SIROTA: economic populist came in second in GOP straw poll--will Dems be to the right of him?

[yurbud]

I would be ironic if Mike Huckabee, an economic populist in the mold of Pat Buchanan, would look more sympathetic to working people than a DLC and corporate approved Democratic nominee who sidesteps questions on trade agreements and outsourcing because they have no intention of doing anything that will irritate a corporate sponsor.

Kucinich has said the right things about these issues: scrap NAFTA and the WTO on day one.

The top tier candidates would do well to steal that message or the GOP smear that Democrats represent the elite will be true--not the imaginary latte-drinking one, but the real cold hard cash kind.

Democrats Beware: An Economic Populist Is Rising In the GOP's Presidential Primary

By David Sirota, Working Assets. Posted August 14, 2007.

Mike Huckabee has a populist economic message that may be shunned by the Money Party in Washington, but likely has an appeal among rank-and-file working-class Republican voters.

Here is Huckabee quoted on the AFL-CIO's webpage from the recent Republican presidential debate:

"The most important thing a president needs to do is to make it clear that we're not going to continue to see jobs shipped overseas, jobs that are lost by American workers, many in their 50s who for 20 and 30 years have worked to make a company rich, and then watch as a CEO takes a $100 million bonus to jettison those American jobs somewhere else. And the worker not only loses his job, but he loses his pension. That's criminal. It's wrong."

Huckabee followed this up by telling The Politico: "I am not interested in being the candidate of Wall Street but of Main Street. Wealthy CEOs get paid 500 times what the average worker does, but they are not necessarily 500 times smarter or harder working and that is wrong."

On trade, it's the same thing. Here's Huckabee at a recent campaign stop in Iowa:

"If somebody in the presidency doesn't begin to understand that we can't have free trade if it's not fair trade, we're going to continually see people who have worked for 20 and 30 years for companies one day walk in and get the pink slip and told 'I'm sorry but everything you spent your life working for is no longer here.'…I'd like to prove that this presidency is not going to be just up for sale. If that's the case, let's just put it on eBay and be done with it. I'd like to think it's going to be more about our principles, not just our pockets."

Even on health care, Huckabee populist line seems to be working with GOP audiences. Notice this report from Raw Story:

"If you want to know how to fix it, I've got a solution," Huckabee said at the Republican debate. "Either give every American the same kind of healthcare that Congress has or make Congress have the same kind of health care that every American has." As he spoke, the electronic graphs rose dramatically for both moderate and conservative Republicans, from a neutral reading of 50 into the 80's.

FULL TEXT:
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/59706/?page=1

[JDPriestly]

1. Where does Huckabee stand on unions?

Employees at all levels need the right to organize. Without it, workers have no power and no rights. Huckabee's stance is meaningless unless he backs it up with support for unions.

[yurbud]

9. I think it is only meaningFUL in the sense that it could get him elected. Even if he's sincere, GOP

won't back him if he tries to implement any of it.

[JDPriestly]

10. Agreed.

[Vincardog]

2. Finally some one states what I have been saying for years. The trouble is it is a Republican pol

Can we get the DCCC and the DNC to get behind those positions?

[Democrats_win]

3. Recall Huckabee's comments on Imus show about Dem concentration camp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Huckabee

"On October 19, 2006, Huckabee appeared on the Imus in the Morning radio show with Don Imus. Referring to his significant weight loss, Imus remarked that Huckabee looked "emaciated." Huckabee joked that 'I have just come out of six weeks at a concentration camp held by the (sic) Democrat Party of Arkansas in an undisclosed location, making a hostage tape...That's why I look that way.' "

--
Doesn't this man look like another divider? Did Rove write his comments?

Economic populism is a must, but equally important is a person who isn't a political hack. We seldom here the Democratic candidates spewing such hate, why must we tolerate this from the extremists on the right?

[TwilightGardener]

4. What an asshole. He's just trying to find a little populist fair-trader "niche" for himself--

a gimmick, like Tancredo and his immigration bullshit or Brownback and abortion. Totally calculated. Dems actually have the populist/trade/labor corner pretty well covered. Sirota is pulling the same shit Dems are saying about Paul's antiwar shit--he's a Repub "HERO" for saying the same things that Dems say everyday. Fuckabee thinks we're fighting a multigenerational holy war against the Islamofascists--he has been quoted as saying the GWOT and Iraq are more important for our country to "win" than WW2 was. He has not a clue about foreign policy, he's an immigration flip-flopper (used to LOVE illegals taking jobs in the Arkansas chicken factories, but now he's all tough-talkin' about them), he thinks the earth is 4000 years old, he wants to overturn Roe V Wade (he's as nuts about abortion as Brownback), he wants a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. But some Dems will slaver over him because he pretends to be a populist. That's how pathetic we are.

[yurbud]

7. GOP will do nothing for workers, point is, they might make it LOOK like they will

best defense is for dems to actually take action.

[yurbud]

5. I'm not saying to vote for him AT ALL. just saying Dems could be blindsided while groveling to corps

[yurbud]

6. TOON: DLC & the corps bride

[Mojambo]

8. I don't know how he gets nominated, but if he does, he's dangerous. n/t