Elephants Take A Hike…Over A Cliff? :: David Yepsen (Des Moines Register blog)

[Pirate Smile]

Elephants Take A Hike…Over A Cliff? :: David Yepsen

:: Thu 9.27.2007 10:33 PM

They held a debate among Republican presidential candidates over minority issues Thursday night and the big loser was the GOP.

-snip-
The decision by the big boys to do something else with their time sent a hostile signal about the Republican party to the nation’s black and Latino communities.
For a party already in minority status in much of the country, it defies political logic to just brush off these constituencies. Republicans don’t need to win the votes of everyone in those groups, but they must carry a big enough slice to deny victories to Democrats in close contests.

-snip-
In the 1850s, the Republicans of that era managed to alienate people of Irish ancestry and drove them into the Democratic party for generations. The same thing has happened to African-Americans, who just two generations go were often voting for Republicans. It is about to happen with Americans of Latino ancestry, who find the constant GOP bashing of illegal immigration to be racially tinged.

-snip-
(Memo to Rudy, Mitt, John and Fred: It wasn’t just black folks or Latinos who watched TV last night. A lot of white folks did too. How about letting them hear the case for those ideas?)
The decision by the frontrunners to blow off the evening also gave the party’s second tier candidates a chance to shine.

Those candidates got rare prime time exposure on national television which meant all of them profited and Huckabee stood out.
As a former governor of Arkansas, he seemed quite familiar with the issues facing minority voters and his answers sounded calm, informed and presidential. He’s coming off as the conservative with a heart in this campaign.

http://blogs.dmregister.com/?cat=33

I do not want to have to run against Huckabee in the General Election. I think he could do well in the Iowa Caucuses. The "Club for Growth/Greed is Good" wing of the Republican Party will do everything they can to take him out (They ran TV ads against him before the Iowa Straw Poll - he came in second while paying for no advertising or buses - Romney paid for a hundred buses to manage to come in first).