Mike Huckabee a Threat to Mitt Romney in Iowa?
Republican presidential hopeful and former Gov. Mike Huckabee speaks at the Livestrong Presidential Cancer Forum at the US Cellular Center, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in August. Partly by exploiting discontent among Christian conservatives with the Republican field, Huckabee, a witty former Arkansas governor, has powered into second place in polls in Iowa, 65 days before the state’s crucial caucuses.
Obviously, he may be a bigger threat than the polls apparently demonstrate.
Why else would Mitt Romney biographer, Hugh Hewitt, write this screed: A vote for Huckabee is a vote for Giuliani.
(1)Governor Huckabee’s record in Arkansas isn’t conservative on crucial issues like personnel and taxes, and/or (2)Governor Huckabee cannot possibly win the nomination so an endorsement or vote for Huckabee is really an assist to Rudy Giuliani as it diverts energy from the conservative most likely to stop Giuliani –Mitt Romney.
What Hewitt fails to ask his evangelical friends who will throw Rudy under the bus should he win the GOP nomination is how many conservative NON-EVANGELICAL GOP voters will abandon the GOP should Mitt Romney receive the nomination?
Flap knows the answer is MANY.
Update:
Soren Dayton details Huckabee’s strength with the Christian Right and how it further threatens Romney.
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Technorati Tags: Micke Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Hugh Hewitt, John McCain, Roberta McCain, Mitt Romney
14 Comments
Y.K.
“Why else would Mitt Romney __biographer__, Hugh Hewitt”
I think the word you were looking for is ‘hagiographer’. /pedantic
Flap
Indeed…..
Well stated
Bob Agard
Hugh will support Giuliani if he is the nominee.
Eric
Rudy can’t win in Iowa. Rudy didn’t think Iowa was important.
Rudy developed his strategy and decided to run a “National” campaign early on and it is now reaping it’s rewards. Changing strategy mid stream is usually a sign of weakness. Rudy has made his bed, he should lie in it. Rudy has placed his bets, now is not the time to be second guessing oneself. Perhaps if Rudy were a better historian he would have known that he had to compete in Iowa to win. Maybe Rudy’s long shot National campaign will succeed?
Flap
Eric,
The GOP nomination will be decided by the number of delegates won in all of the primary elections and caucuses.
Mitt Romney may very well win Iowa but California has five times the number of delegates as Iowa.
I don’t think Mitt will do as well in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California and Connecticut, now will he?
By the end of the evening on February 5th the direction of the GOP nomination will be more clear – not in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Joseph D. Walch
This comment shows a certain disregard for the facts of history and political dynamics. I think that is what Rudy is banking on–the fact that the republican party will reject a core tenet of its historical platform–Abortion, and that this election will be won by blue-state metropolitan republicans not the rural/soCon base.
It’s a gutsy gamble for Rudy, and one I am not too confident will win.
Eric
I would say that California is absolutely up for grabs.
Especially if Mitt Romney sweeps through Florida.
Flap
No
California is not up for grabs. The NLRC decision to endorse Fred Thompson will further split California conservatives.
Thompson will be a force now in South Carolina and Florida not Mitt.
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