The Chuckabee Show Hits New Hampshire

The power of Chuck Norris was on display last Sunday when a heckler interrupted Mike Huckabee at an overflowing event in rural New Hampshire. Seconds after a young baritone in the back of the Windham High School gym began screaming about the candidate's ties to the Council on Foreign Relations, the former governor pointed to the source of disorder and rhetorically tazed him with a threat his rivals can only dream of. "Don't make me send Chuck back there," deadpanned Huckabee.

That was all it took. The capacity crowd responded with sustained, whooping applause. Homemade signs of Norris firing machine guns bounced up and down. The real Norris, sitting onstage with his wife, smiled but did not blush. Along with helping Huckabee draw some of the biggest crowds on the Republican side of the campaign trail, Chuck Norris proved himself the ultimate heckler-neutralizer. The crowd was still applauding when Huckabee issued a gracious pardon, saying, "No, we're not going to beat him up. This is America."

Chuck Norris' America. Norris' viral touch is so golden these days it's a wonder the heckler didn't scream, "Don't Chuck me, bro!" as state troopers manhandled him out of the building. This scene, if captured on someone's cell-phone camera, no doubt would have sparked yet another Chuckabee YouTube pandemic like the "Facts" commercial that garnered 1.5 million hits in the runup to Mike Huckabee's Iowa surprise. And in fact people were echoing Huckabee's Norris line as they shuffled out of Sunday's rally. "Don't make me sic Chuck on you!" one teenager warned his sister in the parking lot. The whole family laughed. Nobody laughs coming out of a Mitt Romney event.

On the stump Norris also likes to tell the story of how he came to know and endorse Huckabee. Uninspired by the other candidates courting his support, Norris discovered Huckabee when an 18-year-old blogger from Oregon wrote him and told him he should look into his candidacy. Norris did and began praising the candidate on WorldNetDaily.com, where he writes a column. Huckabee then contacted Norris to set up a personal meeting. They hit it off, and soon the former pastor from Arkansas was making plans to stump with Norris, an aging action-hero punch line newly reborn as a kitsch Internet superphenomenon.

Watching the Chuck & Huck Show, it can be hard to remember who is running for president of the United States and who is running in an infomercial for Total Gym. Turning the Oprah & Obama Show on its head, it's Huckabee who preps audiences for Norris. "I know who you really came to see," he tells excited crowds peppered with homemade signs that say "cHuck!" Sample surveys of crowds suggest Huckabee is more right than he might think about who's filling the houses. More than once in New Hampshire, Huckabee was mentioned after Norris but before the free doughnuts by organizers and staffers pleading patience during delays. Ovations for Norris are as loud as, if not louder than, they are for Huckabee, who has found a sure-fire applause line in joking that Norris will be his secretary of defense.

The duo appeared together at nearly all of Huckabee's mobbed New Hampshire events. The politician lauds the actor for "exemplifying the spirit of America" with his charity work and personal success story. But Huckabee knows it isn't charity work that brings people to see Chuck Norris, and the physically unthreatening candidate squeezes everything he can out of his surrogate's reputation for kicking superhuman amounts of villainous ass. Veering into carnie barker territory, Huckabee proudly describes Norris as "the toughest guy in the world." Occasionally he gets a little carried away. At a charity event in Londonderry, Huckabee pointed to Norris and informed a packed cafeteria of supporters and independents, "Actually, he could take all of you out." It isn't just hecklers who get threatened on the Chuckabee campaign trail, it's everyone. And they love it.