Mike Huckabee’s durability is built on more than his religious appeal. The former governor is also tapping into the country’s economic anxieties. As yesterday’s Wall Street Journal explained, “On the eve of the election year, Americans are displaying increasingly severe doubts about the nation’s economic engagement with the rest of the world.” Attitudes toward even legal immigration, often a bellwether of public sentiment, are turning negative. A new Journal poll found that as recently as this past June voters were almost evenly split over whether immigration helps more than it hurts the country. Now, according to the article,
a large majority says immigration hurts more than it helps. According to the poll, 52 percent said immigration hurts the country more than it helps, with only 39 percent seeing immigration having a positive contribution.
A decade ago voters had a slightly negative of the internationalization of the American economy. Today only 28 percent view it positively and again support comes largely from managers and professionals. Add to this growing concerns over the seemingly ineluctable increases in inequality, and it’s clear that there’s an opening for a populist candidate (just not John Edwards).
Interviewed by Meredith Vieira about his “floating cross” ad, Huckabee took the opportunity to mock those who insist on saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” And when Vieira asked him about the criticism he’s received from National Review editor Rich Lowry and others on the Right that he wasn’t an economic conservative, Huckabee saw his opening. Speaking without any visible anger, he deftly replied,
The Wall Street-to-Washington axis, this corridor of power, is absolutely, frantically against me. But out there in America, the reason we’re number one in the polls is because I’m the guy that doesn’t have some offshore mailbox bank account in the Caymans [referring to Edwards] hiding my money. I’m the guy that worked my way up through it. And there are a whole lot of people in America that believe that the President ought to be a servant of the people and ought not to be elected to the ruling class. . . .
Vieira: So why do you think they’re opposed to you, Governor?
Huckabee: Because they don’t control me. . . . I’m not a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street. I come right up from the people.
Huckabee’s ability to present himself as the real populist may be a big part of why he has, to date, largely weathered all the criticism of his bad gubernatorial record on taxes and criminal justice and of his ethical failings.
