Arkansas Affiliate Helped Torpedo NEA Huckabee Endorsement
Still on jury duty, but even on the night shift I’ve got this for you:
As reported late last Friday here on Intercepts, NEA decided to continue its past practice of finding certain candidates “acceptable” and others not, in lieu of an endorsement of a single presidential candidate. The union named as acceptable all seven Democrats who answered NEA’s questionnaire and appeared in front of its representative assembly last July (three have recently dropped out of the race), but not Mike Huckabee, the lone Republican to do so.
This is bad news for Huckabee, who continues to get hammered by his GOP opponents for an NEA New Hampshire endorsement that had little relevance, and who will now receive no help from national NEA for his trouble.
Reliable sources tell EIA that the leadership of the Arkansas Education Association was instrumental in the effort to sink any chance Huckabee might have had in winning NEA’s national endorsement in the GOP primary.
This is a bit of a surprise, since Huckabee had a relatively good relationship with AEA during his tenure, getting the union’s endorsement for his district consolidation plan in 2003 (see Item #3 here) and getting general kudos from AEA for raising teacher salaries.
The word is, however, that AEA felt he didn’t quite measure up to NEA standards – I guess in the same way Dennis Kucinich did – and that the Arkansas affiliate’s opinion carried significant weight with the NEA PAC Council, who clearly weren’t predisposed to endorse Huckabee anyway.
