Huckabee's Christmas Ad, Ron Paul Fires Back

Mike Huckabee is bringing his Christmas cheer, and his Baptist minister roots, to Iowans this election season. His recent ad, "What Really Matters," features the former governor offering citizens a Merry Christmas.

This isn't your ordinary Happy Holidays event. Huckabee lets loose the Christian spirit, saying "what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ." The ad also features a bookshelf in the background that appears to some like a "floating cross." The ad is a not-too-subtle play to Iowa value voters, who cringe at what they view as an increasingly secularized holiday.

Asked about the ad today, Ron Paul decried Huckabee's religious iconography with his own veiled reference on Fox and Friends:

"It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said. He says, 'when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.' Now I don't know whether that's a fair assessment or not, but you wonder about using a cross, like he is the only Christian or implying that subtly. So, I don't think I would ever use anything like that."

Mike Huckabee's campaign today denied that the bookshelf/cross was an intentional reference. Iowa Director Eric Woolson responded:

It's the window frame in the background... Once you've got it in your head that it's a cross, it's a cross.

See the original ad and Ron Paul's response below.

Comments

[armadillious2002]

I think what people fail to realize is that Ron Paul is a staunch concervative. He basically believes in spending no money on anything. That's why he is against the war - Too much money.

Now many say "I'm for Ron Paul because he is against the war and wants to bring our troops home immediatel­y." He is against the war for different reasons than the majority of us however. And, if you don't want to drive around in a Nation of pot holes, crumbling bridges and drastically reduced social and environmental services then you'd better look long and hard before supporting Ron Paul.

[revko]

I smite Huckabee

Happy Holidays

[BPCentrisAmerican]

Why dose Cheney have his own security council and why is most of it’s members secret? I do not believe that George Bush is the president, he is merely an empty suit, installed to keep the religious right happy, mostly concentrated in the old confederacy. The Southern strategy of the 70’s and the secular neo-cons are tearing the Republican Party apart. Pat Buchanan argues that the neo-cons worship at the alter of Democracy, meaning that they have turned Democracy into a secular religion to be imposed on others, and the Christian Zionist believe that Jesus can only return to Palestine, the result being endless war in the Middle East. The convergence of both radical ideologies is frightening. I believe Cheney worships at the alter of corporate greed. Ironically the convergence of these ideologies threatens our very Constitution.

Every nation that has forced their ideology on others, such as the Soviet Union and more so Nazi Germany, which turned their ideology into a national religion, lead to both of their destructions. One slow and economic, the other in the rubble of Berlin.

During the Battle of Stalingrad, Paulus pleaded with Hitler to break out before the he’s elite German army group was completely encircled, they fought to the absolute limit of their endurance in the belief that Hitler would not abandon them, which he finally did, leaving Paulus a broken man. Only 5,000 Germans survived, out of proud army of over 300,000, not to mention the German allies left as a rear guard smashed during the encirclement. Ideology trumped military strategy. I bring up the Nazis because they tried to make a secular ideology into a national religion and used the Depression, nationalism, religious figures, the media, as well as the courts to guarantee Hitler’s rise to power. Hitler was mistrusted by the military establishment who viewed him and his followers as armatures, this is why the fiercely loyal SS was established and gained power as Hitler’s mistrust of his own officers grew, yet they embraced the military funding which lead to Germany’s destruction. Dose this sound familiar?

[Sneaky]

Am I the only one reminded of Nixon's use of transfer when seeing this video? The family picture and bust of Honest Abe?

[Macready]

Ron Paul is so right . . ."when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross" very apt quote from Sinclair Lewis . . . America has been going down this road for a long time time . . . and has to reverse it -- it is more than time to return to good old fashioned atheism,to "rule of law" and to the Constitution.

[mpgarr]

I had not seen the Hucky ad before--who are they trying to BS that the window frame lookng like a cross was merely coincidental??
The part that looked like a cross had lighting to enhance the window's appearance of a cross---and to our right--there was no light--if the whole thing had been lit--it would just look like a window, not a cross---
That was no accident--and God did not do it--the effect came thanks to some clever production work.
Oh well-let Hucky have his time in the sun--I really don't think that he can win in a general election and with the ability to hack the electronic voting machines--I cannot imagine the powers that be will fix the machines to give him the win--they would fix it for Rudy or Fred or someone else who might yet "come from nowhere" to be the "savior of the Republican Party"--but I don't think they want Hucky to be prez--I go back to Arianna's post on that subject...

[BabyBoomer]

This is what the GOP gets for mobilizing the "white trash" movement. Now they have their leader and, as Arianna pointed out, the GOP is apoplectic. They deserve what they got. A religious nut who will seal the fate of the GOP for decades to come, praise the Lord.

[WilliePilgrim]

There really is no secret here. When Ron Paul spends a lot more money on media ads, the media will begin to treat him a lot more like the genuine prospect he represents. You do know, fellow reader, that the press makes a ton o' cash on campaign years and the more inlamed the constiuency is, the more they contribute and the more they glue their eyes onto the screen where they can be filled with the commercial messages that come piggy-backing and lodging themselves into the subconscious where it continues to provoke the brain centers that encourage buying more junk to assuage one's insecurity.
Even notice how the press almost never mentions the plans to controll political corruption by limiting the amount of time and dollars that will be going to the press in its drive for obscene profitability.

[provoice]

WHOEVER first said that doesn't matter so much as the fact that he or she was absolutely correct.

Far too little attention has ever been given to the fact that Hitler was a devoted Christian and used his religion to justify his atrocities­... much like Bush & Company.

Every German soldier wore a belt buckle that said "Gott mitt uns" or "God is with us", and down through history it seems that every time God "was on the side of a cause", atrocities seemed to become second nature.

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, not by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church" -Thomas Paine

[Rog49Thomas]

Like several famous quotes attributed to Winston Churchill, no one has been able to substantiate this quote attributed to Sinclair Lewis.

USA today checked with the Executive Director of the Sinclair Lewis Society at Illinois State University who said they could not confirm the quote. http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/12/
pauls-issu­e-wit.html

I do know that SJ Woolf interviewed Lewis in the NYTimes 12 Sept 1938 Magazine headlined "It won't happen here, Lewis believes".

Lewis reportedly said:

"If we ever have fascism in this country," said Mr. Lewis, "it will come as a result of the activities of the economic royalists whose minds are closed against anything that has happened since 1870, of such organizations as the Liberty League and of the Communists­."

And it is said went on to argue that liberalism would save the USA from Communism or Fascism.

(For $3.95 the NYT will sell you a copy of the article on line.)

[bythePeopleforthePeople]

The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use -- of how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public." -- Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968

[mabinog]

Unless Ron Paul is wearing his atheism on his sleeve WTF is to stop him from bringing that fascism to this country.

[thebeerdoctor]

Dr. Ron Paul is someone that mainstream media wishes would just go away. Because he questions his own party's authority on whether it is wise to practice a policy of continuous war, he is almost immediately marginalized. The fact that his fellow citizens contributed six million dollars to his campaign in one day suggests that the oligarchy is being challenged by democracy. Ron Paul's support is grassroots, somewhat underground and very passionate. Look up in the sky children: Have you ever seen a blimp like that?

[bblakeney]

I can't stop thinking about the frigging one-word response cues, as though the President of the United States of America should think in such terms. I can see it all now, in the situation room. "Mr. President, Iran's just launched a tactical missile strike against Israel! What do we do?" A long pause, then, "Hide."

[NeoConDeath]

If republicans and democrats want change, maybe they should vote for Ron or Dennis.