Saturday, March 08, 2008

Huckabee, Health and Fitness Guru

The biggest winner among the 2008 losers is fielding job offers from cable news networks, but there is a better career move available. Richard Simmons turns 60 this summer, and Mike Huckabee is the perfect candidate to fill his tights, metaphorically speaking.

Unless he plans never to run for public office again (Is the Pope Baptist?), the worst thing Huckabee could do is leave a trail of political bread crumbs to YouTube him to oblivion (multiply "a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God" by thousands).

Instead, the man who stepped out of a fat suit five years ago and began running marathons would be the ideal TV proselytizer against America's obesity epidemic, as he was in Arkansas and elsewhere before coming down with White House fever.

With his communications skills, the author of "Stop Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork" would be the sensation of daytime TV, regaling audiences with stories about how, as a 300-pound Governor in 2003, he sat down at a cabinet meeting and broke the chair while inspiring them to slim down and stay healthy, even as he himself did throughout the fast-food temptations of a Presidential campaign.

He might not make Mitt Romney money, but Huckabee could earn enough to avoid having to lecture for pay, as he did over the last year, if he makes another run for the White House.

If he decides to do it, the Governor could profit from his Don Imus moment two years ago. When the I-man told him he looked "emaciated," Huckabee made a little concentration-camp joke that did not go over too well with Jewish advocates.

Like Richard Simmons, Governor, just keep it upbeat.

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