Judge Pressler, leading the Southern Baptist "Conservative Resurgence" in the late '70s, agreed with Scarborough about Huckabee's orientation and went a different route in current presidential politics. When Huckabee on Nov. 9 announced Southern Baptist leaders supporting him, Pressler was not on the list and on Dec. 7 endorsed Thompson instead. Pressler is known to be concerned that Huckabee plays to the establishment and would be subservient to the state department and The New York Times.
On Oct. 26, John Fund of The Wall Street Journal quoted Pressler as saying: "I know of no conservative he appointed while he headed the Arkansas Baptist Convention." The next week during their California encounter, Huckabee confirmed reports from people who know him that his good-natured facade conceals thin-skinned irritability. The candidate jumped Pressler with bitter complaints.
Shortly thereafter, bitterness was demonstrated by an interview with Zev Chafets of The New York Times. Huckabee was irritated that Richard Land, a prestigious Southern Baptist leader, had not endorsed him. "Richard Land swoons for Fred Thompson," he said, though Land as a policy endorses nobody. Huckabee appears to believe that everyone in the Southern Baptist Convention is obliged to support him: "If my own abandon me on the battlefield, it will have a chilling effect."
Huckabee's jumping Pressler two months ago did not deter the judge from telling me this week much the same thing he had said to Fund: "I don't know of conservative appointments he made and I don't know of any contribution to the conservatives." After Huckabee's warm greeting in Houston Tuesday, however, Pressler told me: "I would never do anything to hurt him." He did not go so far as endorsing Huckabee for president, and that sends a strong message to conservative evangelicals.