CALLING A SPADE A LAW-LOVING CITIZEN. One salient moment at last night's GOP debate was when Chris Wallace asked Huckabee to clarify previous statements on the racist undertones of fellow Republicans campaigning against immigration reform. "If I were to say some of it is driven by just sheer racism, I think I would be telling you the truth," Wallace quoted Huckabee as saying at a press meeting in May, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The Democrat-Gazette piece extends his statement further: "I’m not saying everybody who is very, very angry [about immigration ] is a racist. I want to be very clear about that. But I’ve had conversations with people, and it became evident what they really didn’t like is that people didn’t look like them, didn’t talk like them and didn’t celebrate the holidays they do, and they just had a problem with it."
But when asked why he felt that way, Huckabee backpedaled, shifting toward the claim that defense of the rule of law rather than racism drives most of the opposition to immigration reform: "People in this country are essentially good folks. They're not angry at immigrants who want to come here for the same reason that our ancestors came, but they're angry at a government that has completely ignored borders and allowed this problem to fester to the point that it's now overrunning us in a position that people don't even understand how to fix it."
Maybe he just didn't want to hurt Tom "Third World Country" Tancredo's feelings. Or maybe calling out potential voters as the bunch of racists they may well be doesn't go over so well.
--Kate Sheppard
