Huckabee Read online

  PRAISE FOR HUCKABEE

  “Scott Lamb brilliantly captures the remarkable journey of Mike Huckabee. When Mike worked for me as a young adult, I witnessed his commitment to God, his understanding of freedom, and his unique gift to communicate. Through the Reagan years, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, end of the Cold War, and economic recovery, Mike didn’t just watch—he contributed. He went on to lead in Arkansas and now continues to lead nationally, constantly inspiring people and influencing the culture in a positive way.”

  —JAMES ROBISON FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, LIFE OUTREACH INTERNATIONAL FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER, THE STREAM

  “I have known and respected Mike and Janet Huckabee for many years. Mike’s many gifts, common sense, sense of humor, and strong convictions are nationally known. His foundation is his Christian faith. His strength is his faith that people and countries can change. This book will give a greater understanding of this good man to every reader.”

  —REX M. HORNE JR. FORMER PRESIDENT OF OUACHITA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT OF ARKANSAS’ INDEPENDENT COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

  “Scott Lamb’s Huckabee: The Authorized Biography provides an objective but sympathetic introduction to the colorful life of Governor Mike Huckabee. Lamb has caught the essence of the man, the essence of his character, and has revealed the gentle spirit of a great man. One may not agree with all of Lamb’s conclusions, but what is important is that he has provided us with an accurate portrayal of a man whose Christianity has permeated the deepest levels of his life. This book is a great read for this year.”

  —PAIGE PATTERSON PRESIDENT OF SOUTHWESTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY FORT WORTH, TX

  “Whenever we’re around ‘the Gov’ our spines are stiffened and our hearts are strengthened to stand courageously at a time in our nation’s history when cowardice is so contagious. You will feel your own spine stiffen with resolve as you read this enjoyable biography of Huckabee, written by our friend Scott Lamb.”

  —DAVID AND JASON BENHAM SPEAKERS AND AUTHORS OF WHATEVER THE COST

  “A compelling account of one man’s unlikely ascent from rural Arkansas to national prominence. If you thought you knew the governor before reading this book, think again! Lamb transparently takes you into the very character of the man, from the Baptist pulpit to the governor’s mansion. This book provides a gripping account of Huckabee’s remarkable journey of faith, family, and politics that took place within one of the most fascinating eras of recent American political history.”

  —STU EPPERSON JR. AUTHOR OF LAST WORDS OF JESUS PRESIDENT OF THE TRUTH NETWORK

  © 2015 Walter Scott Lamb

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by W Publishing, an imprint of Thomas Nelson.

  Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Any Internet addresses, phone numbers, or company or product information printed in this book are offered as a resource and are not intended in any way to be or to imply an endorsement by Thomas Nelson, nor does Thomas Nelson vouch for the existence, content, or services of these sites, phone numbers, companies, or products beyond the life of this book.

  Unless otherwise noted, photos are from the Huckabee family photo archives.

  Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®

  Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version. Public domain.

  Scripture quotations marked NASB are from New American Standard Bible®. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

  Scripture quotations marked NKJV are from the New King James Version®. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-0-7180-3914-1 (eBook)

  ISBN 978-0-7180-3915-8 (HC)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015909808

  15 16 17 18 19 RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is dedicated in memory of Jesse David Clanton Jr.—the beloved father of my wife, a friend of Jesus, and an American patriot who knew the beauty of integrity and the honor of civic duty.

  He died in 2013 on the birthday of Mike Huckabee, a man he never met but would have enjoyed talking to because of their shared zeal for God and country.

  Mr. Clanton’s death also fell on the seventeenth anniversary of my wedding to his daughter. Her soul bears the indelible fingerprint of his affection and provision.

  God is a poet, writing verse with our lives and into our lives. One year to the day after Mr. Clanton’s death, Pearl delivered our sixth child into the world. We named him Aaron Jesse in honor of a grandfather he would never meet on this side of glory.

  The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. . . .

  For I know that my Redeemer lives,

  and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

  —JOB 1:21; 19:25 ESV

  CONTENTS

  Prologue: Empire State of Mind

  Part 1—Backstory, Birth, and Boyhood

  Chapter 1 Land of Hope and Dreams

  Chapter 2 Small Town

  Chapter 3 One Day in 1955

  Chapter 4 American Pie

  Part 2—Faith, Hope, Love, and the Beatles

  Chapter 5 Guitars, Hobos, and Kool-Aid

  Chapter 6 Fortunate Son

  Chapter 7 Bridge over Troubled Water

  Chapter 8 Rocket Man

  Chapter 9 (No) Teenage Wasteland

  Part 3—The City of God

  Chapter 10 The Christian Woodstock

  Chapter 11 Live and Let Live

  Chapter 12 I Wish We’d All Been Ready

  Chapter 13 Ouachita

  Chapter 14 I Walk the Line

  Chapter 15 Born to Run

  Chapter 16 Son of a Preacher Man

  Chapter 17 Revolution

  Chapter 18 A Pastor for All Seasons

  Chapter 19 Texarkana

  Chapter 20 Can’t We All Just Get Along?

  Chapter 21 Experiencing God

  Part 4—The City of Man

  Chapter 22 You Can’t Always Get What You Want

  Chapter 23 Even the Losers Get Lucky Sometimes

  Chapter 24 Under Pressure

  Chapter 25 Life Is a Highway

  Chapter 26 Another Brick in the Wall

 
Chapter 27 With a Little Help from My Friends

  Chapter 28 We Are the Champions

  Chapter 29 If I Were a Rich Man

  Chapter 30 Dream On

  Epilogue: All About That Base

  Notes

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Index

  Photos

  Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

  —JEREMIAH 29:4–7 ESV

  For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

  —HEBREWS 13:14 ESV

  Pray then like this:

  Our Father in heaven,

  hallowed be your name.

  Your kingdom come,

  your will be done,

  on earth as it is in heaven.

  —MATTHEW 6:9–10 ESV

  PROLOGUE

  EMPIRE STATE OF MIND

  Do you like bacon?

  —MIKE HUCKABEE

  AFTER NEARLY RUNNING OVER A DOZEN NEW YORK CITY pedestrians who all seemed oblivious to their near-death experiences, the taxi driver pulled his Midwestern passenger, me, up to the Renaissance Hotel in Times Square. Given the location of the hotel, it now seemed strange that my driver had not immediately known how to get there and had taken a few wrong turns, all on the meter.

  Note to self: when a taxi driver in New York asks, “Have you ever been there?” or “Do you know where it is?” always answer in the affirmative.

  As we pulled up to the curb, Mike Huckabee approached the cab.

  “Scott Lamb?” he asked. This was our first time meeting in person.

  I said yes, and he got in.

  I didn’t know how much time he’d have available, but I had hoped for at least an hour of interviewing. He had been on various FOX programs that afternoon, and his schedule the next day involved taping his own television show before an immediate flight out of the city.

  It was a beautiful Friday night in April 2014. I had already begun fairly extensive background research for this biography, and I was eager to begin the more formal interview sessions. Though still months away from any serious speculation in the newspapers regarding Huckabee’s 2016 plans, it was never too early for critics to begin dismantling potential candidates. Some recent pieces I had read attacked him because of his weight. Indeed, he wasn’t the skin-and-bones he had been almost a decade earlier. He ran the New York marathon in 2006 but hurt his knee ligaments doing so, and the injury now kept him away from any regimented preparation for marathons. He had put on about 30 pounds since then, but because he had lost 105 pounds to begin with, the idea that he had “put it all back on” seemed less than truthful.

  I wanted to ask him about that, but since this was our first interview I decided against it, fearing he might be sensitive about the topic. I’d save that for another day, once I had been able to gauge how open and transparent he was when under the lens of biographical investigation.

  “West Side Steakhouse,” Huckabee said, and then told the driver exactly how best to get there.

  On the drive he pointed out to me one “don’t miss” spot after another, commenting on how exciting the city of New York was to him. “It’s just such a center of culture and humanity. Energy and people coming together. Incredible city.”

  “On a different scale than Hope, Arkansas?” I joked.

  “Yeah, the pace is a bit faster,” he said.

  We arrived at the restaurant and were greeted warmly by a man whom Huckabee seemed to know very well.

  “Scott, this is Nick. He owns the place. Nick, Scott is a new friend from out of town. I’m here to show him why I love your place—one of my favorites in the city.”

  Nick beamed like a craftsman who is proud of having built something special—in this case, a restaurant people enjoyed bringing new friends to.

  He turned Huckabee aside for a minute and talked to him about “what they’re doing in Washington”—the kind of political small talk that is Huckabee’s stock-in-trade. He talked to Nick with excitement, as if it were the first time he had been called on to give his opinion on that particular subject that week. As far as Nick was concerned, it was.

  We took our seats and scanned the menu. That’s when Huckabee leaned toward me from across the table, wide-eyed and grinning. “Do you like bacon?” he asked.

  “Well, sure. Everyone likes bacon,” I said.

  “Nick, bring us out an appetizer. Make it a double order of slab bacon. Thanks.” He turned back to me. “Oh, you’re going to love this.”

  I did. The smell alone would have driven a vegetarian to recant for one night. Thick-cut (hence the word slab printed on the menu) bacon had been grilled like steak, and it came with Nick’s special sauce on the side.

  After the bacon came a steak-and-broccoli entrée. I laughed a bit as I realized this was the finest meal I had ever eaten with someone who had written a book titled Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork. Huckabee knew he had one chance to take a new friend out for a memorable meal—and he did so with joy.

  Just over one year later, on May 5, 2015, Huckabee came to his hometown of Hope, Arkansas, to announce his candidacy for the president of the United States. Local high school students joined with campaign supporters, national media, and mere curiosity seekers to fill every available seat on the main floor, in the balcony, and in an overflow room. Classic rock and country boomed from the sound system. Large screens positioned on stage read, “From Hope to Higher Ground” and “Mike Huckabee 2016.”

  When it was time to begin, a line of Boy Scouts marched in the side door and filed onto a runway platform, poled flags in hand. Lester Sitzes, the local Scout leader and best friend of Huckabee since they had played marbles together in first grade, directed the young men. They responded in tight formation just as they had been drilled and led the audience in the pledge:

  I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

  The phrase “under God” is a late addition to the pledge, added in through an act of Congress in 1954—one year before Sitzes and Huckabee were born. As he signed the bill, President Eisenhower stated, “From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.”1 Those additional two words signified to the world that American citizens, unlike their counterparts living under Soviet Communism and its official doctrine of atheism, did not pledge ultimate allegiance to the state. U.S. citizens do pledge allegiance to the state, but only as it exists “under God.” Eisenhower’s pastor said that without those two words, “it could be the pledge of any republic.”2

  Next on the program in Hope, a pair of teens came onstage to sing the national anthem. The girl, styled like Taylor Swift, smiled as if born without the ability to be nervous. The boy, equally gregarious, wore high tops and looked like an early-years Justin Bieber. You might have assumed that this duo, like the Scouts, were locals. But after singing only a few notes, their American Idol caliber of talent and confident stage presence let you know they had done this kind of thing before. And you also realized that they probabl
y didn’t come from Hope—at least, not both of them. Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place, and small towns don’t produce two people of such talent and execution.3

  Then again, this is Hope, Arkansas.

  Backstage, Huckabee reflected on his life’s journey. At fourteen—the same age as these teens—Huckabee had gotten his own big break when he was hired as a DJ for the local radio station, where he fell in love with music, especially all the pop and rock songs of the era. Behind the microphone, he lost the last vestige of his childhood shyness and honed his gifts of humor and gab passed down from his parents. It was also at KXAR that Huckabee received mentoring from the station manager, one of the few Republicans in all of Hempstead County. More importantly, the manager was a Christian statesman who taught Huckabee the importance of serving one’s community as a natural outworking of one’s Christian faith.

  Nearly five decades later, Huckabee was back in Hope to continue the vision his mentor had given to him. Still hidden from the eyes of the audience and cameras, he knew that by the end of the hour, he would once again officially be a candidate for the president of the United States of America.

  He was jumping into this public arena along with a whole host of Republicans and Democrats. But out of all of them, only Huckabee and Democrat Hillary Clinton had also waged war for their parties’ 2008 nominations. Obviously, neither had won that year. Huckabee needed more time and money in order to gain name recognition. You can’t just shift from being unknown to ubiquitous overnight.

  That was a joke. Of course you can—this is America.

  In 2007, one week before Huckabee announced his first presidential campaign, a single mother in Canada uploaded to YouTube a poorly lit video of her twelve-year-old son singing “So Sick” in a local talent contest.4 A music studio executive came across the video and signed the kid, who would soon become a household name: Justin Bieber.

  The founders of the social media platforms that now facilitate people’s rise to fame—YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and the like—are mostly Gen Xers, contemporaries of Huckabee’s three children (born in 1976, 1980, and 1982). But Huckabee and his wife, Janet, were born in 1955, the same year as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs—baby boomers who created the computer hardware and software infrastructure that make social media possible.