Mrs. Huckabee
Posted on Sun Dec 09, 2007 at 11:17:04 AM EST
Tags: Mike Huckabee, Janet Huckabee (all tags)
Newsweek has a feature article on Mike Huckabee's wife, Janet. If he gets the Republican nomination, she may add some spice to the race. Two snippets, the first is how she's remembered in Arkansas:
There, Janet Huckabee, 52, has long been known as a straight-talking, independent-minded good ole gal with a daredevil streak and a passion for the outdoors. Dubbed the "First Tomboy" when her husband was governor, she tracked bears, hunted rattlesnakes, fired a grenade launcher and jumped out of an airplane. To promote a conservation sales tax, she jet-skied down the length of the Arkansas River— a stunt that helped earn her a spot in the state's Outdoor Hall of Fame. She often charmed local residents with her exploits, though she could also alienate them when her plain-spoken style veered into irascibility and crassness. "Janet is going to tell you what she thinks," says longtime friend Anita McCauley Murrell. "She is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of person."
The second is less favorable, concerning her 2002 failed run for Arkansas Secretary of State: [More...]
Janet's low point: her run for secretary of State in 2002, in which she was "perceived as thin-skinned, even mean-spirited," says Janine Parry, a political-science professor at the University of Arkansas. Huckabee attacked her opponent over a past DWI conviction and suggested, without verification, that he still had a drinking problem. Responding to critics who questioned her use of state vehicles and troopers to campaign, she told The New York Times, "If it wasn't for the grace of God, I'd have shot a few people already." She got trounced in her race—voters saw her run as an unseemly power play by the couple—and nearly dragged down her husband in his re-election bid that year.
Mike Huckabee is on the cover of Newsweek but the article, A New American Holy War is as much about Mitt Romney.
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