Romancing White Evangelical Support: Huckabee's Trip to John Paul II Memorial May Signal Presidential Run?
What happens when a former presidential candidate and 100 evangelicals pray at a Polish Roman Catholic shrine? As it happens, we all break out our tea-leaves-reading skills and peer deeply into the American electoral future.
Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister and the former governor of Arkansas, held a group prayer at the memorial of Pope John Paul II in Krakow, Poland last Saturday. Huckabee accompanied 100 evangelicals who prayed at the site of the late Primate's 1979 homily that is credited for igniting grassroot efforts leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall 10 years later.
Assistant professor of political science at University of Massachusetts, Boston, Luis Jimenez, says it is hard to say if Huckabee is preparing to run. He noted it is too early for this gesture to have a lasting impact, explaining that in months prior to a national election, voters are inundated with news of candidates taking trips abroad. Jimenez concludes that this trip to Poland may be more about building name recognition and campaign cash reserves simultaneously.
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"I don't know if courting the white evangelical vote is the right word, as much as white evangelical support," he said. "No one will be able to vote for him for two years at least, and very few people will even remember this trip by then, but in the meantime they can donate, talk about, think about his potential campaign, which is what any politician wants regardless of whether that person is actually running for president or not."
While Huckabee has not formally declared whether he will run in 2016, visiting religious and political allies boosts name-recognition and gives the appearance that he/she has foreign policy experience. Most notably, President Barack Obama visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem before the 2008 elections while candidate Mitt Romney visited Poland and Israel in 2012. U.S Senator Marco Rubio has visited South Korea and Japan while Ted Cruz has visited Estonia, Israel and Poland.
Jimenez says politicians taking trips abroad is "neither new nor innovative" because they do not involve as many local voters. Floyd Brown, a political consultant and co-founder of Citizens United, writes that this trip sets Huckabee on a prestigious start to in the race to the White House.
"As a whole, it's not an accident that Governor Huckabee picked Poland," Floyd said. "Poland stands at the center of U.S. post-Cold War strategic policy. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, it became U.S. policy for NATO to fill the void left by the retreating Soviets."
Floyd explains that President Obama has not lived up to the promises to the Baltic region, and with Vladamir Putin looming in the not-so-far distance, there is a need to show American commitment to the welfare of the region.
"These nations watched as Barack Obama failed to live up to America's commitment to Ukraine," Floyd said. "And they're acutely aware he hasn't even lifted a finger to help them in their heroic struggle to stay free."
"It's likely that Governor Mike Huckabee would have done much better with a similar challenge," he concluded.
Jimenez adds that the evangelical vote is important for anyone running on a Republican ticket.
"Evangelical Christians are a central part of the Republican coalition, if the party cannot mobilize them, I don't see how they can win in 2016," he said. "For the Republican Party, it's absolutely essential. I don't think any Republican candidate can win the primaries without the backing of at least part of the evangelical Christian vote, and if evangelical Christians united in favor or against a particular candidate, they would play the king-making role."
Traditionally, white evangelical voters who consider family values and religion important go for a Republican candidate like Huckabee, and according to this RealClearPolitics report, Huckabee is the one GOP candidate who stacks quite well in a run against Hillary Clinton, even though the poll shows him losing.
Family values and taking the country back to its Christian roots have been some of Huckabee's major talking points when running for public office. In 1998, Huckabee declared to a group of Southern Baptists that he left pastoring for politics to make America better.
"I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives."
Mike Huckabee hosts a television talkshow, "Huckabee," on Fox News Network that has ran going on six years. He ran for president in 2008 and won the Iowa caucuses.
