Mike Huckabee was sandwiched in between former rivals Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.  I think that both Romney and Giuliani were lacking in their speeches.  Huckabee, on the other hand, hit it out of the park.  I was so impressed.  I have taken my notes on his speech and put them in separate post as I don’t want them lost in my RNC night three recap.

Mike Huckabee was up.  Huckabee tried, unsuccessfully, to get the GOP nomination for president.  He was the governor of Arkansas from 1996-2007.  He started off with some humorous remarks about how this was not the speech he really wanted to be making at the convention.  He was hoping the speech would be the Thursday night acceptance speech.  He thanked the “elite media” for unifying the GOP.  He had some good “slams” on the media prior to a small tribute to the historic nature of Barack Obama’s candidacy.  He is probably one of the few Republicans that could pull this off as he grew up in a segregated South and could point out that this is what makes our country great.  He even agreed with Obama’s acknowledgement that the campaign is not about him.  It is about you, the voters and the American people.

Huckabee paraphrased Abraham Lincoln in saying government that can do everything for you – as the Democrats want – is also the goverment that can take everything from us.

Huckabee concluded his speech with the story of a teacher in Little Rock.  The teacher, with her school’s principal’s permission, had all the desks removed from her classroom on the first day of class.  She told her students, period after period, that when they could tell her how they could earn a desk, she would give it to them.  Students replied with standard teenage answers – get good grades, behave in class.  Parents called and complained.  When the final period class came in, the teacher stood in front of them and told them she would give them the answer as she knew none of them would get it.  She opened the door to her classroom and in came veterans of all ages, sex and race carrying the desks.  She went on to say that the students did not need to earn their desks as these people had already done so for them.  She said that things we take for granted and think are free or expected were earned for us by those who went before us and served our country.  The story impacted all in the hall, especially when Huckabee concluded with he was where he is as people like John McCain had earned his desk for him.