Most Defend Huckabee After Reading "Mike Huckabee Blows His Chances with Racist Remark"

John Hopwood's May 18, 2008, Associated Content article, "Mike Huckabee Blows His Chances at Vice Presidency with Shameless Remark at N.R.A. Convention" which accused Mike Huckabee of both making a racist remark and being racist, raised the ire of many of the article's readers in the form of stern rebuffs in the article's reader comments. If any conclusions can be drawn from scoring the large number of reader comments the article has received, most readers disagreed with Hopwood that the likeable Huckabee's comments were racist.

Most of the reader comments defended Huckabee and were critical of Hopwood's conclusion that Huckabee had made a racist comment concerning Democratic presidential hopeful, Barack Obama. While addressing the National Rifle Association, according to Hopwood, "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.' " The incident was reported in a brief story in the L.A. Times on May 17.

Sunday, Huckabee appeared on NBC's Meet the Press telling the moderator, Tim Russett, that, "it was a dumb, off-the-cuff remark." Huckabee also issued a statement on his website www.huckpac.com, saying, "I made an off-hand remark that was in no way intended to offend or disparage Sen. Obama. I apologize that my comments were offensive; that was never my intention."

Based on the many readers comments to Hopwood's article, most agreed that Huckabee had put his foot in his mouth; readers generally agreed that Huckabee's comments were inappropriate. It was Hopwood's characterization of Huckabee's remarks towards Obama as racist that most readers have taken exception to.