My Arkansas Roots

I grew up in Arkansas.

But I haven't lived there since 1988. And, while it might be hard to remember those days, I'll try to refresh your memory.

Nineteen years ago, Ronald Reagan was in his last full year in the White House. The Republicans were about to nominate George H.W. Bush to succeed him, and Bush was about to introduce us all to Dan Quayle. Michael Dukakis had just gotten the Democrats' presidential nomination at the convention that introduced America to Ann Richards.

In your movie theaters, Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were starring in "Bull Durham," and animation mixed with live action in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

In Arkansas, Bill Clinton had been governor longer than anyone since Orval Faubus, but he wasn't well known outside his home state. When I was about to move to Texas that summer, Clinton had just been panned for his lengthy speech nominating Dukakis for the presidency.

He became the butt of so many jokes that he wound up being invited to appear on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson -- an invitation he readily accepted.

Four years later, when Clinton sought the nomination, his disastrous speech at the '88 convention never came up -- even though many of the political pundits of the day had predicted that the speech spelled the end of his national hopes.

I say this, not really thinking so much about Hillary as I am about Mike Huckabee. Hillary wasn't born and raised in Arkansas, she just came there with Clinton after college. But Huckabee was born and raised in Arkansas. He even comes from the same town -- Hope -- as Bill Clinton.

As an Arkansas boy, I sometimes find it hard to accept that Arkansas natives have commanded so much attention from the nation (and, in Clinton's case at least, the world) for so long.

I find it especially remarkable in Huckabee's case because Republicans were, mostly, non-existent in Arkansas when I was growing up.

For four years when I was a child, Winthrop Rockefeller was governor, but he was really the only Republican of any significance from Arkansas for many years -- and he certainly wasn't one of the breed of today's Republicans.

He was a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, who managed to appeal to many Democrats in Arkansas who didn't like the segregationist nature of Democratic nominees in that state at that time.

After Dale Bumpers came out of nowhere and defeated both Orval Faubus (in the Democratic primary) and Rockefeller (in the general election) in 1970, Republicans would go many more years before becoming truly competitive in Arkansas.

And that came about in large part because of the influence of the religious right, embodied in Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority.

So, I guess, it's appropriate that the most noteworthy Republican from Arkansas has been a Baptist preacher as well as a governor.

It's that gift of being able to speak well to an audience that is grabbing attention for Huckabee.

Today, for example, Fred Siegel of Commentary magazine calls Huckabee William Jennings Huckabee. I guess that has to be my favorite play on words in this campaign, not only because Huckabee has been gaining a reputation for a "silver tongue" (which wouldn't be hard to do in this Republican lineup) but also because William Jennings Bryan rode his reputation as an outsider to the Democratic nomination three times in four elections (1896, 1900 and 1908).

Unfortunately for Bryan, he lost all three general elections.

In the final years of his life and career, Bryan gave speeches in Chatauqua meetings and participated in the Scopes "monkey" trial. Bryan was a diehard opponent of Darwin's theory of evolution -- and he actually died five days after the trial ended (not unlike the character played by Frederic March in the film version of the story, "Inherit the Wind").

Which should provide a couple of lessons for Huckabee.

If you're going to remind people of someone from the past, it better be somebody who won.

Or, at least, somebody who didn't die in the attempt.