It's easy to see how Mike Huckabee could be friends with Tony Orlando and Yakov Smirnoff. He has more musical talent than Orlando and he's funnier than Yakov. There's no envy to restrain his warm feelings.
Huckabee arranged for his new buddies to make endorsement videos for Saline County Circuit Clerk Dennis Milligan, who is running for state treasurer with Huckabee as the chairman of his campaign committee. Some readers, especially younger ones, may need introducing to the celebrities making these celebrity endorsements. Yakov is a comedian who came to America from Russia and achieved some popularity in the 1980s telling anti-Russian jokes. Truth is, we don't remember much about him except the accent and that his surname reminded us of an old and best-forgotten dirty joke. He now lives and performs at Branson, as does Orlando.
If Yakov is forgettable, Tony Orlando lives in infamy. Performing in the '70s as the lead singer of a group called Tony Orlando and Dawn, he perpetrated two numbers that made the list of "100 Worst Songs of the 20th Century" compiled by the Institute for Good Taste. One was "Knock Three Times" and the other was "Tie a Yellow Ribbon." They were played constantly, long after they should have been suppressed, and they stuck in the head unpleasantly. Arkansans cannot look forward to hearing them again.