Way back in August 2007, I wrote about a blog called Mike Huckabee President 2008. As one might expect, the purpose of this particular was to support Huckabee’s presidential campaign. Nothing too spectacular about that, except that Mike Huckabee President 2008, launched February 15, 2005, was almost certainly the first unofficial blog supporting any 2008 candidate. In fact, it predated the official launch of Huckabee’s campaign by nearly two years.
We are now even earlier in the present presidential election cycle than we were then, yet we can already note the existence of Mike Huckabee President 2012 (to which, you may have already noticed, the old site redirects).
The blog is run by the same pseudonymous “Blue State Republican” responsible for the previous campaign. In a recent e-mail, BSR notes:
we start out not only with Huckabee’s name being included in early polling, but as the front runner. It should be an interesting three years.
Huckabee faced an uphill battle in 2008 mostly because he lacked name recognition. That is not his problem this time, since his surprisingly strong performance has earned him a weekend slot on Fox News and what seems to be a standing invitation to appear on The Daily Show. The bigger issue now may be his record in commuting sentences of Arkansas criminals who went on to re-offend.
Interestingly, Mike Huckabee President 2012 does not appear to be the first blog supporting Huckabee’s presumed campaign this cycle. In March 2008, once Huckabee had withdrawn, the very similarly named Mike Huckabee for President 2012 opened for business and posted 15 updates before going dark in December 2008.
P.S. The above screen shot contains a small (very small) Easter egg of sorts. Guess correctly in the comments and buy yourself a cookie!