CONNARD, IOWA — While campaigning in Iowa this week, 2016 Republican contender Mike Huckabee made an impassioned plea to reporters to allow him a chance to “Indian Give” the Twitter joke he made during the Democratic Party’s presidential debate televised on CNN.
During the debate, the former Arkansas Governor’s Twitter account made a joke at Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) expense. “I trust @BernieSanders with my tax dollars like I trust a North Korean chef with my labrador! #DemDebate,” said the tweet. The joke came just moments after Huckabee had tweeted that racism in America is a “sin problem” and not a “skin” problem. Critics were quick to seize on the off-color remark, and started blasting Huckabee for it right away. According to sources close to the Huckabee campaign, the evangelical Christian knew he was going to have to walk-back the joke, and he planned to do so on the campaign trail.
“I must apologize,” Huckabee told the press after a rally in Connard, Iowa, “I come from a simpler time. A time of guns, gravy, God, and unrepentant racial stereotypes. I truly meant no offense to Americans, just to North Koreans, and maybe any other Asian type that eats dogs.” Huckabee insisted that his joke “wouldn’t have even been looked at twice twenty years ago” and that “the liberal lamestream media” wouldn’t let up on him until he apologized.
Huckabee’s campaign polls consistently at the bottom of the crowded GOP field, and thus far he has mostly stayed on the periphery of the primary season. Gov. Huckabee did pick up some headline attention when he went to Rowan County, Kentucky to meet with embattled county clerk Kim Davis during her fight to keep the practice of discriminating against homosexual couples alive in her corner of Kentucky. He told reporters though, that he wants to take-back the joke he made, feeling remorse.
“I’m begging you now,” Huckabee said, “please let me Indian Give that joke. I want to take it back from you all, right after I gave it to you, and I don’t know any other way to say that, so please let me Indian Give my Asian joke!” Huckabee said he called his “Jewish friends” and they agreed to give him “some money, you know, like they do” and that he’d gladly donate that money to an Asian charity. “Please, just let me stay in this race long enough to suck up a few more million in campaign donations; it’s the whole reason I’m doing this,” Huckabee pleaded.
Dabbing a tear from his eye, the Christian conservative contined, “I get it now. Times have changed. I can’t just assume my hackneyed racially-driven joke will land with anyone younger than 60 years old. If I’m going to run for president I can’t keep thinking I’m posting on StormFront when I’m out on the campaign trail. It doesn’t take a Chinese kid with his great math skills to see it, and I’m just so sorry.”
“I feel like such a dumb Pollack for making that Asian joke,” Huckabee said, “and I feel like I’d be gypping all of you by not Indian Giving it right back. I hope y’all can forgive me.”
