December 11, 2007
Minuteman Project Founder Hearts Huck, Too
COUNCIL BLUFFS, IA – Mike Huckabee announced the endorsement of Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist today.
The timing of the endorsement could help Huckabee buffer allegations made in a Mitt Romney attack ad released yesterday that the former Arkansas governor is lax in enforcing immigration laws.
"I'm somewhat flattered as I seem to be the recipient of the first negative attack ad in the Republican Primary," Huckabee said. "That's usually a sign of desperation on the part of an opponent who feels that his only way of winning is to attack and to destroy."
When asked why he chose to endorse Huckabee over Congressman Tom Tancredo – who Gilchrist admitted was the "inspiration for launching the Minuteman Project" – Gilchrist said that he would put Huckabee at the same level as Tancredo on the immigration issue.
"Whatever the governor might have done 10 or 20 years ago regarding this issue, that was then, this is now," Gilchrist said. "Governor Huckabee actually wrote a plan, actually presented a plan. I'd seen other candidates' plans but they were two sentences or three sentences or nothing at all, earlier in the campaign. Governor Huckabee was the first, in my opinion, to come out with a written plan."
Kevin Madden, a Romney spokesman, said that one endorsement can't alter Huckabee's record on immigration.
"It’s one person’s viewpoint, and we respect anyone’s decision to endorse a given candidate," Madden told On Call. "An endorsement won’t change the fact that Mike Huckabee has an abysmal record on immigration enforcement.
Huckabee said that he has been trying to follow Ronald Reagan's "eleventh commandment," that thou shall not attack a fellow Republican, and that the longer he's out front the more attacks will be directed toward him. Huckabee said he believes Romney risks alienating Iowa voters who are notorious for disliking negative campaigns.
"If the basis of running for the presidency is, 'Let me tell you what's wrong with the other guy,' not 'Let me tell you what I'd do for America,' I think the people of Iowa – who have been through this so many times, will say, 'I vote for the guy who has a plan for the future of America' not just somebody looking around and saying, as the tattle tale in the third grade, let me tell you what this guy's doing," Huckabee said. "We didn't like it when we were in the third grade. I don't think we like it electing a president either."
Meanwhile, Gilchrist defined the Minuteman Project as a "multi-ethnic immigration law enforcement advocacy group," but in his endorsement statement he said that his group's goal was to combat the "illegal alien invasion," which he later clarified as a "covert, Trojan horse-like…nonviolent invasion." These statements add fuel to the fire stoked by the Minuteman Project's critics who see the group as a vigilante organization who have taken border enforcement into their own hands.
(NBC/NJ's ADAM AIGNER-TREWORGY and JENNIFER SKALKA)
Posted at 01:24 PM
Comments
Post a comment
The Watergate · 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20037
202-739-8400 · fax 202-833-8069
NationalJournal.com is an Atlantic Media publication.
