Former Governor and Presidential candidate (and current bass player) has come out with his new book on the past campaign with the title Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That's Bringing Common Sense Back to America.
In a conference call today with bloggers who covered his campaign this past year Governor Huckabee outlined his goals for the book. If you are looking for political pay back… there may be some red meat for you (there is no love lost when it comes to Mitt Romney) as well as some interesting behind the scenes of the campaign.
But that is not the purpose of the book. The purpose of the book is to highlight a pathway forward. And you will find in his book items the media did not cover during the campaign including my favorite topic… education.
I did an analysis regarding the debates through Nov. 2007 and this is what I reported:
Governor Huckabee said today that he was so upset about being overlooked on this question that he went to Chris Wallace during a break to raise his concern. Apparently Mr. Wallace acknowledged Fox’s error in not allowing the Governor to address this issue. Not allowing Governor Huckabee to address an education question is like not allowing Rudy Giuliani to address a terrorism question. An unfortunate situation.
But not as unfortunate as the total lack of concern for the education issue as demonstrated by the media.
Here are the stats:
Total Debates: 9
Debate Time Measured in Days: 2/3 of a day
Debate Time in Hours: 16 (I did not go back and add them all up but I am sure it must be more!)
Debate Time in Minutes: 900
Total minutes devoted to Education: 5
% of time devoted to Education: 55/100’s of 1%
That's right. 55/100’s of 1% (as a decimal it looks like this: .0055) is the total time our Republican Presidentail Candidates have been on stage with national media coverage supposedly speaking about what are the compelling issues facing our nation. Sad.
On today's call the Governor reinforced his commitment to a whole cadre of issues that were ignored during the campaign… from health care and education to improving our nation's infrastructure. And yes… as I have been writing about on this blog now for over 4 years… music and arts education are a part of his book – just as it has been a embedded part of who he is – and will be a part of his book tour conversations.
He may not have achieved his goal of becoming our nation's commander in chief but when it comes to education and particularly the important role of music and arts education in the lives of our children… he was and remains our best spokesperson in chief.
Go out and buy it and see for yourself!
Some coverage from Time Magazine and Politico
