Huck took a course in Broderese. The beltway bumpkins love catchphrases and faux "reaching accross the aisle"dom

This is a religious reference as TPM discovered out a few days ago:

Can anyone explain what the hell that means? Vertical? I guess if you’re main opponent was Fred Thompson you might push the fact that you spend most of your time standing up. But seriously, is there something I’m missing here? Or is this the weirdest campaign I’ve ever heard?

Whoa! You mean Huckabee is talking about politics having another dimension other than the "liberal/conservative" dichotomy?! That's crazy talk!

C'mon people, we've been talking about how left/right definitions don't work anymore, and now that a politician finally admits it, we make fun of it and plead ignorance because we don't like him?

That's just really pathetic.

Upwards, not downwards, foward, not backward and twirling, always twirling toward freedom.

"thousand points of light"...."comapassionate conservative"...what the hell does half the shit a Republican say mean?

Dudes yr not gettin' it. Huck just wants to shred some gnarly half-pipes after scarfing some nosh with his bros. I bet Huck catches mad air after pullin' some front side fakies and 720's. Quit harshing his buzz.

Maybe "vertical" means taking a golden elevator to ride to the top like our problem child GW Bush traveled on. He never had to go horizontal and deal with other members of the community and battle own his own. He was a total failure in everything he did, but he became Prez of the most powerful nation in the World. Look what it brought us...God Help Us All!

Huckie, the vertical elevator won't work for you either...

Well, resurrection basically means making something vertical again. Just a thought.

Mark Foley horizontal on his office floor solicitiing underage page boys, Larry Craig horizontal on a men's room floor, David Vitter horizontal in a diaper...we do need vertical leadership.

More empty headed slogans devoid of substance or meaning.

Vertical- Like in moving up. Up past the middle class to the top 1% that actually benefit from tax cuts and war.

JDC @ 21:

Vertical- Like in moving up. Up past the middle class to the top 1% that actually benefit from tax cuts and war.

With the debt burden of those wars and tax cuts being passed back down to the poor and middle class to pay.

We have a winner ladies and gentlemen! JDC figured it out.

Maybe it's a misunderstanding. He wants to be "particle man" but it sounded "vertical" to him and he went with it....

I must be the only person to have a family member who is a born again Christian. This 'vertical' stuff is basic to modern preaching.

Up is Heaven, Down is Hell.

Maybe Josh can write it on his sleeve.

Well, it's just rhetoric, of course-- but I think the sentiment is pretty positive. It means the struggle shouldn't be to yank the country to the right or to the left, but to do whatever benefits the nation as a whole.

Huckabee's taking something of a populist tack, so I assume he's trying to allude to 'raising all boats', so to speak-- not just the Cheney's of the world.

Of course the great scholar Huckabee is referring to the Great Chain of
Being, which descends from the throne of God himself, down through the angels, and on to us, and then to the animals, etc., etc., etc.

It is a sophisticated metaphor which informed some of Shakespeares's greatest writing, and made the metaphysical and physical universes one.

Otherwise, Huck just meant that he prays to Jeebus to avoid the fires of damnation. Heaven on high and Hell below. And that's all a Baptist can entertain, because to entertain more means you ain't a Baptist anymore.

Sposta mean vs. the left right (horizontal) gridlock, I'm assuming. Asinine, trite but not yet desperate, cooked up in a late night strategy meeting.

Just note that the picture is horizontal.

I think verticle is top to bottom poor in the mud all the way up to God but I have no real idea what the heck he is talking about. I sure did mill it over when I heard him pop it out in the debate.

:)

Rats. I thought typing that in would make it 'vertical'. : )

Huckabee is hooky compared to MSNBC

Still pretty new at this News game for me it is becoming exciting because I can see how these masters of Journalism bend everything negative the Clintons say. For some of the most underhanded reasons Americans could think of. But, considering Andrea Mitchell, Howard Fineman, and Chuck Todd, are regular out of context masters. Primer word smiths, which understand how to blend total deception toward their end. All, driven and loaded to run Hillary Clinton off the road, yet gas up every Republican on the road.

You don’t have to be a Jedi to see there is a disturbance in the force. When Chris Mathews with these as regular commentators unload on Hillary with Joe Scarborough, you might as well give Hillary a lethal injection. But admit on national television today that 18% of the Republicans are out right angered at Bush. That is a huge statement; it tells me half the Republican base is mad at it self. The Irony of it just screams at America were on hand they take apart Hillary for flaws, then flip one eighty reporting a screwed up in Republican Leadership which MSNBC are manipulated by.

I didn’t know Andrea Mitchell is the wife of Allen Greenspan. That’s what a rookie I am about this stuff, but it really floors me to know Andrea Mitchell is even tied to a News Reporting Net Work, so hardwired to the economics of America. I just sit with that Dennis Miller giggle thinking to myself. Here, America is watching this Andrea Mitchell reporting, and involved with the most powerful economic person of the century. With friends, you cannot dismiss the image that Andrea is in passion knowing the changes that are going to take place in the interest levels way before they really happen. Talk about power and corruption. Sheesh. This whole thing is a Zoo.

I like the Top vs. Bottom angle.

So Huck is claiming to be a Top?

Doesn't the Bible or something say it's better to give than to receive? He must be on to something.

I got your vertical right here, Hucky...

He wants to lift up America .. says so on his "Vertical Day" webpage.

Instead of slugging it out in the quagmire of Left vs Right, Democrat vs Republican, Liberal vs Conservative.

THE POPULISTS HAVE ARRIVED.

If We The People ever rise above the BS political divisions in THIS country .. we can take our country back from the corporatists.

If we can't put the BS political divisiveness behind us .. the Corporate Overlords will continue to exploit us.

I'm no fan of the so-called "Christian Right" .. but on this point Huckabee is 100% correct.

MeMyselfAndI @ 48:

dave @ 38:

Maybe a lame term but I agree with him on the most. I'm so goddamn sick of the 2-sides-to-everything red-blue conservative-liberal polemic bullshit running amock in America.

Since out of the 10+ candidates running for president, only one is a liberal. I fail to see how yu can get sick of having 2 sides, since there is only 1 side in American political discourse these days: Reactionary conservatism, or moderate conservatism.

Funny, how some people get only sick of the "divison" only when some Dems start to get a resemblance of a spine.

The same way that "bipartisanship" means "agree only with the Reich Wing" to the Repugs. It never goes the other way.

"I sure did mill it over when I heard him pop it out in the debate."

For a moment I thought you had typed "poop it out at the debate" and have to say,I'm oddly disappointed that you didn't.

Oh, okay

http://tinyurl.com/37f5mf

Well if Horizontal Management is working as an equal with your subordianates then I guess Vertical is the cheney way of doing things?

jakeonfire @ 54:

sounds like a technology buzzword of 5 years ago

Vertical market, vs. Horizontal markets. Intro to marketing 101 :-)

A Vertically integrated approach is also the antithesis of collaboration. This is manager speak for "I want my cake and I will eat it too."

But that won't stop the ignorant masses from labeling such dictatorial statements as "fresh and refreshing."

Aaaah, not even Orwell could have come with some of the shit we have been witnessing for the past decade.

L.A. Confidential @ 58:

MeMyselfAndI @ 57:

jakeonfire @ 54:

Vertical market, vs. Horizontal markets. Intro to marketing 101 :-)

Exactly. The Marketing of a President.

I can just hear these advisers saying, now look you might be Presidential material but you have to understand you are a brand.

Exactly. The Marketing of a President.

I can just hear these advisers saying, now look you might be Presidential material but you have to understand you are a brand.

Sorry bad editing.

Vertical vs. Horizontal Thinking

http://members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/solarmyth/vh.html

Rob J @ 6:

Huckabee uses "vertical" to dogwhistle to the base that he takes orders from above. Affairs of faith take are determinative of affairs of state rather than taken to be separate and aside ("horizontal to") therefrom.

Excellent use of "Dogwhistle."
I might steal that.

vertical--coming from huckabee does that mean to take a running fuck at the country?

"They’re looking for vertical leadership that leads up, not down. He has excited a lot of voters in this country."

Um. I don't know if anyone else pointed this out, as it's pretty common sense. Vertical doesn't exclude downwards leadership. The opposite of vertical isn't down, it's right and left.

John @ 67:

"They’re looking for vertical leadership that leads up, not down. He has excited a lot of voters in this country."

Um. I don't know if anyone else pointed this out, as it's pretty common sense. Vertical doesn't exclude downwards leadership. The opposite of vertical isn't down, it's right and left.

Yeah, after reading the links provided in the main post for a total of 30 seconds, I already understood perfectly what the Huckabee campaign is trying to say. Now, granted, it's a silly idea that I'm sure won't sway people either way, but when sites like this quite literally play retarded (excuse the language, but there's no other way to describe it) about things like this, all it does is hurt the political process, and make our side look much stupider than it really is. You can choose to shut off your intellect just long enough to type out "concern troll" as a response to this, if you'd like, but this is exactly the kind of message that Obama has been trying to get out throughout his whole campaign, because like it or not, we need to work together for a great country, not acting retarded in order to make the "other" side look bad. Shame on you guys.

So Huckabee makes an idiotic statement at best, and we are the "mean" ones for pointing that out? This washed out preacher, that has said things in the respect that only Christians are true Americans (how is that for inclusive, eh?). Now spews this vertical nonsense which is keyword for "God and Country" (where have I heard that before). And some concern trolls want to turn that quasi monarchic proposal, as the best thing since sliced bread regarding democratic attitudes?

Tell you what, we should work with "them" as soon a they are willing to work with us. I am sure that for some of you when faced with a ranging forest fire, the first priority is to make sure that the pyromaniac's feelings are in no way, shape, or form hurt.

Sounds like things I've heard Christians say about their need to turn us into a theocracy

In my evangelical days many years ago, vertical and horizonal was symbolized by the cross. Vertical represented one's relationship with Christ, and horizonatal symbolized christians relationships with one another. The vertical relationship was always most important (putting Christ first).

That would be my take on what Huckabee is trying to communicate to evangelicals.

I think he needs to take his fatass boys out along on his runs.

Sounds like to me he wants us to bow before kings who are vertically higher than the rest of us peasants on the economic charts.
It would go something like this:
kings
merchants
professionals
servants
common workers
common worker peasants
peasants

where kings would have all the wealth and power and the peasants, well you could guess what they would have; it would look like an upside down pyramid.
And there wouldn't be an equal number of people in each group either. It would look like a right sided pyramid.

Just a guess from someone who referenced the Native Americans in another post today and my reference made someone think that Native Americans were communists. I think they were socialists if I'm not mistaken.

interesting ideas EP3... I think you may be onto something. Huck seems to be using code words of the ruling class.

You had me going until the last sentence.

The "Native Americans" were a huge and diverse group of people who's culture evolved over about 15,000 years. Some had what we might consider "socialist" practices, but they had lots of different political structures, most of which have been compleatly lost to the mists of time. Many of their societies were monarchies, oligarcies, tribal meritocracies and some were even matriachical. A large number were also cleptocracies that prayed on weaker neibors. It isnt really useful for us to label such a large and diverse group as haveing tendencies that have well defined modern meanings.

Trittydi @ 82:

Verticle is a code word to the fundies that means "straight to god"
*

Oooooooooooooops - vertical . . .
*

The term is a fundamentalist buzz word. More code from the religious right to the religious right.

Sounds like others are offering this as well but the word "vertical" is definitely a nod to his evangelical base. Horizontal is used to describe the relationship of one person to another and vertical is used to describe the relationship of one person to God.

Verticality could be a referance to hierachical structure. That's one reason I wouldn't vote for any minister, whatever their politics, because they tend to want information and orders to go from the top down (although bottom up is possible but unlikely).

Otherwise you have a horizontal operation ,that's more coequal making common decisions. The problem there is the possibility of groupthink.

Or maybe hockaloogy was just referring to boosh falling off the wagon again.

I think of "dictator" when I think of "vertical." A top-down system instead of checks and balances.

Here's a question I'd give a lot of money to hear asked at one of the speeches where a candidate intones how Americans are "sick and tired" (which is itself a sick and tired cliche) of left, right, Democratic, Republican, blah, blah, blah, blah:

"Since you feel that way, _(fill in blank with name of candidate)__, and you feel that most Americans feel that way, why do you still call yourself a Republican/Democrat?"

People who go on and on about "centrism" are selling a warm and fuzzy, non-threatening, lie to themselves and others. They're what I think of as "kinda" people. They think there's some kind of common ground on everything. But ask yourself: can a woman "kinda" have a bi-partisan abortion? Can someone "kinda" get legally married to someone of the same gender in a bi-partisan way? Can we "kinda" execute prisoners? Can we "kinda" torture people? Can non-whites be "kinda" slaves? Can employers "kinda" follow the law? Can a president "kinda" abide by the Constitution? Why is the fact that someone has principles considered bad or obstructionist? What would the U.S. look like nowadays if the Founders had struck a "centrist" position with King George III? Or Winston Churchill allowed Adolf Hitler to have a little bit of the U.K.? The only way of avoiding spats between parties would be to never address controversial issues and never take any votes. If one is to believe that Americans are "sick and tired" of disagreements on policy, one would have to conclude that Americans have no individual principles worth fighting for and are, at their core, intellectually lazy and morally bankrupt. Interesting to note that Democrats were voted into the majority of both houses of Congress in the last election. How could that have happened if people voted the person instead of the party?

Democracy is not pretty (with apologies to Steve Martin).