Mike Huckabee Blows His Chances at Vice Presidency with Shameless Remark at N.R.A. Convention

Joke that Noise from Backstage is Barack Obama Trying to Hide from Gunman is Met with Laughter by Gunowners

Mike Huckabee, the former Governor of Arkansas who was the runner-up to U.S. Senator John McCain in the contest for the Republican Presidential nomination, blew his chances at being named Vice President on the 2008 ticket with a shameless and downright disgusting remark he made while giving a speech at the National Rifle Association's annual convention. Hearing a sound from backstage while giving his speech to the N.R.A. faithful, Huckabee, who has been noted for his wit by a generally fawning press, quipped, "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak." The audience began laughing at Huckabee's remark, and continued when he made the extraordinarily insensitive remark, "Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor."

Huckabee later apologized but was soundly condemned by television's political pundits. Huckabee's "joke" evoked the specter of the southern governors of the 1950s and 1960s such as Orval Faubus of Huckabee's own Arkansas and Alabama's George Wallace, who in his 1963 inauguration speech, declared himself for "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"

Southern Governors & Segregation