Homophobia meets populism: Is there an upside to Huckabee’s “backside” politics? - By Joan Walsh

[DonViejo]

If the right-wing populist is as tough on Jeb Bush as he is on women and Big Gay, he could shake up the GOP race

JOAN WALSH

Everyone remembers Mike Huckabee as the nice guy of the 2008 race, but he probably had his biggest impact with one perfect zinger: Monied rival Mitt Romney, he quipped, didn’t look like one of the guys you worked with, “he looks like the guy who fired you.” Fast forward to 2012, and Romney’s GOP rivals continued the Huckabee line on the plutocratic Romney, beating up on his employer Bain Capital and its “vulture capitalism” before the Obama campaign had to spend a dollar.

In 2016, Huckabee promises to be far nastier than he was last time around. In his declaration speech on Tuesday, Politico’s Roger Simon cracked, he looked like “an angry beach ball in a suit.” Most of his fire is reserved for the culture war: He’s nastiest when talking about Democrats who think women “can’t control their libidos,” women who in fact indulge their libidos, the gay marriage lobby and Barack Obama. He’s smeared the president as imbibing left-wing values “growing up in Kenya” (he did not) and urged Christians not to enlist in the military until there’s a new commander in chief.

But Huckabee has not abandoned the populist economic rhetoric that got the big-spending former Arkansas governor into trouble with anti-tax conservatives last time around. In fact, he’s learning how to meld populism with homophobia: Crusading against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Huckabee told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that American workers would “take it in the backside” if the trade deal was approved. And we all know nobody’s supposed to take it in the backside.

Could there be an upside in Huckabee’s populist backside politics? Maybe, though he’s still a very long shot for the nomination. Salon’s Jim Newell argues that melding his culture warrior stands with economic populism could give Huckabee a lane of his own in the GOP primary, even if he’s unlikely to win it. Alone among the GOP candidates, he’s committed himself to defending Social Security and Medicare. And now he’s taking on the TPP, when most of his rivals are teaming up behind it with Obama.

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http://www.salon.com/2015/05/08/homophobia_meets_populism_is_there_an_upside_to_huckabees_backside_politics/

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