Friday, June 30, 2006
Mike Huckabee And The 'Wal-Mart Voter'
Political pollster John Zogby, armed with polling data showing a high correlation between frequency of Wal-Mart shopping and voting preferences, has begun talking about a powerful new voting bloc he calls "the Wal-Mart voter.” According to Zogby, the Wal-Mart voter is the new must-have constituency -- like soccer moms and NASCAR dads in recent elections.Granted, says Ryan Sager of Real Clear Politics, Wal-Mart voters' politics have less to do with shopping at Wal-Mart than who these people are. Fifty-seven percent of Southerners say they shop at Wal-Mart regularly, according to a recent Pew survey. Wal-Mart shoppers are also disproportionately rural and suburban.
Zogby is definitely on to something, says Sager, because weekly Wal-Mart shoppers make up about one-fifth of the U.S. population.
The Wal-Mart voters share a number of characteristics: they are largely Southern, rural, lower-middle-class, female, socially conservative -- not big fans of tax cuts, but huge fans of government programs.
When Pew looked at the opinions of those pro-government conservatives, it also found that 94 percent favor a higher minimum wage, and 63 percent favor the government guaranteeing health care to all citizens.
Why do we bring this to your attention?
Because we believe Governor Mike Huckabee, if he runs for president in 2008, stands to benefit substantially from the rise of the Wal-Mart voter bloc – and not because Arkansas is Wal-Mart’s world headquarters. Consider the following:
1) Wal-Mart voters are Southern and rural – so is Mike Huckabee.
2) Wal-Mart voters are typically lower-middle-class – Mike Huckabee grew up the same way in Hope, Arkanas (yes, that Hope). He tells a story about how he had to learn how to sit at the head table when he became Governor. “I have more in common with the folks in the kitchen than at the head table,” he says.
3) Wal-Mart voters are socially conservative – according to the Washington Post, “no one has a resumé to match Huckabee's when it comes to courting voters whose first voting priorities are abortion and gay marriage.”
4) Wal-Mart voters are big fans of government programs – Mike Huckabee, who grew up poor and is also a former Southern Baptist Minister, knows that government programs are the lifeline for many, many families on the edge of poverty. He insists that faith should guide how government helps Americans struggling to make ends meet.
5) 94% of Wal-Mart voters favor a higher minimum wage – Just this year (2006) Mike Huckabee went against the Republican party establishment and risked his political future to raise Arkansas’ minimum wage. Because it’s the right thing to do.
6) 63% of Wal-Mart voters favor government guaranteeing health care – Mike Huckabee’s proudest moment, he says, was the day he created ARKids First, a terrifically successful health care program designed to help ensure every hard-working person in Arkansas can provide quality health care for their families. And as chairman of the National Governor’s Association, he has taken the lead in fighting Congress to stop drastic cuts in Medicaid that would threaten the care of millions of elderly and disabled people.
7) If the Democrats had been able to carry just a few Southern states in 2000 and 2004 (all Al Gore needed in 2000 was his home state of Tennessee), they would have won the election. To keep the White House, the GOP must keep the Southern states together.
We submit to you that Mike Huckabee is the ONLY candidate who can do that.
BSR
