Dec 14, 2007 1:32 pm US/Central
Mitt Romney's Rivals Try Class Warfare
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ―
Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson have begun casting Republican rival Mitt
Romney as a scion of the upper class, contrasting him with their more humble
roots in hopes of undermining the richest candidate in a well-off group.
"Our founding fathers had a brilliant, really revolutionary idea that
the people elected would not represent the elite, but would represent the
ordinary," Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, said at a debate in Iowa
this week, a subtle poke at the former Massachusetts governor.
Thompson, a lawyer, actor and former senator from Tennessee, was more direct, saying: "My
goal is to get into Mitt Romney's situation, where I don't have to worry about
taxes anymore."
Romney, worth between $190 million and $250 million, took issue with that
comment. But both presidential opponents already had planted the idea with
Midwestern voters that Romney lives a life of wealth and privilege.
The populist pitches mark a shift for Huckabee and Thompson, two Southerners
who, while starting their lives in families of modest means, now live
comfortably, if not lavishly.
Both are playing the class card against Romney - essentially telling Iowans
that unlike him, "I am one of you, and I will speak for you" - as
polls show a competitive race just three weeks before the Jan. 3 caucuses that
lead off the state-by-state GOP nominating fight.
Huckabee, a Southern Baptist preacher, has come from far behind the pack of
candidates to seize the GOP lead in Iowa.
Romney, the front-runner for months, is fiercely challenging him to gain ground
back. Thompson trails both and is hoping to benefit from daily skirmishing
between the two.
In Muscatine
on Thursday, Romney dismissed the jabs from Huckabee and Thompson, saying he
didn't believe voters choose their president based on "the pocket
book" of a candidate.
"We've had great presidents of different economic status from the Bush
family and the Reagan family and others. So I don't think an appeal to the
differences in income is a successful political strategy," he told
reporters.
Indeed, the class arguments may not hold much weight.
For starters, the country hasn't shied away from electing men born into
wealth, such as Republican George W. Bush and Democrat John F. Kennedy. And
neither Huckabee nor Thompson is struggling to make ends meet like many
Americans.
Some polls suggest most people don't really resent the rich; they just want
to join them.
However, two-thirds of people in a Gallup Poll in April said the
distribution of money and wealth in the country is not fair, and only a third
of people in a Gallup Poll in November 2006 said they'd be happier if they were
rich.
Class warfare has marked the Democratic presidential race all year.
John Edwards - who goes home to a 28,000-square-foot North
Carolina estate when he's not campaigning - complains about the
lack of attention to the "two Americas" that separate the
poor from the rich. Hillary Rodham Clinton - a senator and former first lady -
says it's OK for her to accept lobbyist donations because it keeps her in touch
with the issues of the working class.
The issue emerged in the Republican race during a debate Wednesday in Johnston, Iowa, near Des Moines.
Given the chance to make a 30-second statement, Huckabee said the president
should not represent "a ruling class" but "a servant
class."
"I can tell you that it's a long way from the little rent house I grew
up in to this stage. I'm still in awe that this country would afford kids like
me the opportunity to be a president. I'll try not to forget where I came from
and where this country needs to go," he said.
The former Arkansas governor frequently
spins the tale to voters of his cash-strapped upbringing in the little town of Hope, Ark.
But he's hardly a pauper these days, and used a gift registry to help furnish
his new home after leaving the governor's mansion where he lived for 10 years.
He made nearly $75,000 as Arkansas
governor plus a pension and also has brought in $300,000 in book sales,
royalties and honoraria. He has between $331,000 and $815,000 in investments,
and tens of thousands of dollars in savings and stocks.
Thompson made his tax-bracket remark as he answered a question about taxes.
In his Southern drawl, he always reminds voters of his early small-town
boyhood in tiny Lawrenceburg,
Tenn. However, during his eight
years in the Senate, he made the rounds on Washington's
exclusive party circuit, and he spent more then a decade in Hollywood
circles while he starred in TV shows and big-screen films. He made millions as
an actor and now lives in a Washington,
D.C., suburb.
Unlike the two of them, Romney has a privileged pedigree, having grown up in
tony Bloomfield Hills, Mich., as the son of a former governor and
chairman of American Motors. After leaving home, Romney attended Harvard law
and business schools, and quickly earned millions of dollars as a venture
capitalist. He has three homes, a colonial in Belmont,
Mass., that has a tennis court, a lakeside
house in Wolfeboro, N.H.,
with a boat house and stables, and a wood-beamed ski house in Deer Valley, Utah.
He glosses over all that as he campaigns, mindful that much of the country
probably can't relate.
Despite his background, Romney says his policies on immigration, spending,
and health care could appeal to those in the middle class and below.
"I'm proud of the record that I have in making the difference in the
lives of everyday Americans," he says.
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