Former Arkansas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee removed the endorsements of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar from his campaign website on Monday evening. Huckabee has been a staunch defender of the Duggar’s, including Josh Duggar, who sexually molested four of his sisters and one other girl, when he was a teenager. However, Talking Points Memo reported on Thursday that the Duggar endorsements for Huckabee were removed from his campaign website sometime on Monday.
Up until May 22nd, the Duggar endorsement enjoyed top billing on Huckabee’s campaign site. The endorsement was perched atop the “I Like Mike” endorsement sidebar on the right hand side of the front page of the campaign site.
Huckabee has not formally distanced himself from the Duggar family. However, his decision to pull their endorsement from his website reveals the growing difficulty Huckabee faces in trying to affiliate with the family to maintain his grip on religious fundamentalist voters, while simultaneously attempting to keep the family at arm’s length so he does not alienate mainstream voters. Josh Duggar’s past history of molesting young girls has become an albatross for Huckabee’s presidential campaign.
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Huckabee has not been able to extract himself from the Duggar controversy. In fact, by his own actions he has often made matters worse. When Huckabee mocked Caitlyn Jenner by suggesting that he wished he could have identified as transgender in High School so he could have showered with the girls, he outed his teenage self as being a lot like Josh Duggar. Huckabee implied that he too might be a teen sex offender, if not for laws and the threat of hell fire preventing him from entering the girls locker room to sneak a peek and perhaps act upon his most base impulses.
Although Mike Huckabee has cut bait and pulled the Duggar endorsements from the front page of his campigan website, he cannot undo the damage done from his connection to the Duggar family. Huckabee has already identified himself as an apologist for Josh Duggar’s past behavior. Also, by joking about wanting to find a way to shower with the girls, Huckabee has also implied that rather than finding Josh Duggar’s past behavior criminally reprehensible and damaging to the girls, he just sees it as a “boys will be boys” kind of youthful indiscretion to be brushed aside with a shrug.
Huckabee has pulled the Duggar endorsement from his website because he has discovered that his connection to the Duggars could be a political liability for him. Unfortunately he does not seemed to have reached the point where he can admit that the problem with his closeness to the Duggars is not just a political problem but also a moral one.
Keith Brekhus is a progressive American who currently resides in Red Lodge, Montana. He is co-host for the Liberal Fix radio show. He holds a Master’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Missouri. In 2002, he ran for Congress as a Green Party candidate in the state of Missouri. In 2014, he worked as a field organizer for Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick’s successful re-election bid in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District. He can be followed on Twitter @keithbrekhus or on Facebook.
