WASHINGTON -- In his soon-to-be-released book, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee explores cultural divisions between those who live on the coasts and those living in the middle of the country where God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy are normal parts of life.
The book, to be released Tuesday, comes soon after Huckabee's Jan. 3 announcement that he was ending his Fox News Channel show, Huckabee, while considering a second presidential run.
The 242-page book describes a stark contrast between those who live in what he calls "Bubble-ville"-- Los Angeles, New York and Washington -- and people who live in "Bubba-ville" -- the middle of the country. The areas disagree about how children should be raised, what limits government should have and how marriage should be defined.
In a call with supporters last week, Huckabee said he wrote the book to help those in Bubble-ville understand the values of people who live in Bubba-ville.
"No. 1, it's to give a word of affirmation to the people who hold those values; and No. 2, it's really to try to explain who we are to the people who live in those three [cities] and say 'we may be good old boys, but we're not as dumb as you think we are,'" Huckabee said.
Huckabee wrote that Americans are getting tired of how intrusive federal agencies, like the National Security Agency, have become.
"Too many Americans have grown used to Big Government's overreach. They've been conditioned to just bend over and take it like a prisoner. But in Bubba-ville, the days of bending over are just about over. People are ready to start standing up for freedom and refusing to take it anymore," he wrote.
Huckabee criticizes most reality television shows, but specifically excluded Duck Dynasty and 19 Kids and Counting, and singles out several popular female musicians, including Beyonce and Miley Cyrus, for "crude" and "x-rated" dancing and clothing.
"Removing one's clothing is not especially unique -- most people do it every day. But to celebrate an especially vulgar and graceless way of undressing by making it the centerpiece of a stage act is a sad substitute for real talent," he wrote.
Huckabee addresses marriage as a religious institution at length, writing that "for believers, changing the definition of marriage is no more an option than it would be for observant Jews to serve bacon-wrapped shrimp or Hindus to open a steakhouse."
He also criticized courts for striking down same-sex marriage bans across the country, singling out Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza's order last spring that briefly allowed same-sex couples to marry statewide. Huckabee wrote that, when citizens vote to create the bans, the "ultimate voice has spoken."
"If a single judge can rebel against the people's law, has he not encouraged others to do the same?" Huckabee wrote.
Sprinkled throughout the book are anecdotes from his childhood in Hope and his decade as governor.
University of Arkansas at Fayetteville political science associate professor Pearl Dowe said potential candidates write books not only for the financial benefits and to introduce themselves to a broader audience but also to remind supporters of what the candidate believes.
"You still want your base to know you still feel the same way, particularly if you are going to run in a primary. That is the point where the candidate is going to be the most conservative or the most liberal, so they want to speak to that base that is the most ideological, to say 'I still agree with you,'" Dowe said. "It is an effort to ensure that those people are still engaged because they are the ones that are most likely to vote in a primary."
Huckabee has already published 11 books. The topic of his newest book shows who Huckabee is trying to appeal to, she said.
"Without even reading the book, the title itself is speaking directly to a particular group of people, a particular demographic, a particular region ... people who know what grits are," Dowe said. "That is very significant in a primary."
Huckabee is to make more than 30 stops at bookstores and churches on a national book tour largely through the Bible Belt over the next few weeks, including stops in primary hot spots like Iowa, before hosting a live telecast from a Little Rock church Feb. 8 that will be shown in homes and churches nationwide.
Tickets for the Little Rock event at the Church at Rock Creek at 11500 W. 36th St. are available free online at eveningwithhuckabee.com.
Huckabee said that although politics will likely come up that night, the event will be more spiritual than political.
"I can absolutely, positively guarantee you I will not have made any announcement [about running for president] by February the 8th," Huckabee said. "So anybody that's worried about this being turned into a political rally or a partisan event, I can put you at ease and tell you that won't happen."
Conservative evangelicals have long been a part of Huckabee's base of supporters. The Washington Post reported last week that Huckabee has been busy calling evangelical leaders and conservative donors since announcing that his TV show would end.
Brantley Gasaway, assistant professor of religious studies at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, said Christian conservatives will likely flock to Huckabee if he runs. Gasaway has taught and written about politics and evangelical Christians.
"My sense is this book is a way of building momentum among a demographic that is already inclined to see him as a favorable, if not the best, candidate," Gasaway said. "He's very adept and skilled at speaking as a conservative politician, but then speaking the language and the idioms of evangelical Christians in a way that they often like to see. ... That book further cements that."
Seth Dowland, associate professor of American religious history at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., said that while Huckabee was seen as evangelicals' candidate in 2008, "it seems like he's lost that a little, especially to [former Texas Gov.] Rick Perry."
Dowland is the author of Family Values: Gender, Authority, and the Rise of the Christian Right and teaches about religion and politics. He said evangelicals may find several other potential candidates attractive in 2016.
"There's this interesting alliance of evangelicals and the Tea Party that point them toward people like [Texas' U.S. Sen.] Ted Cruz and [Wisconsin's Republican U.S. Rep.] Paul Ryan," he said. "I would guess Huckabee's trying to make a play, because if he doesn't really shore up his evangelical support, I don't think he has a chance."
Dowland said Huckabee might be trying to pre-empt being politically attacked by candidates like Cruz who some see as "ideologically pure" conservatives.
"Frankly, I think Huckabee, he fits a little uneasily into that coalition just because he didn't emerge on the national stage as this hard-core, free-market type. He struck me as kind of a pragmatic, sort of conservative governor but not a hard-core Tea Party type," Dowland said.
"He's probably got to work a little to get into that coalition."
In one of the final chapters of his book, titled "Grenades in Our Tent," Huckabee addresses the idea of Republican candidates and outside groups arguing over who is the most conservative, saying it keeps Republicans from winning elections.
He used as an example his history with Club for Growth, a free-market advocacy group that in 2008 ran ads in Iowa and South Carolina attacking his record as governor.
"I watch with sadness when self-proclaimed conservative outside groups raise and spend millions of dollars not to defeat the far left, but to blow up and destroy other conservatives that aren't deemed 'conservative enough,'" he wrote.
The club's current president, former Indiana Congressman David McIntosh, has said the group will target Huckabee again if he runs in 2016.
In a statement Friday, Club for Growth spokesman Barney Keller said Huckabee should stop grumbling.
"Mike Huckabee should attend an anger management seminar. He's still upset that the Club for Growth PAC reported the facts about his tax and spend record when he ran for President. He should spend less time whining about valid and factual criticism of his support for liberal policies in Arkansas and more time growing a thicker skin," he said.
SundayMonday on 01/18/2015