Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2008 > January > 20
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Huckabee and the Republican blue-collar vote
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What is the proper way for a Republican presidential candidate to flash his blue collar?
This could be the most pertinent question awaiting Mike Huckabee in the morning when he arrives in Georgia.
With Monday’s appearance at Martin Luther King ceremonies and a Tuesday speech before anti-abortion activists, the former Arkansas governor becomes the first presidential candidate of either stripe to spend consecutive days in Georgia in the run-up to the state’s Feb. 5 primary.
That Huckabee isn’t in Florida, site of the next GOP showdown, is significant. But after a disappointing second-place finish in neighboring South Carolina over the weekend, metro Atlanta isn’t a bad spot for a former Baptist pastor to salve his wounds.
Evangelical clout still runs high in Georgia, and a mid-January poll by the Journal-Constitution showed Huckabee with a hefty lead over Republican rivals John McCain and Mitt Romney. Though surely Huckabee’s margin has shrunk since Saturday.
If it were peopled by Democrats, we would say that the GOP contest for president has devolved into factions. Perhaps the better word — at least more in keeping with the Republican mindset — is “franchise.”
Huckabee has the social conservative franchise. Mitt Romney has the economic franchise. McCain, and perhaps Rudy Giuliani, has national security. The man who can best cobble together two or three franchises — so far, McCain — will win the nomination.
Which brings us back to Huckabee. In Georgia, the victor of Iowa — Jan. 3 seems so 2007 — is again likely to demonstrate his ability to fire up evangelicals.
But it is Huckabee’s easy familiarity with the plight of working families that has given him broader possibilities. This is the fellow who said the next president should resemble the guy you work with, not the boss who laid you off.
Last fall, when he was still bogged in the second tier of candidates, Huckabee dropped by Kennesaw with a message aimed squarely at Wal-Mart shoppers.
He identified the lack of health insurance as “a point of total terror for many families,” and spoke of siding with Main Street before Wall Street. He told of his own blue-collar roots, and the prevalence of Lava soap in the family bathroom. “I was in college before I found out that it wasn’t supposed to hurt when you take a shower,” Huckabee said.
And yet in job-challenged Michigan, it was Romney who shone in that state’s primary. In South Carolina on Saturday, Republican voters who worried about the economy preferred McCain.
When we outsourced the analysis of Huckabee’s dilemma, we were told that Huckabee may be putting crosshairs on blue-collar voters one election cycle too early. Reagan Democrats are to be courted in October, not January. But more than likely, Huckabee’s aim is one income bracket too low.
Republicans prefer to be addressed according to their aspirations, said Merle Black, the Emory University political scientist. “They put more emphasis on where they want to end up rather than where they started,” he said. Even if they’re not rich, they want to be spoken to as if they someday might be.
Ralph Reed, the GOP strategist, said nearly the same thing. Social issues such as gay marriage and abortion already capture many white wage-earners. If he wants to penetrate the economic franchise, Huckabee needs to address small business owners, rather than the people who work for them, Reed said.
The Arkansas governor also needs to recognize there is danger in using blue-collar language, no matter how eloquent. “What Mike’s got to be careful of is, many economic conservatives get very nervous if they think you’re trying to demonize people who create wealth,” Reed said.
Revolutions also unsettle many economic conservatives. And you have to wonder whether the Fair Tax can be lumped into that category. As anyone who listens to Neal Boortz on the radio knows, Huckabee has endorsed a shift away from the federal income tax to a national consumption tax.
Huckabee may want to look at how one blue-collar war among Republicans ended in Georgia just last week. It was an effort in the Legislature to overturn corporate policies that bar workers from storing firearms in cars parked on company lots.
“They are our employers. They are not our owners,” growled state Sen. Preston Smith (R-Rome), who sided with the proletarian, lunch-bucket crowd. The state Senate didn’t hesitate. It smoothly gutted the bill, at the behest of Republican business interests.
Services »
