviewer, an old-time Bubbville resident, would not vote for Mike Huckabee for that reason.

-- Christina Meyskens and William Cooke, OnTheIssues book reviewers, May 25, 2015

OnTheIssues.org excerpts:  (click on issues for details)

Civil Rights     Free speech should include Christian worldview.

Principles & Values     Even elected officials shouldn't squelch dissenting views.

Click for quotations from other sources by: Mike Huckabee