In the 1950s, during one of his two campaigns as the Democrats’ presidential nominee, Adlai Stevenson was invited to address a gathering of Baptists in Houston, where in 1960 John Kennedy would address a group of Protestant ministers to refute charges that his Catholicism rendered him unfit to be president. This was an opinion vociferously promulgated by Norman Vincent Peale, a broadcast preacher and author of “The Power of Positive Thinking.”
The man introducing Stevenson said the candidate had been invited only “as a courtesy” because Peale “has instructed us to vote for your opponent.” In response, Stevenson repeated a quip he had made when, in 1952, Peale said Stevenson was unfit to be president because he was divorced. Stevenson said: “I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling.”
Now comes the Apostle Mike, determined to save Christian America. Mike Huckabee’s second run for the Republican presidential nomination will reveal how much embarrassment can emanate from one small town.
Hope, Ark., gave us Bill Clinton and the cloud of the Clintonian family seediness that still hovers over public life. Huckabee, another former Arkansas governor, chose Hope, his hometown, to launch a candidacy that begins with a book, “God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy,” and a post-announcement “factories, farms and freedom” tour. If the presidency goes to the most alliterative candidate, Huckabee wins.