Tales from a Huck-A-Hunt
Posted: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 2:28 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann
OSCEOLA, IOWA -- Southern charmer Mike Huckabee, in the midst of a push to show his steely resolve in the face of direct attacks from one-time frontrunner Mitt Romney, polishes up his gun and sets off into the snowy fields of Iowa for an old-fashioned pheasant hunt.
It's just too easy.
On a trip rich with metaphorical potential, Huckabee donned a blaze-orange vest and ventured out into an icy Iowa countryside, with trusty bird-dog "Dude" and about 15 shivering members of the press corps in tow. It turns out that the governor, who says that he's been a hunter since childhood, is a pretty decent shot. He shot one of the three pheasants knocked down by the hunting party (the other two reportedly met their bird-maker at the hands of Huckabee Campaign Manager Chip Saltsman.)
The imagery of a gun-totin' politico wasn't lost on journalists, who peppered Huckabee with joking prompts for analogies between his feathered victims and his Republican competitors. The jolly gov, who's known for his sense of humor, was more than happy to comply.
On the symbolism of the hunt, Huckabee quipped: "You prove that you can shoot, and that if somebody really messes with you with negative campaign ads, they just need to be prepared."
On the cathartic satisfaction of going after the birds, he teased: "We will name the pheasants [after] other candidates. It gives us a real incentive."
"These three birds all said that they would not vote for me on caucus night," he joked when he returned with three bird carcasses. "The one that flew away," he added, "well, we saw a Huckabee button on his rear end, so we knew not to take him."
The frigid venture wasn't all fun, games and good-natured allusions to shooting uncooperative Iowans, though. It can't hurt that Huckabee publicly proved his varmint-hunting mettle in the wake of Romney's exaggeration about being endorsed by the NRA. "Its not something I had to go and get a primer in," Huckabee said of his lifelong hobby today. "It's not out of the ordinary for me."
Gun in hand, the governor also had harsh words for the aggressive tactics of his main rival in Iowa. Negative campaigning, he said, "really lacks credibility. Because it's in an opponent's desperate interest to try to throw last-minute things at you."
"The magician plays the game of keeping your focus over here on this hand while he's doing something over here with the other," he continued, waving his gloved right hand and brandishing the gun in his left. "I think people understand that sleight of hand is not why you elect a president."
