Is it politically savvy for Huckabee to keep his obese children off the stage and out of sight?

Radio talk show host "Lionel" has described Huckabee's son as looking like a "Volkswagen with eyes"...

Because some people make judgments about "fat people" is the Huckabee campaign being savvy here?

Another man filled with hatred for all those that have teased him throughout his younger days.

"This (below) is how I looked when I dodged the draft by claiming that my Ass Pimples* made me 4-F, a standard chickenhawk wimpout trick for us republicons (Ask Bill O.). But puh-lease, I beg you to note that when I was known as Jeff Christie I had a moustache, and so didn't really look as sophisticated as Huckabee, Jr., ya think?"

- Rush "republicon-paid propagandist" Limbaugh



* Totally True Fact about Rush Limbaugh, aka Jeff Christie

When I saw your post, all I could think of was "Jeff Gannon"!

...over 100 times, with several apparent overnighters, according to the official Secret Service records?

That truly is noteworthy. I wonder why the republicon corporate media never EXPLOITED that true story?

Hmm, wouldn't it be interesting if the MSM did investigate!My goodness, why not?

Like Nepal perhaps.

Don

She didn't look obese to me.

n/t

There is a political purpose for everything.

they are his children and he loves them, overweight or not. I wish we could keep Huckabee off the stage for other reasons.

hell, I'm overweight.

:sarcasm:

:rofl:
rocknation

far more a matter of his strutting pseudo-Christianity.

I personally feel that Gov. Huckabee is unstable. He's assertively authoritarian, advancing an interpretation of the New Testament that any armchair scholar would recognize as part snake oil, part worm juice, part melted asphalt, two cups of brimstone, a gallon or more of intemperance and division and discrimination, and a dash of haughty judgmental bile.

Given the ingredients, please give my helping to Chuck Norris.

because of the son's actions and not his appearance.

not because he's fat but because he's a danger to society.

And we get a lot of offensive questions here, so kudos for that.

"Gee, would it maybe be better if overweight people didn't show their face in public?"

"Gee, would it be better if campaigns didn't associate with black people? There's a lot of racists, you know, maybe it's not savvy to have black people on stage with you."

"Should candidates only share the stage with thin white attractive Christians white guys who are sure not to offend?"

"Should all the candidates do a better job of pandering to bigots? Isn't that just smart campaigning?"

This is a horrible question. We all know people...be they family or friends or co-workers...who are overweight. Are they to be "kept out of sight"? Disgusting.

I don't think it's an offensive question; I think it's an interesting question. Would the dog-hanger be standing beside his father at the inauguration?

or status as animal abuser.

It's about being bigoted based on people's appearances and some fucked up version of "family values" that says maybe if people's children look a certain way they should kinda sort of pretend they don't know them in public. And if look a certain way they - and their relatives - shouldn't be in certain careers - certainly not politics.

Disgusting line of thought - many of the comments in this thread are too close to eugenics for my liking.

Huckabilly is a shrewd enough politician to realize this. That's why we don't see Junior K-9 and his porn-addicted brother. And that's why you see Obama's picture-perfect family, and the lovely and intelligent Chelsea Clinton, and the beautiful Edwards family, everywhere they can be used.

"Columnist Molly Ivins reported (Arizona Republic 10/17/93) this incident from Limbaugh's TV show--"Here is a Limbaugh joke: Everyone knows the Clintons have a cat. Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is a White House dog?" And he puts up a picture of Chelsea Clinton."

That is what we sound like.

and noting that the ADULT SON of a guy that made millions preaching diet and exercise advice and runs a campaign on "family values" is a morbidly obese criminal psycho?

And the inconsistencies and the small minded bigotry of people here being revealed.

But I think that politicians, who do and always have used their families to promote their own "family values" have to be able to walk their talk. Don't you remember all the abuse Clinton took because of his brother? It isn't about Huckabee's kids being fat or whatever; it's the way they were raised.

If I see a circle of people standing around pointing fingers at an overweight person, it tells me far more about them than the person they are pointing at.

hypocritical theatre piece of the RWingers. And it shows THEM to be the real bigots. I didn't get that the OP was acting as a bigot as much as pointing out bigotry. The wording was too ambiguous, however...

to make disparaging comments about candidate's children. :-(

But the party will not help him out with this issue, because Huckabee is being used for a Bait and Switch and McCain will be under whatever shell the rank-and-file choose.

fat people do vote. Ugly people vote and stupid people, yes they vote too. And in the south they are going to vote for Huckabee.

I think everyone should circulate photos of his massively fat offspring. It's the reason he refuses to show them.

and trying to imagine those words coming out of her mouth.

listen.

http://www.zmag.org/royaudio.html

you want to describe it with nice words so it doesn't "offend" those who aren't living in misery and poverty. The poverty I saw in Oklahoma is horrific.

I saw this:

"And they really are massively obese! What's wrong? They can't afford the $25,000 gastric bypass? I think everyone should circulate photos of his massively fat offspring. It's the reason he refuses to show them."

That's not a statement about poverty. It's a statement about insulting overweight people in ugly ways, making medical decisions for them in the fashion of Dr. Frist, and acting like people who don't meet your visual standards need medical intervention. And somehow I'm doubting that came out of the goodness of your heart over concern for his health. :eyes:

And I'm trying to imagine how Arundhati Roy saying those words: "everyone should circulate photos of his massively fat offspring", or how she would feel seeing her photo attached to them.

It sounds less like her, and more like something a freeper would say about the spouses or children of our candidates.

Here's one, after Elizabeth Edwards complained about exactly this sort of nasty shit on DU directly, when one of the republican women was diagnosed with cancer and people here were complete assholes about it - from freeperville:



That's what you sound like.

Are you totally ignorant of the fact that hydrogenated fats, while filling, will make a person massive, and that the poor can only afford the cheapeat of foods, and that all these foods have hydrogenated fats. I think you're merely being smarmy because I may have stepped on the toes of your candidate, but understand perfectly well what I was referring to.

Nothing in this thread had anything to do with that, and unlike some, I'm not in the business of diagnosing people I've never met. It had everything to do with mocking overweight people in ugly ways. We don't tell everyone we know to distribute photos of fat people we oppose politically out of health concerns over hydrogenated fats. You aren't gonna make much of a silk purse out of the words you already posted.

This thread does in fact step on the toes of my candidate, Kucinich, in that it reduces the very real matter of policies and how they affect actual people who are living in poverty, and substitutes it with the most pathetic and shallow ways of marginalizing candidates over dumbshit like how tall they are, how big their thighs are, what the waistline of their children are, etc.

And it is incredibly UNdemocratic to be actively speaking and working in ways that discourage and condemn good people who want to run for office, because they or their families don't "look" the part. Bigotry is bigotry, any way you cut it, and not looking thin enough, white enough, male enough, tall enough, Christian enough, all of that upholds an existing corporate power structure and serves to exclude certain people from office based on nothing that is related to their qualifications or positions on issues.

He isn't petty, smarmy and a heckler like you are.

You've tried arguing with me about poverty in oklahoma, which isn't the subject in this thread.

You've pretended I made assumptions about the reason a particular person - who I don't even know - is overweight, and tried to start an argument about that.

You've tried implying I'm ignorant about hydrogenated fats - WTF? This thread isn't about that either, and certainly my posts had nothing to do with my opinion about that one way or another.

You've tried implying my complaint is about the use of the term "obese" as a medical term.

Here's the issue: This is an ugly thread which contains a multitude of posts making fun of a person for being overweight, with the unnecessary analogy of overweight people looking like cars, statements to the effect that maybe people with overweight children should avoid being seen in public with them (which has nothing to do with poverty in Oklahoma or hydrogenated fats), and suggestions that we should circulate pictures of the overweight offspring of our opponents. For what? Because you want people to not vote for a candidate because we have a bias against heavy people in this country? That's not about RW bigotry. It's about the left specifically trying to see how they can use bigotry to advance their causes. I don't see how the OP is any different from any other sort of push polling designed to take advantage of people's bigotry. I am disgusted to see people here embracing it as a tactic.

Petty, smarmy hecklers - perhaps a better description for the people standing around an overweight person pointing fingers laughing about how he looks like a "volkswagon."

is losing a hundred pounds, kinda looks like maybe you should stop dispensing weight loss advice to the rest of the world and tend to your own house.

I realize that when you run for office-even at a local level-the entire family is looked at. When you run at the national level you better have zero expectation of any privacy and I suspect that you don't GET to that level without seeing that truth.

Literally, when my husband ran in a City Council Primary race, I had people who made the comment that they always want to meet the FAMILY of a candidate. I'm not a stuttering dolt most of the time, but that took me aback the first time I heard it given the fact that I was extremely pregnant at the time and had been put on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy. Simply put, my temporary health issues might have registered negatively with some people...

On a national level, candidates' families are placed under a lot of pressure. Wives, husbands, and kids are on the campaign trail and if THEY screw up the candidate gets nailed for it. It is a shame, but it is the reality of politics. It is also something that I would think the more savvy voters can get past.

Does Huckabee's fat kid have ANY place in this discussion on DU? Frankly, I'd like to think we are not voting based on how his kid looks or anything beyond what the candidates have put forth in this election.

Can we at least TRY and approach this like informed voters?

I think Huckabee has conservative ideas on social issues and I will not vote for him.

I compete ly disagree with his position that his faith should influence laws in this country, and I will not vote for him.

I think Huckabee is entirely uninformed about international affairs and I will not vote for him.


Sorry to lecture, but this is something that all of us--no matter the party--need to work toward, I think.


Regards!



Laura

onto an airplane and of beating, torturing and hanging a dog, matter? I think it does--it says that there may have been some mighty big dysfunction in the Huckabee household, for a guy who's running 100% on family values.

There's not much there to like, I agree completely. I wouldn't vote for the kid either. (Sorry in advance if I offend--I was actually trying to be flip with that and may have missed the mark upon reflection...)

While I see your point about Huckabee running on a platform of "family values" and his kid is a mess, I also think there is an awful lot of substantial stuff about him to dislike. I'd hate for THAT to fall off people's radar because we all got distracted by the issue of his really fat kid who happens to be (sounds like, anyway) mentally ill AND fat.

I flinch whenever I see stuff about anybody's kids in the political arena, and this is no exception. Maybe I am a bit more sensitive to it because I have lived in local politics for too long. Maybe I am sensitized because I honestly think that many really GOOD men and women probably choose NOT to run for office because they refuse to put their family into the fishbowl of politics.

Maybe I flinch because my own life has been the subject of discussion on local political boards. It is no fun and can get outright silly at times. Do you know that last summer, there were people who actually spent time discussing WHO (what party) I was walking with in the local parades? I about fell over.

My kid is ten years old. For the first time in her life she went to a parade and WATCHED it rather than being IN it. Because I was not seen in the parades, some folks were openly speculating about both my political affiliation AND the state of my marriage. You know what? I was actually sitting in a friend's front yard in a lawn chair doing what NORMAL people do--drinking a beer and watching a parade! It felt pretty damn good, if you want the truth, but it sure does illustrate how stupid it can get in politics.

Sometimes I honestly think the President needs to be chosen with a method kind of like the lottery in Shirley Jackson's short story. Maybe the one we really need in there is the ONE guy who doesn't WANT the damn job.

Regards!


Laura

being judged in local politics--on a local level, everyone simply knows too much about everyone else (I live in a small town, one of the drawbacks)--however, I do think personal issues ARE a legitimate factor in national politics, because the themes are writ large. Most county commissioners and mayors aren't running on "family values" and cultural wedge issues, they're running on nuts-and-bolts competence, or perhaps ethics. Presidential politics is the process of the United States deciding what sort of face it wants to show to the world, who embodies our values. It's much more than a job, it's an image presented to the world. The Clintons still face opposition because of Bill's cheatin' ways--that's fair. Rudy Giuliani is being rejected in part because Republicans don't really want to see his skanky mistress as First Lady. And Mike Huckabee will never be President, because we don't want the world to think of Bibles and banjo music and possums fried for state dinners and the Jethro brothers molesting dogs when they think of us.

The comments on Rudy are pretty revealing about American attitudes toward women in general.

Rudy and Judy BOTH were involved in the affair. And here we have HER being called "skanky," rather than giving the insult to him, the candidate, and the reason given that we don't want HIM elected is because we don't want HER (an adultress) in the white house.

Nope, no sexism there. :eyes:

to the role of First Lady? If it makes you feel better, Rudy's a skank too. Two skanks. There ya go.

This is like talking to a 4 year old who learns a bad word and keeps repeating it to see if they can get a rise out of the grownups around. Yes, I see you've learned to type out that word. I am very impressed. (Is that enough attention, or are you looking for more? Should I watch you go down the slide now?)

"douchebag".

:spray:

We have more than enough to attack Huckabee about without bringing his kids into it.

reflect on a candidate's personal life and values. Hillary Clinton gets a lot of well-deserved goodwill for the way she raised Chelsea Clinton--that knife cuts both ways, and I for one am glad to see it cutting Republicans for the first time in a long time.

Like I said, stupid and disgusting.

This kind of crap shows DU at its worst.

in a recent study by parks he found that people are discriminatory toward the obese w.out even being aware of it.

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/07/06/albertgore_narrowweb__300x561,0.jpg
Gore's son getting help for drugs
Maybe just leave the kids out of it.

to do with his weight.

we should be better than that.

but the grown "kids" of most politicians are kind of in the background..

When a candidate has a YOUNG family, they will often bring them along to the stage, since they would most likely yell out to them from the audience anyway, and it's sometimes a plus to show the public how young and vital you are..with that young family..

I often think that if Michelle Obama was pregnant (like Jackie K was during JFK's run) there would be more than a belly-bump :)

have them up on stage with him.

they made some cracks about Huckabee's kids this week.

As for Lionel, he's horribly condescending and unbearable.

:rofl:

Huck lost 100 lbs. The whole family was "big" except for the daughter.