Huckabee scores a coup

We Googled this and found that, depending on the citation, 70%, 80%, 85% or 90% of success in life is simply a matter of showing up (with Woody Allen given as the source for several of the different figures).

Regardless, it's a formula that worked for Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee.

The International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, in a nod to the estimated third of its roughly 700,000 members who are Republicans, took the unusual step Thursday of making dual labor endorsements in the presidential race. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton received the union's support. In the GOP race, Huckabee won its blessing for a pretty simple reason: he was the only Republican who actively sought it.

Union officials had said the organization would only consider bestowing its imprimatur upon candidates who vied for it through personal appearances earlier this week at a conference in Orlando. Among the GOP contenders, Huckabee was the sole attendee.

Union President Tom Buffenbarger (hard to imagine a better surname for a labor chieftain) said the former Arkansas governor "was the only Republican candidate with the guts to meet with our members and the only one willing ...

to figure out where and how we might work together. He is entitled to serious consideration from our members voting in the upcoming Republican primaries.''

Huckabee will gladly accept this latest addition to the mini-boomlet surrounding his long-shot campaign, spurred by his surprise second-place finish in the Iowa straw poll earlier this month. (Another sign of Huckabee's improved fortunes is evident in the details in a Des Moines Register story today on the candidate's meet-and-greet stop in Pella, Iowa.)

Huckabee's sit-down with the machinists union wasn't the first time he has ventured into territory where his competitors decided not to tread. He was the only Republican to speak earlier this summer at a gathering of the National Education Assn. in Philadelphia, and he gained some notice for delivering this line: "If, indeed, an uneducated population is a form of terror we cannot possibly tolerate, then today I would like to propose that we would unleash weapons of mass instruction."

Clinton was awarded the union backing over John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich, the only other Democratic candidates to travel to Orlando. Buffenbarger said the senator from New York earned the endorsement "by focusing on jobs, healthcare, education and trade --- the bread-and-butter issues of the American middle class."

Her most loyal staffer could not have provided a better sound bite.

Edwards, who has been actively seeking union support with an increasingly populist agenda, could find solace in an embrace by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, which has about 530,000 members. Intriguingly, the union sat out the 2004 race.

-- Don Frederick