Pinkerton on Huckabee

Here's Jim Pinkerton talking to a baffled David Corn making the case that his new boss Mike Huckabee can win votes from working class Democrats:

One interesting point here is that Pinkerton seems to think that "non-citizens" and "illegal immigrants" refer to the same group of people. The other point to make, of course, is that while in principle I think Huckabee-esque populist positioning could work for the GOP, thus far Huckabee seems to have almost no appeal outside the group of white evangelicals (see, e.g., his apparent problem with Catholic voters) so the problem remains pretty theoretical. In the 2004 exit polls, white evangelicals were only 23 percent of the population.

Comments

One interesting point here is that Pinkerton seems to think that "non-citizens" and "illegal immigrants" refer to the same group of people.

This is an increasingly common conflation: fuck you very much, Lou Dobbs.

There's polling that shows 'immigrant' is elided into 'illegal', and lots of anecdotage from media discourse and general conversation that the US is populated by 'citizens', 'illegals' and that's it.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | January 14, 2008 1:31 PM

Sorry, but, at least the Huckabee guy was sort of coherent. Corn wasn't. Hope this is not a token of the future.

Posted by David in NY | January 14, 2008 1:47 PM

Matt, you need a crash course in red-state social conservatism, fast. You're a star but your ignorance in this area is glaring.

Twenty-three percent of the vote is the cornerstone of the GOP electoral strategy. The more media elites and the Republican establishment (now rallying around McCain) try to push Huck down, sniggering about his incoherence on matters of policy, the more the evangelicals will push back. Above all else, social conservatives hate being patronized. Watch Huck come roaring back with a South Carolina win. He'll kick McCain's ass all over the South (although McCain will take everything else).

Maybe Huck can sell the populism thing to disaffected blue-collar Dems (the voters Obama is neglecting now, to his peril), but at the end of the day the evangelicals will line up behind him because he interprets the Scriptures exactly as they do.

Posted by BryklynLibrul | January 14, 2008 2:03 PM

What "populist" positions is Huckabee selling exactly? The Fair Tax? I know that the Club For Growth likes to call him a populist because he raised some taxes and wasn't interested in completely blowing off the Arkansas poor, but if that's the modern definition of populist the word has surely been perverted.

Posted by Eric the Political Hack | January 14, 2008 2:44 PM

One good thing about dealing with hacks is that you can repeat yourself. Ezra Klein - surprise! - already posted on this video, and I'll repurpose what I wrote over there:

It's not difficult at all to imagine David Corn making the same "arguments" even in the unlikely event that some form of "reform" were to pass, and illegal aliens kept coming here. No matter what laws were passed, Corn would continue to support illegal immigration ("they're here") and by extension support all its hugely negative consequences. And, one of those would be the eventual bankrupting of whatever healthcare scheme the Dems managed to sneak through.

Posted by TLB | January 14, 2008 3:43 PM

Huckabee wants to let the illegals stay and keep getting my tax dollars. He won't get my vote. I am HOPING that Fred Thompson will pull out all stops and get some interest!

Posted by Rob | January 14, 2008 3:48 PM

Mike Huckabee is the best candidate since Ronald Reagan!

Mike Huckabee is also an outsider hated by the republican CFR and media establishment... just like Reagan was.

We got Reagan elected...we can get Huckabee elected! Go Huckabee!

Posted by Harald Hardrata | January 14, 2008 4:16 PM

Mike Huckabee is the best candidate since Ronald Reagan!

Mike Huckabee is also an outsider hated by the republican CFR and media establishment... just like Reagan was.

We got Reagan elected...we can get Huckabee elected! Go Huckabee!

Posted by Harald Hardrata | January 14, 2008 4:17 PM

Say it enough, Harald, somebody might believe it!

Posted by David in NY | January 14, 2008 4:44 PM

For the benefit of MattY's other anti-establishment reader, I'll point out that the only candidates

who wouldn't be CFR-approved are Ron Paul

(example at link) and Tom Tancredo and perhaps even Kucinich. Mike Gravel has even explicitly come out for a world government, so about the only thing they'd oppose about him is that perhaps he'd be too open about their goals.

Huck recently announced that he's taking foreign policy advice from the president of the CFR, and he's

hardly hated by the MSM. And, what he'd do on immigration is about in line with what Bush has done,

something that's supported by the elites. Gotta keep those lawns in tip-top shape.

Posted by TLB | January 14, 2008 5:16 PM