SC Lt. Gov. endorses Huckabee
Posted: Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:20 AM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
CHARLESTON, SC -- During a visit to a Nucor Steel facility here this morning, Huckabee received the endorsement of South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, and he tried to distinguish himself from his biggest rival in the state -- McCain -- by hammering away on the theme that "Washington insiders don't solve Washington problems."
Bauer's endorsement was a logical one for Huckabee, whose campaign has several ties to the young lieutenant governor. Huckabee's campaign manager and body man both worked to get Bauer reelected in 2006, helping him defeat Mike Campbell, who now serves as Huckabee's SC campaign chairman. The latter relationship between Campbell and Bauer made for a somewhat awkward endorsement announcement as both men stood before the room full of steelworkers and publicly buried the hatchet.
Before announcing the endorsement this morning, Huckabee spent most of his speech trying to reframe the voters' choice in this state's primary as a choice between Washington experience versus state experience. "The decision really is: Are you going to vote for somebody who comes from Washington with all those answers, but somebody who's been there long enough that they haven't really done the things that you sent them there to do?" Huckabee said, clearly referring to McCain. "Why do you think that they would suddenly start showing up and getting the job done?"
There is only one candidate competing against Huckabee in South Carolina with significant Washington experience, and although Huckabee has often said he could be the candidate to change Washington, his most recent rhetoric is clearly aimed at trying to make voters doubt the effectiveness of a McCain presidency. "We sometimes have people who have been in Washington for years and years and years and they don't get the job done and now they're asking us for a different job," Huckabee said later in his speech. McCain has been a senator for more than two decades.
Huckabee even altered a story that he often tells of a teenage employee at a banquet he spoke at as lieutenant governor of Arkansas who refused to let him eat because he didn't have a meal ticket: "That kid was doing what he was told to do, the problem is a lot of folks in Washington aren't."
With McCain ahead in recent South Carolina polls, only the vote on Saturday will tell whether this new tactic will work.
