There's been a small hub-bub lately on Mike Huckabee's Xmas ad in which the camera pans around to reveal in the background a white bookshelf, which looks a helluva like a floating white cross. Many have seen this as a thinly veiled attempt at pandering to the Christian Right and given Huckabee's endless shout-outs to Jesus whenever a microphone is nearby, the accusation is probably not that big of a stretch. But what concerns me more about this ad is not the cross but the three balls on one of the shelves. Everybody knows that three balls arranged in this manner is the international symbol for "pawn shop." Now one could draw many conclusions from this symbol being overtly positioned in a campaign ad. Is Huckabee asking us to recall obscure Sublime lyrics like: "Down there at the pawn shop it's only way to shop"? Or is that he feels we'll all be headed for the pawn shop to sell our personal effects when his "fair tax" kicks in and adds a 30% federal tax onto every sale? Maybe its a subtle reminder to fellow musicians (he plays bass in a band) that many fine deals on instruments can be had at your local pawn shop. Or maybe Huckabee is himself a member of the secretive sect of pawnshop owners who have governed the affairs of mankind since the days of the Pharao.
