This one is too personal to allow it to slide by. As I write, my mother is in the hospital suffering from an injury that can be directly attributed to poor Diabetes Type 2 control. My son suffers from Type 1 Diabetes. I know a lot about this disease, and one of the things I know is that it isn't controlled with right-wing snake oil.
Mike Huckabee has a campaign finance problem. Right-wing religious donors have lots of candidates to choose from. They could donate to Ben Carson, or Rick Santorum, or even Scotty Walker if they wanted. Bobby Jindal is out there kowtowing to Huckabee's former base, too. So it seems that Huckabee has to be creative about how he finances his primary efforts.
The New York Times explains how he's doing it.
In a wood-paneled study lined with books and framed family photos, the prospective presidential candidate looks into the camera. “I’m Mike Huckabee,” he says with all the folksy charm that propelled a career as a preacher, politician and broadcaster.
But this is no campaign ad. It is an Internet infomercial for a dubiousdiabetes treatment, in which Mr. Huckabee, who is contemplating a run for the Republican nomination in 2016, tells viewers to ignore “Big Pharma” and instead points them to a “weird spice, kitchen-cabinet cure,” consisting of dietary supplements.
“Let me tell you, diabetes can be reversed,” Mr. Huckabee says. “I should know because I did it. Today you can, too.”
According to the American Diabetes Association, this claim is patently false. While it is true that losing weight and exercising will help with Type 2 diabetes, Type 1 sufferers could have the perfect diet and exercise their butts off and end up sicker than they were before.
It's not just diabetes snake oil Huckabee is hawking, either.
One ad arriving in January in the inboxes of Huckabee supporters, who signed up for his political commentaries at MikeHuckabee.com, claims there is a miracle cure for cancer hidden in the Bible. The ad links to alengthy Internet video, which offers a booklet about the so-called Matthew 4 Protocol. It is “free” with a $72 subscription to a health newsletter.
Another recent pitch sent out to Huckabee’s supporters carried the subject line “Food Shortage Could Devastate Country.” It promoted Food4Patriots survival food kits, described as the “No. 1 item you should be hoarding.”
To be clear, Huckabee does not say he endorsed these last two. Still, it's one thing to have those kinds of ads on a website and entirely another to send them out to your email list. An email list, I might add, that was built through his 2008 campaign efforts and fleshed out during his six-year stint on Fox "News."
One might be forgiven if a recipient or two of those emails associated the product with the guy they trust for some reason to be a viable Presidential candidate.
I take it as a given that Huckabee is a grifter. But when that grifting is done to finance a bid for the 2016 presidential nomination and said grifting has the ability to actually kill people, it's time to draw a line and call him out for unprincipled and greedy practices.
