Campaign quicksand

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's campaign manager and media relations team is in a bit of bind this week. The campaign has to address why they won't release Huckabee's sermons while he served as a Baptist pastor. Maybe they can't. Perhaps they don't exist anymore. But the campaign is faced with the dilemma of how to approach this recent Mother Jones article about its refusual to provide the sermons.

From a communications standpoint, how to proceed is no easy task. If they release the sermons, it opens the former governor up for ridicule on his religious beliefs, a sensitive issue given the role of the evangelical vote in deciding the 2004 presidential election. If they refuse to release the sermons, it opens up Huckabee for ridicule that he has something to hide.

In the end, the campaign will have to decide on its messaging strategy for the presidential hopeful. Will they spin the message that Huckabee is unafraid of exposing who he truly is, and what he believes? Or will the message be that Huckabee is smart enough not to provide his political enemies with more potential ammunition?