The message from last week's coverage of the presidential race was that the “Huckaboom” is in full bloom.
“Mike Huckabee has capitalized on his Iowa surge and roared to the front of the Republican pack in South Carolina, largely on the strength of social conservatives frustrated with the crop of candidates,” declared a story posted Dec. 10 on CNN.com. “We've been on the stove simmering for about 11 months,” Huckabee said. “Somehow in the last two weeks, the lid blew off and the pot started boiling.”
On CNN's “Anderson Cooper 360,” Huckabee's hiring of Ed Rollins to run his campaign was cited as another sign of a surge by a once prohibitive underdog now breathing down frontrunner Rudy Giuliani's neck. For his part, Rollins compared his new client to the most hallowed icon in modern Republican Party history: “Governor Huckabee has probably inspired me as much as Ronald Reagan,” the new hire waxed about his new boss.
The pastor, bass player, weight loss guru, and former Arkansas Governor was not the only story last week driving coverage of the presidential race, which reached its 2007 high water mark for the year. All told, the campaign filled 26% of the newshole as measured by PEJ's news coverage Index for Dec. 9-14, 2007.
Read the full article Mike Huckabee Gets His Media Close-Up on the Project for Excellence in Journalism Web site.