Mike Huckabee has a new gimicky celebrity endorsement to add to his list of desperate pleas for free media exposure :
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s endorsements now include retired pro wrestler Ric “Nature Boy” Flair, CNN reported Tuesday.
Flair joins Ted Nugent, a rock musician and hunting enthusiast, and Chuck Norris, a martial arts expert and star of TV’s “Walker, Texas Ranger,” in endorsing Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about politicians using coded language to appeal to portions of their base. Reagan used terms like “states rights” and “strapping young buck” to appeal to racists. In 2004, George Bush made an odd reference to Dred Scott as a way of signaling his desire to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Now with Huckabee, the Ric Flair endorsement seems like a wink towards the more hawkish elements of the GOP base (ie. 99% of them) that he shares their view of “the enemy”.
