I recently conducted a Google search of the terms “Mike Huckabee” and “former Baptist preacher”. The search yielded 27,100 results. Huckabee, the former Arkansas Governor and current GOP presidential candidate, is routinely described in the press as “a former Baptist preacher”. He served as a public official longer than he did a pastor, but the press nevertheless seems to stress his prior job as a preacher more than he himself does. Conversely, the press rarely routinely characterizes Hillary Clinton as “a former corporate lawyer”, or Fred Thompson as “a former federal prosecutor”. Why is that? At least 4 explanations come to mind.
First, in routinely using this description of Huckabee, the press might be intending to concisely explain why he polls well among evangelical Christians—the reason is that he was a Baptist preacher. Similarly, the press frequently describes John McCain as “the maverick Senator from Arizona”, again perhaps in an effort to neatly explain why McCain attracts Independents. On the other hand, describing Hillary Clinton or Fred Thompson as lawyers does not itself clearly explain which (if any) part of the electorate that prior career might help each capture.
A second reason might simply be a consequence of journalistic laziness. This process works as follows: someone attaches a short-hand, descriptive, and sometimes catchy phrase to a public figure, and the press then re-cycles it, time after time. For example, the press generally labels Jesse Jackson as “a civil rights activist”, it labeled Manuel Noriega, the former President of Panama, as “the Panamanian strongman;” and it almost uniformly calls the Iraqi religious and political figure Muqtada al-Sadr “the radical Shiite cleric”. So it is with Huckabee, “a former Baptist preacher”.
A third reason for this description of Huckabee might be that the press believes that this prior occupation is in tension with his current presidential pursuit and deserves special attention. In this respect, the selective description of Huckabee as a former preacher, though entirely accurate, might not be entirely value neutral. Under this view, the press believes that voters need to have the opportunity to assess Huckabee’s rhetoric through the prism of the preacher. Conversely and inferentially, it would seem, the press does not believe that Clinton’s career as a corporate attorney colors her view of tort reform, for example, nor does Thompson’s work as a prosecutor shape his view of law enforcement sufficient for the press to routinely describe them as attorneys each time an article mentions their respective names.
A fourth reason is perhaps that the press finds something unusual about a former preacher pursuing the presidency unlike the lawyers in Clinton and Thompson (and Obama and Giuliani and Edwards). Pastoral work, however, is a more common pursuit in American political life than perhaps some might appreciate. Pat Robertson, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton—all prior presidential candidates—are ordained ministers. Former Missouri Senator John Danforth is an ordained Episcopal priest. Former Senator Gary Hart (also a former presidential candidate) is a graduate of Yale Divinity School, as is David Price, currently a Congressman from North Carolina. Massachusetts, in Robert Drinan, had a Congressman who was concurrently a Roman Catholic priest. Even Al Gore, for a time, was enrolled at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Other examples abound.
Needless to say, there is nothing itself untoward in accurately stating the prior occupation or academic pursuit of a given politician. More information is typically better than less when it comes to our understanding of the public backgrounds of our elected officials and those who voluntarily seek public office. My point is simply that during this election season, when reading (or hearing) those several-word descriptions of a particular candidate’s professional background, ask your self why the journalist chose the particular description that he or she did.
Patrick T. Waters is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and a lawyer in San Diego.
