this is like the Shaheen and Kerrey attacks on Obama just enough plausable deniability.

This is just as bad, as Romney if not worse. By not saying happy holidays he excludes not only non-believers, but all non-Christians. You may not realize it but he running to be president of the United States and there are a few non-Christians here.

If I'm going to judge the morality of an ad, I'm certainly not going to take the word of a dirtbag like Donahue.

Go back to Fox News and leave us humans alone, Wild Bill.

I didn't notice the cross the first time I watched it either. Instead, I was kind of creeped out by the fact that as the commercial progresses, the background moves as if the camera is revolving around Huckabee, but Huckabee himself isn't moving at all. Really, it was kind of freaky the first time I saw it.

If Huckabee wins the nomination (which I still think will probably go to Romney), this is the sort of thing that will be good to use to define him. In 2000, Bush called himself a "compassionate conservative" and won over the independents that thought they were more moral than Bill Clinton. In 2004, his "steady leadership" won over the "security moms" and got him a victory.

So far, Mike Huckabee has identified himself as the Christian Candidate. It solidifies the base, but it doesn't expand the Republican coalition the way Bush did (briefly, each time). Huckabee's not going to appeal to any independents who don't already identify with the GOP, and will only alienate other independents. If he keeps this kind of thing up, I think that offers the Democratic nominee a clear line of contrast, and will help reach out to the majority of America that doesn't want a theocracy.

This ad is effective and reminds the right wing Christian constituency he is one of them. He is not running for president in the secularist blogosphere so I wouldn't expect this ad to be well received here. And the fact it is done as a "non-political" feel-good makes it doubly effective.

Huckabee is great.

The other Republicans keep hammering him for being "soft on crime" and "weak on immigration", but they fail to realize his voters couldn't care less about those issues.  Huck has proved himself (and this attack allows him to do so again) to be VERY in touch with the values and attitudes of the Christian conservative voter.

This is FORCING a showdown between the evangelicals (who have found their candidate) and the taxcut/warmonger Republican establishment because the candidates the establishment have rolled out are simply NOT credible on the issues evangelicals care about.

Mark my word, the Republican establishment WILL NOT allow Huckabee to secure the nomination, but they are going to have to PUSH HARD to keep him out of it, and every evangelical Huckabee supporter is watching.  The harder the establishment has to push to keep him out, the more evangelicals they will piss off, and there goes the ballgame.

The complete dissolution of the "Reagan coalition."

Go Huckabee!

Guess Ron Paul weighed in on the ad too:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/18 /huckabees-christmas-ad-_n_77315.html

Used the line about fascism coming to this country wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.

I'm amazed at the sort of "tao of Huck".

Despite his rise in the polls - I see nothing but absolute hatred for the man on the right-leaning blogosphere, talk radio, and even leading 'voices' on the right (No, Chuck Norris does not qualify as a "leading voice").

I posted a bit about this in previous Huck thread - before I bought into his rising poll numbers.  

I'm really wondering if there's a pathology permeating the 'vocal right'... The Malkins, the Goldbergs, the Limbaughs, the Coulters - even the simple poster at freeper or LGF or RS - their message has never really been one of 'hope'.  It's never been "what we would accomplish with the obstructionist democrats" -- it's "enemies", the secularists, the communists, the islamonazis, the traitors, feminists, scientists, lawyers - and the unending need to destroy them.  

Forget Karl Rove, it's Lee Atwater on steroids.  

I think the key difference between the two generations, though -- the Atwater generation actually had an agenda they wanted to implement.   The Rove generation doesn't really care too much about the agenda - they just want to demolish the opposition.

Huckabee's got the agenda - but he's not selling it the way they want it sold.  Sure - Huck's got an economic populist streak, but as his tax proposal shows, it's hardly an unbending principle.

I think Todd nailed it with the comparison between Romney's speech on secular enemies and Huckabee's ad... it's the whole tactical approach.   Romney may not be the darling - but you'll find extensive pockets of Romney support around different corners of the right-side blogosphere.   I don't think this is because they - the screaming banshees - "trust" Romney on some social conservative agenda more than Huckabee, it's because he speaks their language.

As a professional TV & Film Art Director I think that this is a case of clients and viewers reading messages and images into every stupid mundane detail. Sometimes a book case is just a book case.

If I was trying to be clever and wanted to sell that cross I would have tracked that camera around and ended with the cross over his shoulder. But it only comes in to view for a brief moment in the middle of a camera move.  It's gone before you even think to notice it.

What gets me is that it's not the cross that says "I'm the religious guy". Did you notice the Christmas Tree? Did you see a Minorah or Kwanza __ (fill in the Kwnaza themed thingy here) ? No you didn't. This is Christmas wishes for Christians. OK fine. I have no problem with that as a Democrat. It proves that he is not the candidate for everyone . He is the candidate that only sees Christians.

My token conservative friend was supporting Huckabee but dropped him in the wake of this advertisement.

Here's another look at it, from a satirical point of view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-BNc531h oQ

If you think that cross-shaped bookshelf, floating behind Huckabee, was a coincidence...then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you.  Political ads are set, cast, scripted, filmed and edited with meticulous attention to details.

This ad uses intentional, breathtakingly subliminal messaging. If Huckabee chooses to deny it, he is a liar.  

Huckabee impresses me as a very devout and skillful liar. Where did he learn to lie like that? Can somebody in Arkansas please explain this style of lying to me?  

My guess is that Huckabee hopes to milk his lie about this ad into a media controversy, such that he can then be seen in the media as standing up for the "cross"...er...I mean, "bookshelf" against its detractors.

This man has absolutely no shame.

Donahue??  The guy who bitches that Christmas isn't Christian enough is mad that Huckabee is TOO Christian?  That is ripe!

It's hard not to like Huckabee... but, what kind of threat is he.  I think he's a lock for the presidency if he gets nominated ('cos he's the warm, fuzzy, likeable guy that American voters are obsessed with), but the right wingers think he'll get less electoral votes than Mondale...

I'm confused, really... What, they don't like "compassionate conservatives" anymore?

Thanks,

Mike

Attacking Huckabee over this ad will make him stronger among evangelicals. The smart thing anyone should do is leave it alone.

As for Donohue, he's a slimeball anyway.

Can anyone remember if Donohue went off on the RNC for their podium/pulpit at the 2004 Republican Convention?

http://www.beliefnet.com/imgs/tout/story /RNC_podium.jpg

Yeah, thought not.

Huckabee's ad does not compare to Bush's visit to Bob Jones University. Donohue would have been gleeful if there was a picture of the pope.

Man, he is one cunning, clever son-of-a-b*tch.  I've been watching this guy with a mixture of admiration and apprehension since very early in the piece, and now I am getting très concerned.  He is not going to be easy to beat.  Best case scenario is the Republicans have to nuke him so bad they suffer serious collateral damage, but he is look more and more like the Terminator in a collar to me.  If they don't destroy him we are in for a Nantucket sleigh-ride of a campaign.

He would eat Hillary for breakfast and then smile about it, dear Lord don't make it so.  Even Obama is going to have his hands full with this guy.  They may end up each other's vice-president.

Wait a sec? Donahue from the Catholic League is attacking Huckabee? For what, wearing his evangelicalism on his sleeve. The same guy who went after Kerry because his religious director spoke at an AIDS rally(that' some how anti-Catholic is his view). The same guy who went all out for W?

If you didn't know it before, "The Catholic League" is part of the right-win GOP machine. If Romney put out an ad like this, you better believe Romney would have kept his mouth shut. Spouting religion, as long as you defend the perogatives of the neo-cons and the business eleite in the party, is ok bt him.  

this is a weird one, but if the aHyUCK (trying to turn his name into Goofy's laugh, not sure how to spell it) keeps the evangical/mormon spat going, really starts covertly insulting mormons and AHyUCK gets the nom, would enough of Utahs electorate (strongly mormon) sit out the election to put it in play?  or at least get us into the upper 30's-low 40's?

I think Huckabee meant to say the bolded part instead of the crossed-out part - surely an accidental oversight:

"If we are so politically correct in this country that a person can't say enough of the nonsense with the political attack ads could we pause for a few days and say Merry Christmas to each other people in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, then we're really, really in trouble as a country."

In the words of Jack Handey, "It's sad that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of wild dogs."

In this case, the GOP family is the pack of wild dogs.  It's great to see them turn on one another.  Go, Huckster!  Go, Catholic League!  Kill, kill, kill!

Subliminal????!!!!!  The cross is the brightest thing in the ad. It is the only thing that moves (it is alive??). It is significantly brighter than Huckabee himself.

I still can't see a shelf, as in a set of horizontal planes on which items are places. I see one vertical and one horizontal, shining brightly.

JJonMyDD: It does not "come on briefly in the middle of a camera move." It IS the camera move. It comes on right at the outset of the ad and dominates the darkened background (Huckabee included)for at least 10 seconds out of the 30-second spot. Then it is slowly replaced by Huckabee's own beatific face. My jaw dropped when I saw it.

If any film director did this in a feature, he or she would be pounded by the critics for being so obvious.

Huckabee is entitled to send any message he wants to send, but this is an absolutely overt plea for Christian support in a secular political contest.