GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
James Pinkerton joins Team Huckabee:
James P. Pinkerton, a well-known conservative commentator and veteran of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, has joined Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign, a campaign official tells Politico.
Pinkerton resigned as a Fox News contributor and gave up the column he has written for Newsday and other newspapers since 1993.
”I went from one thing I loved doing to something else that I felt called to do,” Pinkerton said.
Pinkerton started Thursday, with the title of senior adviser. The campaign official said he will work at the intersection of policy and strategic messaging. In other words, he will help beef up Huckabee’s policy proposals, which until now have been less detailed than those of some of his rivals.
Pinkerton was lured to the Huckabee team by Ed Rollins, the campaign’s national chairman. Both men are Massachusetts natives. In 1982 and 1983, Pinkerton worked for Rollins when he was President Ronald Reagan’s director of political affairs.
Rollins sold the job to him as a chance to help “restore the Reagan coalition,” Pinkerton recalled.
“I thought, ‘I’m not going to turn THAT down,’” he said.
Pinkerton, 49, describes himself as a Burkean conservative and a Nixonian realist on foreign policy. His columns show that over the years, he has become less libertarian and more conservative on abortion and immigration.
Pinkerton was one of the first White House appointments by President George H.W. Bush, who made him deputy assistant to the president for policy planning.
The addition of Pinkerton is the latest sign that Huckabee’s once-shoestring campaign for the Republican presidential nomination is moving into the big time.
In a Dec. 13 Newsday column headlined, “Huckabee, like Reagan, wouldn’t be an ‘easy kill,’” Pinkerton compared the former Arkansas governor’s political strength to that of one of his predecessors, President Bill Clinton:
“He has to get nominated first, and that won’t be easy. But if he does, he will be formidable in a general election, just like that other Razorback. The Heartland wins.”
In a Dec. 11 Newsday column headlined, “Huckabee’s focus: ‘broken humanity,’” Pinkerton wrote that the former Baptist minister’s “political views are well within the mainstream of American politics”:
“Elected four times statewide in Arkansas, by the same voters who had earlier elected and reelected Bill Clinton, Huckabee was governor of the Razorback State for nearly 11 years. During that time Huckabee proved his centrist effectiveness — including a willingness to spend money for better education, better health care and better roads. On social issues, of course, Huckabee is more clearly on the right, but most Americans, too, are anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion.”
A Stanford graduate, he wrote “What Comes Next: The End of Big Government — And the New Paradigm Ahead” (Hyperion: 1995). He is a fellow at the New America Foundation, and has blogged for The Huffington Post. He is a science fiction buff and shares Newt Gingrich’s passion for high-tech futurism.
Even though I am not happy with all that Ed Rollins has done, this recruitment is a significant development.
January 13th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
THIS:
Rollins sold the job to him as a chance to help “restore the Reagan coalition,” Pinkerton recalled.
“I thought, ‘I’m not going to turn THAT down,’” he said.
STANDS IN COMPLETE CONTRADICTION OF THIS:
“It’s gone,” said Ed Rollins, who once worked as President Reagan’s political director and recently became Mr. Huckabee’s national campaign chairman. “The breakup of what was the Reagan coalition — social conservatives, defense conservatives, antitax conservatives — it doesn’t mean a whole lot to people anymore.”
“It is a time for a whole new coalition — that is the key,” he said, adding that some part of the original triad might “go by the wayside.”
HOW CAN YOU RESTORE THE REAGAN COALITION WHILE LETTING SOME OF IT GO BY THE WAYSIDE?
January 13th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
And, what part(s) go by the wayside? Is it economic (anti tax) conservatives? Defense conservatives? Or both?
Where will defense and anti tax conservatives go if Huck remakes the party without them?
He assumes they don’t matter, because they have no place to go and they will be stuck with Huck because he is better than Hill. This is the Dick Morris triangulation strategy.
This is how Mike Huckabee treated anti tax consertavites in AR.
January 13th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Being elected in the same state as Bill Clinton should be a big negative, not a positive. I think Pinkerton will very soon regret this, because Huckabee will be out of this thing soon. 10 years from now a High School kid won’t have the foggiest idea who Mike Huckabee is, but they will revere the name of Mitt Romney, one of the greatest Presidents of all time. Of course it is possible that Mike can become one of the big tv evangelists. He can make some big bucks there cause his snake oil salesmanship certainly sells to a certain segment of society. However, Romney and Thompson represent the three legged stool of the coalition, not Huck.
January 13th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
3, you are right about Clinton. Just think of Huckabee’s taxes that had to be placed on top of a huge pile already put in by Clinton. And Huckabee’s spending was added to the top of Clinton’s spending.
Huck broke all of Bill Clinton’s tax and spend records in AR.
January 13th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
huh, by supporting huckabee you automatically lose any adjective like conservative to describe you. maybe if you tack on ‘compassionate big government’ before it, maybe then you are okay.
as geraghty points out this may be a problem for huckabee anyway:
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDFmMTFjMTBlYTg5ODAzNmIyZDJjOGEyNDVmZmVhZjQ=
apparently pinkerton thinks being against abortion is a losing stance for the gop to take.
January 13th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
You beat me to it John Galt!
January 13th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Well, there goes any respect I ever had for James Pinkerton.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
“Conservative columnist joins Huckabee”
What, is this a joke?