everybody plays guitar

To me, Mike Huckabee's most admirable quality is not his devout faith or weight loss, but the fact that he plays bass in a rock cover band, Capitol Offense. I've played bass for over a decade, and frankly, playing bass in a generic rock cover band is actually the 6th circle of hell. Why? The unfortunate truth, from most any bassists perspective, is that while those songs may be great, fun songs for the casual listener, the bass parts for many of these songs consists solely of hitting root notes. If you can't see why this would be extraordinarily boring and mind-numbing then either don't play any instrument or play guitar. Nonetheless, I think the only fair way to assess Huckabee as a Presidential candidate is to look at his set list, and the gear in his bass rig. From looking at snapshots of Hucka playing bass, he switches between either a PRS or Washburn active pickup bass, and a Fender jazz bass, with gold hardware. Both instruments are perfectly fine, but you can see his progression through time from the standard Fender J-Bass, to the active pickup PRS or Washburn. I think this is the right direction for a bassist to move as he improves, and even though nobody listens to rock for the basslines, the casual listener may notice a fuller tone and a low static buzz that comes along with most active pickup instruments.

But what does this all mean for his candidacy? Very little to almost anyone else but probably me. I am not likely to vote for Huckabee, but I admire him for playing the most thankless instrument in a rock band (believe me I know). For Huckabee to get my vote, he only needs to do two things: 1. move away from crowd pleasing classic rock ballads, play more soul and or classic rhythm and blues (like Booker T and the MG's); 2. switch to either a five string or upright, mastery of either one is much cooler than playing saxophone.

Capitol Offense Set List

• Born to Be Wild
  
• Fortunate Son
• Jailhouse Rock
• Freebird
• Twist and Shout
• I Want to Hold Your Hand
• Dock of the Bay
• Brown Eyed Girl
• Taking Care of Business
• Beautiful Tonight
• Honky Tonk Woman
• Joy to the World
• Roll Over Beethoven
• House of the Rising Sun

Just to name a few. Pretty generic classic rock. Another thing that would make Huckabee a nationally viable candidate is if in course of every campaign stump speech on anything from abortion to climate change to immigration, someone always yells "freebird."