Okay folks, no Google, and please self-DQ if you've read the David Sirota blog today. Who gave this quote about uber-GOP business elitist Grover "Drown the government in the bathtub" Norquist:
"Grover's never been in government, doesn't have to balance a state budget, never had a state constitution forcing him to deal with a balanced budget. Grover's never been in a situation where he couldn't borrow money so he didn't have to raise taxes or tell old people he's just going to take them out of the nursing home and drop them on the curb. If Grover wants to run for governor, there's an election next year in _________. He can get his residency requirements lined up. And there are 36 other states he can run in next year."
So you probably guessed it was a governor based on the quote, but you may be surprised that it was a Republican who said it - Mike Huckabee. Sirota notes the media has completely missed the populist notes coming from Huckabee so far, and postulates a potential problem for Democrats if, say, Hilary or Richardson are pitched up against a Republican populist. He is careful to differentiate between what political themes might ensue in such a campaign from what policies a Huckabee presidency would actually bring:
I want to be clear - I think a lot of Huckabee's rhetoric is just that: Rhetoric. I say that because while he shows courage in actually talking about these issues that many other Republicans (and some Democrats) refuse to talk about, he supported many typical regressive Republican policies in Arkansas and on the campaign trail today he reverts back to failed right-wing ideologies when he talks about "solutions," offering up proposals that would actually make things far worse. As just one of many examples, notice that the Atlantic reports that his Iowa operation is being fueled by a group whose single goal is replacing the mildly progressive income tax with one flat national sales tax - a proposal that Huckabee supports even though experts (including top Reagan administration economic officials) admit would result in a massive tax increase on the middle-class and a massive tax cut for those CEO rip-off artists Huckabee rails against.
Nonetheless, in a campaign setting where rhetoric is (unfortunately) everything, the real story about Huckabee's spurt is the story of populism's acendance and cross-party appeal. As a Democrat who wants to see Democrats win the White House in 2008, I shudder to think about a candidate like Huckabee using this posture to triangulate in a general election. You can, for example, pretty easily imagine him seizing the rhetorical mantle of populism against a candidate like Hillary Clinton - a candidate who brags about pocketing big cash from lobbyists, who surrounds herself with K Street mercenaries, who takes in more health industry money than any other lawmaker in Congress, and who appears on the cover of Fortune magazine as Big Money's handpicked candidate. And as I've stated so many times before, the only way to fight off a general election candidate like Huckabee - or any other Republican candidate - is for Democratic candidates to finally embrace populism for themselves, rather than shunning it in an effort to get approval from their Wall Street wing.
There are plenty of voters in all states who are looking for the "outsider" candidate on economic issues. Just because Democrats currently have better favorables on the economy doesn't mean a Huckabee or a Bloomberg can't come in and upset the apple cart for '08. That's why it's a good thing that Congress made the push for minimum wage and hopefully will continue with other kitchen table issues, but when you have guys like Charlie Rangel acting in direct opposition to middle and lower class economic interests (i.e., free trade, tax cuts for the wealthy, ), it opens the door for a Republican "efficiency manager" type to come in. The media may be ignoring Huckabee's economic themes now, but if he manages to win the nomination, expect that to change.
Bonus quiz: How much Huck would a Huckabee bee if a Huckabee could bee a Huck?
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