Part 1 Chapter 3 The People Rule

Regnat Populus

"The People Rule"
(Arkansas State Motto)

Time to pull up a chair. Grab a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, in fact, take a piece of banana pudding. I have finished Chapter 3. It was a rather short, yet another great chapter. The thing with doing a book report on a Mike Huckabee written book is that it's hard not to just want to copy each and every one of his wonderful words. If you are new to this blog or missed previous book reports, first go to Intro , Chapter 1 or Chapter 2

The premise of Chapter 3, is about the power is in the hands of the people and that elected officials are not be all-end all. Rather they are the employees of the people, no matter how rich or poor.

I shall elaborate. Mike Huckabee says that his first day as governor of Arkansas, was better than his first day as lieutenant governor. Upon his first day as Lieutenant governor in 1993, the door to his office was nailed shut from the inside. When he questioned anyone they told him that the room was going to be used for the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission. No one would give him a straight answer. He was unable to enter his office for 59 days. John fund from The Wall Street Journal flew all the way from New York to see this for himself. It even took Mike four months to get personalised letterhead for his stationary. He had to pay for it himself.
On his first day as Governor, staff from the previous administration had not send resumes. They were told that it would be pointless, because they would all be fired anyways. Mike and his people told them all to submit resumes and they would be given fair consideration. With one or two exceptions, Jim Guy Tucker refused to discuss transition process, within the time frame of May 28 and July 15. This is normally done when one governor is making plans of departure to make room for the next governor.
When he started his new position, filing cabinets in the government offices were found empty. Paper and computer records had been destroyed.
He received a letter of public apology from Jim Guy Tucker.
He made a conscience effort to rebuild morality in the Governor's Office. He banned swearing. He has no patience for sexually inappropriate comments.* This was not because he is a self righteous prude, but because he feels it kills morality and productivity. He believes in the "Golden Rule", Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
He promised not to yell at any of his staff if they made mistakes. This was something they were not used to. His philosophy is that one who feels that they have to announce they are in charge, they really aren't in charge. He wanted people to do a decent job, not because they felt they had to, but because they wanted to.
He wanted to get to know all those who worked in the capitol. He would walk around and introduce himself. He looked at family pics of his staff. He truly wanted to get to know them. This transition took mere hours to days. Previous and new staff worked equally side by side. He treated everyone equally.
He wanted his staff and the citizens of Arkansas to know he was not " The Boss." Everyone on his staff were to work as a team. There was a chain of command, but he also believed that every job and position was important. Behind his secretary's desk was picture that was titled, "The Boss."

I want to share the whole paragraph from the book.

• One week it might be a girl scout troop from Arkedelphia; the next week it might be a teacher from Mount Ida; the next week a retired farmer from West Memphis. These were the people we had pledged to serve.** All of us passed this picture frame several times a day. It was and effective reminder of our ultimate place in the chain of command.

He showed respect to all of the citizens who came to his office. Even those who showed up in tattered clothes and smelling bad were respected by Mike Huckabee. He has no tolerance for those who look down on others. Even when people who have less money, less adequate housing or poor job skills - those in state government are their employees.

Now I want to share the inspiring words from the last paragraph.

• Servant leadership is the highest form of leadership. It's not the same as doormat leadership. To see your role as servant leader is the ultimate model of Biblical leadership. I expected our employees to treat others the way they wanted to be treated, to understand that their job was not to be served but to serve--that they were never to be rude. The people out there who called, wrote, or visited were not our problem, irritation or interruption; they were our job. Our challenge was not to get those people out of the way so that we could do our work; our work was to help those people. Those people are citizens are people of the state, they are our bosses.
• Regnat Populus

* My Christian woman thought on this. Some so-called conservatives want to say that because the PC crowd says lewd, sexual comments or come-ons, or whatever is disrespectful it is OK. Hey, they don't want to look PC. It has nothing to do with PC or un-PC. It is good Christian common sense. To me, it looks like Mike Huckabee takes a Christian approach to the situation.

**This is one sentence that really got to me. Not only does he say we instead of I, he also mentions pledging to serve the people. We need someone who pledges to serve the people. Not someone who pledges to serve himself (or his cult).

In my attempt to butcher the Beverly Hillbillies closing credits, written by Paul Henning and sung by Jerry Scroggins:

• Now it's time to say goodbye and read the next chapter
• I would like to thank you folks for kindly reading this
• You're all invited back again to this blog
• To have a heaping helping of this hospitality
• (Hillbilly that is. Set a spell. Take your shoes off. Y'all come back now, ya hear?)

God Bless from the Upper Peninsula in Michigan!

Gotta stop listening to Elvis when I write .

Chapter 4

Chapter 5