Pundits Being a Grinch Over the Huckabee "Christmas" Ad

I swear I never heard so many over the top things about Mike Huckabee's Christmas Campaign ad he is running in Iowa. You would think that Republic is being threatened. Huckabee is playing smart here. Because of all these States wanting to be first in the primary race Iowa had to move their election up big time. Thus interfering with the Christmas season big time. As you can imagine I suspect a lot of Iowa voters are getting tired of hardhitting ads smack in the middle of Advent so close to Christmas.

This UPI news Headline is classic!!!
Huckabee ad brings up Christ -
LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Dec. 17 A seasonal TV ad by U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee brings Jesus Christ into play."Silent Night" is the background music for the ad "What Really Matters." Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and governor of Arkansas, tells voters he doesn't blame them if they are tired of political ads, ABC News reported. While the camera pans to reveal a Christmas tree, the former Arkansas governor tells viewers that this is the time of year when "what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and our friends."The ad -- debuting Tuesday in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- may be the first in which a candidate speaks of Christ, ABC said.The closest situation ABC said it could find was when then-Gov. George W. Bush, asked who his favorite political philosopher was during a 1999 GOP debate, said, "Christ, because he changed my heart."

Somehow I doubt Mike Huckabee is the first person running for President to make the shocking public statement that Christmas is linked to the celebration of Christ's birth.

The Boston Globe had this nugget:
Huckabee goes warm and fuzzy in new ad
His foes are running hard-hitting TV ads, but Mike Huckabee is going against the grain.
In a new spot, Huckabee banks on the likability factor that has helped fuel his surge in the Republican presidential race, offering wishes for a "magnificent Christmas."
Wearing a red holiday sweater and sitting in front of a twinkling Christmas tree as holiday music plays, the former Arkansas governor tells viewers they're probably tired of political ads, so he just wants to remind them of what's important during the holiday: friends, family, and "the birth of Christ."
The latter serves as a reminder to evangelical voters whose support the ordained Baptist preacher is seeking.

First off there is a part of this analysis that is starting to get grating. It is used by liberal press and even conservatives that should know better. There is lot more to Huckabee support than just Evangelicals. Even though looking at the media commentary you would not realize it. There are Catholics, mainline Protestants, Jewish Republicans, and people that are not particular religious any such way. While Evangelicals are significant they are not the only ones supporting Huckabee. THis should be evident in some polling that is showing Huckabee strong in areas where there are not huge amount of Evangelicals.

However the worst offenders are the bloggers and the NET media. It has not escaped a lot of people's notice that Matt Drudge is in the very anti Huckabee camp. Now this is just too twisted:

Drudge has a Headline
HUCKABEE AD FEATURES FLOATING 'CROSS'... DEVELOPING... Good Grief. A Huckabee Blogger writes
Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report, who is allied with the Romney Campaign, has a bizarre and absolutely odd insinuation about the new Huckabee advertisement. I had to laugh at the desperation of Mitt Romney through Matt Drudge.Look at the picture to the right. It has the headline saying the Huckabee ad features a 'floating cross." This idea that Huckabee is somehow trying to subliminally influence the public about Christianity floors me. Are people really this conspiratorial? A window frame is a floating cross? Everywhere you look there are lines that intersect. I am speechless at this stupidity. Whatever Drudge is doing, he needs realize that people are not as dumb as he wants them to be.What's even more flooring is that the media actually picks up on this guys tabloid material. What is wrong with the media in our country?A lot.

I am pretty speechless too. By the way neutral observer and well know blogger Ann Althouse agrees and says : It's not political, you big cynic.

This crazed blogger goes into further battiness at Linnwood’s Notes -->
In the ad the camera pans slowly from right to left, and for 19 seconds of the 30 second advertisement the brightly lit white shelves of a cabinet form a big white cross. You know who ever created this ad was well aware of this, as they added a neat pile of Christmas tree ornaments as to make it obvious that it is a shelf that just happens to looks like a cross, rather than a cross outright.
It seems to me the problem is that his ads are not political enough. We’re electing the next Commander-in-Chief, not Pastor-in-Chief.

Really people have too much times on their hands.

What is happening is that Huckabee is hitting some new ground. That is what the heck to do when a major Campaign Race is about to end just smack dab right after Christmas. Huckabee has decided to take the high road and I think people supporting other folks are a tad upset they didn't have their We Wish You A Merry Christmas Ads up first.

Rod Dreher says it best at A Christmas horror!.
Mike Huckabee says that it's important to remember that Christmas is about celebrating Christ's birth, and wishes viewers a "Merry Christmas." Why is this offensive? Why does Andrew portray this as crossing some sort of political line? I think it's the case that anybody who would be offended by this perfectly anodyne holiday greeting isn't the sort of person who would vote for Huckabee anyway. Personally, I'm glad to hear some public official say "Merry Christmas" instead of the generic, non-offensive "Happy Holidays" (and it would have been great had he said Happy Hanukkah too, except Hanukkah ended on December 12):

Amen to that.

The main political blogger at the Atlantic pipes in and says?
Mike Huckabee's new ad will begin airing in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. It throws the viewer for a loop, starting off with a red-sweater-clad Huckabee asking if "we're about warned out of all the television commercials we've been seeing..." the camera pans slowly to reveal a Christmas tree as the bars of "Silent Night" become recognizable. "What really matters," the former Southern Baptist pastor says, is "the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and our friends."
How explicitly Christian. Forget coded appeals to evangelicals: if it were any more full-frontal, it would get an X rating.
(Has a politician ever before run a television advertisement wishing voters a Merry Christmas?)
But who can criticize an ad celebrating Christmas? Many of those anti-Huckabee conservatives who will bristle at the ad are probably the first to bristle at attempts by the establishment to rid the public square of Christ during Christmas. So why not extend the spirit of orthodoxy to politics?
Funny: the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol, but, hey, this isn't a history class.

Coded messages to Evangelicals? Oh I forgot only those people celebrate Christmas. What will they do when they find out Catholics and Anglicans have ADVENT. I heard a dirty rumor that Eastern Orthodox celebrate and like Christmas too. Before you know it the mainline Methodist might get into it!!