Huckabee Read online

  Given the speed of generational turnover in leadership, Mike Huckabee is either past his prime or ready for prime time—depending on which aspects of a person’s biography serve as the best gauge for choosing a leader of the United States of America. Will one more member of the baby boomer generation be called on to lead the nation? Or will a Gen-X candidate be given the keys to the White House?

  Every new generation of evangelical leaders wrestles with the question of how Christians should relate to government and political involvement. The pendulum swings back and forth—and sometimes swings too far. There has never been a consensus opinion on that issue, not even during the height of the Moral Majority and the Religious Right in the 1980s. Certainly, no consensus currently exists.

  Christians talk about the “city of God” and the “city of man”—to employ language used by Luther, Augustine, Paul, and Jesus. Some evangelicals mix and jumble these cities in unhelpful ways. Other evangelicals split them apart, in equally unhelpful ways. However, on neither side of the debate do I find evangelicals holding an earthly empire state of mind. Christians believe that “we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). Both sides know that Jesus taught, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), and that God told His people, “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 29:7 NASB).

  This biography does not attempt to resolve the issue. Nor does it look to change your political affiliations or cause you to vote for a candidate. The goal here is much more modest: I want to serve you well by telling the story of a man who desires to lead the United States. Huckabee says that he does what he does in order to leave the world in better condition than when he found it—like one of Lester Sitzes’ Boy Scouts. Huckabee would rather be criticized and make mistakes along the way than to sit on the sidelines making commentary and cash but not making a difference. He wants to live like the “man in the arena” described by Theodore Roosevelt, one of Huckabee’s favorite presidents:

  It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.5

  Any political party or world religion could form such a “man in the arena.” Huckabee happens to be conservative and Republican—and, as he would say, “by the grace of God,” he is Christian. But in addition to those credentials, Huckabee is a “what you see is what you get” kind of man. He says what he means and he means what he says. He is comfortable in his own skin, and he doesn’t rely on manipulating people’s perception of him. He is a sinner and a saint—he knows it, and he knows that you know it too. Because of Huckabee’s transparency throughout our interview sessions, this biography was a joy to write. To the extent that I have captured his life on paper, I hope you find it a joy to read.

  No matter your political persuasion, you’ve got to appreciate a man who gets fat-shamed by the media but still orders up a double slab of bacon for a new friend.

  Is there an incognito New York Times reporter nearby, observing my consumption of pork product? That type of question doesn’t seem to be of concern for Huckabee. He knows that game; he just refuses to play it. Once you begin down the path of being somebody you’re not, nobody will know who you really are—including yourself.

  “Who cares what the New York Times prints about me,” he said to me on a later occasion. “I’m from Hope, Arkansas. New York’s not my home.”

  PART 1

  BACKSTORY, BIRTH, AND BOYHOOD

  CHAPTER 1

  LAND OF HOPE AND DREAMS

  1830–1901

  What doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

  —MICAH 6:8 KJV

  RANDY SIMS RECALLS THE FIRST TIME HE MET HIS remarkable friend. As first-semester freshmen entering Ouachita Baptist University together, they enrolled in the same class, Introduction to Political Science. Legendary professor Jim Ranchino taught the course. Ranchino pioneered poll-driven political-demographic work throughout Arkansas, and, like just about every other person in the state of Arkansas, he was a Democrat.

  “Ranchino was asking all these crazy questions, really challenging us—but nobody would say anything back,” Sims recalled.

  “That’s when some guy in the back spoke up and said, ‘You know, I don’t agree with you at all.’ ” The room of eighteen-year-olds sat in silence, waiting for the professor to turn their classmate into a heap of academic ashes.

  “This guy was the only one who had the nerve to do it. He started arguing back and forth with Ranchino. I thought, Who is that guy? He’s smart and knows how to speak clearly.” Later that day, Sims met the guy—“Hi. I’m Mike Huckabee”—and discovered they were hall mates in the now-nonexistent dorm known as Daniel Hall, named after the Old Testament character. Sims thought, This Huckabee guy is going to either be the next Billy Graham or he’s going to be a politician. He is clearly headed somewhere.1

  In 1853, the State of Arkansas commissioned the Cairo and Fulton Railroad to build a line of track across the state from Missouri to Texas. Delayed by the Civil War and poor finances, it was not completed until the early 1870s. Missouri rail bosses had built a line from St. Louis downward through the state to reach the iron ore deposits in what was aptly named Iron Mountain. Jesse James robbed one of these trains in 1874 but refused to take items from men who had “working man’s hands.” He was after the Yankee money of bankers and businessmen. Revenge for the so-called War of Northern Aggression made good motivation for robbing trains.

  That rail line coming out of St. Louis eventually extended all the way down to the Arkansas-Texas border. And for good reason. Connecting an entire state’s worth of Southern neighbors to the excitement of St. Louis and Chicago made good business sense. In a time when horseback travel through some sections of Arkansas might take you a mere seven miles per day, the railroads advertised their line with this claim: “This is positively the only line that runs its entire trains from St. Louis to Texas without change.”2

  In addition to creating the quickest path from Missouri to Texas, the railroads planned their specific route through Arkansas due to the lay of the land. For the sake of simplicity, geologists divide Arkansas diagonally from the northeast corner all the way down to the southwest corner where Arkansas meets Texas, culminating in a town called Texarkana. North of the geological divide is called “highlands,” and south of the divide they call “lowlands.” When people envision Arkansas “hillbilly” culture and history, it is the mountainous Ozark region of the northwest to which they are referring. But when talking about Old South realities present within Arkansas culture—sharecropping, agriculture dependence, plantations, and Memphis blues—that refers to the lowlands of the Delta and Gulf Coastal Plains. Therefore, central Arkansas sits at the intersection of three cultural regions, as embodied by the cities one would travel to upon leaving Little Rock in opposite directions: St. Louis (Midwest), Memphis (Deep South), and Dallas (Southwest). And heading northwest out of Arkansas would take you into “Indian Territory,” now known to us as the state of Oklahoma. Arkansas was a crossroads and a land of untapped potential. The railroads were about to change that.
r />   Texarkana came into existence as a railroad supply town. As the railroad companies in Texas and Arkansas each laid down their tracks, they joined up on the state line. Early city planners decided to obtain one hundred feet from the railroads—fifty feet from each company—to create the main street of the town that would straddle the state line. On the Arkansas side of the dealings, it was Joseph A. Longborough, an executive with the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad, who granted them their fifty feet.3

  Of course, Texarkana wasn’t the only town springing into existence along the route of the new railroad lines. Thirty miles up from Texarkana, Longborough’s team decided to build a train depot, a stopping point for people to board the trains that would soon be coming through. They built the train depot in 1874.4 But people who waited for trains often needed food, lodging, and supplies. So businesses cropped up, the first ones being on land purchased from the railroad companies. Residential houses came after that, followed by churches, a school, and a post office. In a short amount of time, an entire town had sprung up around the original depot and rail lines. But no matter how humble its beginnings, every town needs a name. Mr. Longborough decided this particular train-depot town was worthy of being named after his daughter, Hope.

  On January 16, 1901, Virgil Huckabee entered the world in Hempstead County, Arkansas. The Huckabees had called Hempstead County their home for a few generations, long before it even had the name. They trickled over from North Carolina and Georgia and settled in the region almost two hundred years ago. Just south of Hope, you’ll find a cemetery with a fresh sign at the entrance: “Huckabee Cemetery, est. 1830.” Keep in mind that Arkansas didn’t become a state until 1836, so the Huckabee tribe can lay claim to deep roots in the region. Dozens of Mike Huckabee’s relatives are buried here, though his own parents are buried in town. The cemetery sits adjacent to Huckabee Road. If you’ve got enough Huckabees around to have a cemetery and a road named after you, then you must have a lot of kinfolk in that “neck of the woods,” as they say.

  Over the years, the local newspaper, the Hope Star, printed stories about “the recent biennial Huckabee family reunion.” They would include the many names of the Huckabee adults in attendance, along with a description of the meat, side items, and desserts served. Local newspapers sell copies when local people know their name is in print, so these kinds of stories fill up the pages of small-town papers in the early twentieth century. Now, of course, there is Facebook.

  The best that research can tell, it was Berryman William Huckabee—Mike’s great-great-grandpa—who brought his family over to Arkansas from North Carolina. He was the father of eleven children. The third child, a son they named Lucius Elmore, came along in 1876. In 1898, Lucius married a local girl named Lula, who bore Lucius seven children, then died in 1944 at the age of sixty-six—not a short life span for the time. But though the average life span for a man born in the 1870s was forty-five,5 Lucius lived to be almost ninety-four. That is to say, when Lucius died in 1970, not only had he outlived his wife by twenty-six years, but he also had lived more than twice as long as the average baby boy from the 1870s. In fact, he died only eight years ahead of his son Virgil. When friends of Mike Huckabee talk about his physical stamina, his work ethic, and the short amount of sleep he requires, they ask, “I wonder if that runs in his family.” The longevity of his great-grandpa Lucius, along with many other Huckabees named on the gravestones at Huckabee Cemetery—with eighty- and ninety-year life spans—indicates as much.

  As other Huckabees would also do, Virgil Huckabee chose a wife from the Betts family, marrying Ernie Jerome Betts in the early 1920s. The couple became parents to a son, Dorsey Wiles Huckabee—Mike’s father—in 1923. Fifteen years later, in 1938, they gave Dorsey a sister, Alta Joyce. So after coming from a family of eleven children, Virgil fathered just two. That explains why, when asked about his relatives who remain in the area, Huckabee answers, “Distant cousins mostly . . . second and third cousins.”6

  William Thomas Elder, Huckabee’s maternal grandfather, was born in 1868, three years after the assassination of President Lincoln. Huckabee did not know this grandfather, however, because he died in 1945 at age seventy-eight. The bare facts of William’s adult life are fascinating enough to leave us wishing for more of the story. Here is what we do know: William served during the Spanish-American War. Then, in 1903, at the age of thirty-five, he married a local girl from his native Kentucky. Mary L. “Mollie” Murrell bore him two children in the first two years of their marriage and died at some point between 1910 and 1920.

  Now a widower living in Arkansas with his two sons, William married a second wife, Eva Lorene Whitney. We’re not sure exactly when they tied the knot, but we do know their first baby, Mae Elder—Mike Huckabee’s mother—arrived in 1925. Eva, a native of Illinois, was born in 1904, the same year as William’s oldest son from his late wife. William was fifty-seven and Eva was twenty-one when she gave birth to Mae. They would go on to have seven children altogether. This means that William spent his first thirty-five years as a bachelor, but then died forty-two years later as the father of nine.

  Though Mike never met his maternal grandfather, he wrote about him based on his mother’s description:

  She didn’t talk about him much, and when she did, it was not with affection, but rather with a level of contempt that probably hid a lot of stuff I didn’t need to know. She did tell me that he was an alcoholic and that he could often be harsh, even abusive. But in general, my mother buried her memories of her father deep within her soul and never, to my knowledge, talked about them to anyone.7

  Huckabee also wrote about the two sons William sired by his first wife, the boys old enough to be a father to Huckabee’s mother. One of those brothers, “Uncle Garvin,” became a significant presence in the Huckabee household. Huckabee describes him as “the closest thing to an actual father figure she (Mae) had.”8 Though Garvin spent his adult life as a bachelor in Houston, Texas, he died of cancer in the Huckabees’ home and is buried in the Huckabee cemetery.

  After William’s death in 1945, Eva eventually remarried, to a “Mr. Garner,” and lived until 1989. In August 1973, as Mike Huckabee left for college, the Hope Star highlighted Eva, then sixty-nine, in its Celebrity Corner column. It says a lot about her, but also about the family and the times in which Mike Huckabee came of age. Here is an excerpt:

  Eva Lorene Elder Garner . . . known as “Miz Elder” or “Miz Garner” to so many friends, is better known to her 15 grandchildren as “Go-Go”, not a frivolous term, but one derived by being a person constantly on the go, whether she feels like it or not.

  Go, go, go has been her lot in life, not from choice actually, but something she has accepted without grumbling and with grace. Walking and the ability to walk has been a mainstay in this spunky lady’s life, she has never driven an automobile. The scripture, Micah 6:8—“. . . and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” could best depict her long, busy, useful life.9

  Suffice it to say, Eva was a strong woman who gave her children and grandchildren an example to live by. And her “go, go, go” manner of life foreshadowed an oft-used description of her famous grandson, Mike Huckabee—always on the go.

  An individual cannot take credit for the moral strength and stability of the family into which he was born. But he can only be grateful for what he has received.

  All six direct ancestors of Mike Huckabee written about in this chapter are buried in Hempstead County, Arkansas. However much the world changed during the last 150 years, the Huckabees from which Mike Huckabee descended gave him the inheritance of family stability. His grandparents remained married for more than fifty years, supporting their family with everyday work in an obscure little town in order to give their children’s children a sturdy foundation for the future.

 
Geography and economic realities have a strong influence on our lives. Had the trains not cut through the Arkansas landscape in the 1870s, life would have gone on for the Huckabees. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were theirs even without trains. But the fact that the trains did, in fact, come to Arkansas, and that geographical terrain guided the railroad executives to lay down track just north of where the Huckabee tribes had already established their roots forty years earlier—this all seems providential.

  To be sure, the first generation of Huckabees felt the influence of the trains chiefly because of the new flow of products, in and out, that the trains provided. But then, over the next hundred years, the machines of modernity took the residents of Hope places they would never have gone otherwise. Because of the trains—and later on, the interstate system that followed the same path—the sons and daughters of Hope gained access to a world that may have eluded them if they had been born elsewhere, like up in the Ozark Mountains, where transport did not come easily.

  But along with the positive advances of modernity also came the scourge of efficient evil. Leaders who desired to inflict either joy or sorrow upon the world could now do so with greater speed and in greater quantity. By 1940, the dominant nations of the world took advantage of the major leaps in technological advancement, creating war machines unimaginable at the time of the birth of William Elder (1868) or Lucius Huckabee (1876). The nineteenth-century doctrine of Charles Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” began bearing its fruit in the 1930s, as evil men like Adolf Hitler sought to ensure their own nations would be the fittest and survive. People deemed as “unworthy of life” were simply eliminated. The same train lines in Europe that had brought families together in previous years now stripped them apart, as millions were sent by rail line to concentration camps in far reaches of land under a tyrant’s control. The world marched into another global war.