Poll: Huckabee slams on Beyoncé might boost him in Iowa

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says that Beyoncé is 'mental poison.' He's leading the polls in Iowa, where 40 percent of likely GOP caucus attendees say that this view of her is 'about right.'

|
Jim Young/Reuters
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee waves after speaking at the Freedom Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, last month.

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has been pretty tough on Beyoncé in recent months. He called the singer “crude” in an appearance on the “Daily Show” in January and said she was “mental poison” in his new book, “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy."

The former Arkansas governor says he’s offended by her sexually charged lyrics and dancing, particularly because she’s popular with a wide range of ages. As he argued the point with “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, he said, “Do you know any parent who has a daughter that says, ‘Honey, if you make really good grades, someday when you are 12 or 13 we’ll get you your own stripper pole’ ”?

Why is he portraying Beyoncé as a symbol of cultural indulgence? Guess what: It might play well in Iowa, site of the first-in-the-nation caucuses, where a strong finish can make an underdog a front-runner overnight.

That’s the implication of a just-released Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll in any case. Yes, it asked a Beyoncé question: referencing the “mental poison” charge, it asked if Mr. Huckabee was mostly right about her, or had gone too far.

Among likely GOP caucus attendees, a plurality of 40 percent said he was “mostly right.” Thirty-eight percent said he’d “gone too far.” (Twenty-two percent said they “weren’t sure.”)

If nothing else, this response showed the wide gulf between parties in a state where partisan registration is split almost down the middle. Iowa Democrats were far more likely to be pro-Beyoncé, according to the poll. Fully 81 percent said Huckabee’s verbal hits on her went too far. Only 6 percent of Democrats said he was “mostly right."

So the Beyoncé thing might be a perfect troll for the politically astute Huckabee. It attracts lots of outrage among liberals (“He hates Beyoncé, but he played on stage with shock rocker Ted Nugent!”), which publicizes his views, which in the end only builds his Iowa support.

By the way, Huckabee currently leads his Republican rivals in Iowa. In the crowded GOP field, he gets a plurality of about 15 percent of the vote, according to the latest RealClearPolitics rolling average of major polls. That puts him about three points up on the second-place Republican, former pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

We’re not saying that Huckabee is slamming Beyoncé only as a cynical ploy. Criticism of her manner of showmanship is entirely consistent with his long-expressed beliefs. As a teenager, he wrote a column for an Arkansas Baptist newsletter that warned youths against the dangers of popular culture. Buzzfeed has just put a bunch of them up online.

“I strongly recommend that Christian teens stay away from dancing, mainly because some people would just not be able to respect a person who attended dances,” wrote the young Huckabee.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Poll: Huckabee slams on Beyoncé might boost him in Iowa
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2015/0203/Poll-Huckabee-slams-on-Beyonce-might-boost-him-in-Iowa
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe