Ok, so Huckabee's just in on the joke, right? I mean, he does seem to have a sense of humor.
Now read this
I would like to find out that this article is actually wrong, and Huckabee was in on the joke.The Guy Who [i]Interviewed[/i] Huckabee wrote: Tim Harper
WASHINGTON BUREAU
You just don't want to believe that a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, two steps from power in the free world, really thought that Canada had a national igloo.
When Rick Mercer comes on the phone to talk about Mike Huckabee, we expect he'll explain it was a joke.
Surely, he'll assure us that the wisecracking former Arkansas governor was just playing along for a laugh in Mercer's now-iconic Talking To Americans television spots.
No, what Mercer tells us should cause shudders in all igloos across the country, from split-levels to bungalows.
"He wasn't in on it," Mercer says. "The governor of Arkansas thought there was a Canadian national igloo. The governor of Arkansas would have believed the world was flat."
Huckabee last month told radio interviewer Don Imus that he didn't have the foreign affairs knowledge of his Republican rivals, "but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night."
You have to wonder where he spent the night before Mercer talked his way into his office in Little Rock, telling him that Canadians were fearful of losing the igloo to global warming and wanting to hear from the governor of Arkansas on this issue.
Mercer's hilarious send-up of U.S. ignorance of Canada is best known for his Michigan ambush of soon-to-be president George W. Bush, who happily accepted the endorsement of Canadian Prime Minister "Jean Poutine," a Mercer-inspired play on the name of then-prime minister Jean Chrétien.
Mercer admitted this week he's keeping an eye on the sudden emergence of Huckabee, the ordained Baptist minister who went from affable also-ran to the leader among Republicans in the first-in-the-nation caucuses here in Iowa in 20 days.
Huckabee is also running second nationally behind former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
"I've got him on a Google alert," said Mercer.
Huckabee was the first governor he talked his way into seeing for his 2001 segment, which ran originally as part of his This Hour Has 22 Minutes show, then was spun off into an hour-long special.
In front of the Arkansas legislature building, he tells passersby of the endangered Canadian Parliament buildings.
"It's an igloo, you see," he tells one woman.
"And we're worried about global warming and the fact that it might melt. So we're putting a dome over it. But, in order to pay for it, we have to attract tourists.
"Would you be interested in visiting Canada's national igloo?"
"Absolutely," says one woman.
He then convinced Huckabee aides that it was important that the Arkansas governor speak out on this, and the result:
"Hi, I'm Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas wanting to say: `Congratulations, Canada, on preserving your national igloo.'"
Mercer remembers that Huckabee first asked whether this was a controversial igloo in Canada.
"He had at least a glimmer of political acumen," he says.
Subsequently, Arkansas reporters called Mercer and there were requests for the clip.
He didn't return the calls and didn't surrender the clip.
"I consider it our little joke," he says.
The Huckabee surge, fuelled by his Christian beliefs, easy manner and glib debate performances, caught the rest of the field off guard and he is now being snowed under by opposition research.
Huckabee calls it "dumpster diving" and likes to repeat a folksy aphorism, saying a pastor had once told him "if they're kicking you in the rear, it only means you are out in front."
But the early reviews on his life in the big leagues have not been encouraging.
He is facing pointed questions about his role in the release of an Arkansas rapist who went on to kill again.
He told Associated Press in 1992 that those carrying the AIDS virus should be isolated.
He had to admit to reporters that he knew nothing about a National Intelligence Estimate that had concluded Iran had dispensed with its nuclear weapons program in 2003, 24 hours after the story had dominated the news media around the world.
He has flip-flopped on the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, once concluding it was bad for business, now seeking to strangle the Fidel Castro regime.
As governor, Huckabee supported in-state college tuition for children of illegal immigrants, saying the children should not pay for the sins of the parents.
Now, he is calling for all illegal immigrants to be sent home within 120 days.
Canadians should also be aware that he is proposing ending the exemption for Canadians and Mexicans under a program known as U.S. VISIT.
That means he would photograph and fingerprint every Canadian crossing the U.S. border by land, sea or air, but his campaign did not return phone calls seeking clarification on what that might do to commerce crossing the border.
They also did not return calls asking about his views on the igloo interview.
In the meantime, his evangelical roots give him the non-threatening cadence from the debate podium that voters like, turning Iowa into his own feel-good pulpit.
"Faith doesn't just influence me; it really defines me," he says in ad airing here, punctuated by the words "Christian Leader'' flashed on the screen.
He sprinkles his policy proposals with biblical references.
At the final Iowa Republican debate here this week, he said he would reduce the taxation red tape that hurts American business.
"I can't part the Red Sea, but I can part the red tape," he said.
He told The Des Moines Register, in a clip played at the debate: "If a person says, `I'm a person of faith but I don't let it influence me and I don't talk about it,' what they just told me is that there faith is so immaterial, insignificant and inconsequential that it really isn't a faith at all."
He explained his belief that everyone should have access to health care this way:
"Inasmuch as you've done it to these least of these, my brethren, you've done it unto me."
