Posted on 12/31/2007 6:48:34 AM PST by Reaganesque
COLUMBUS JUNCTION, Iowa -- Down more than 10 points in the polls here only weeks ago, Mitt Romney appears to be surging back days before Iowans head to their caucuses.
Two polls released over the weekend showed Romney ahead of rival Mike Huckabee by several points, while another survey out Sunday has Romney in a statistical tie with the former Arkansas governor.
That's a far cry from early November, when a surging Huckabee took the front-runner mantle from Romney and never looked back. While Iowa's caucuses -- the first test of the presidential contest - are difficult to poll given only a small percentage of the state actually turns out for the caucus meetings, the polls may indicate a change in attitudes in Iowa.
A spokesman for Romney said polling really is all over the map.
"We're still running like the underdog," traveling press secretary Eric Fehrnstrom said, "although the sense is the people of Iowa are responding to Mitt Romney's message that he is the candidate who can bring real change to Washington and fix what's broken."
A new McClatchy, MSNBC and Mason-Dixon poll out Sunday has Romney leading Huckabee 27 percent to 23 percent, while an American Research poll from Saturday shows Romney leading Huckabee by 9 points, 32 percent to 23 percent. Meanwhile, a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby International survey of likely caucus-goers finds Romney and Huckabee in a statistical tie.
Huckabee's emergence as a front-runner was followed by intense media scrutiny while Romney had already faced that earlier this year, a point that could have lead to Huckabee's quick rise and plateau in the polls.
Huckabee on Sunday went on NBC's "Meet the Press" to counter criticism that he doesn't have enough foreign policy experience after a series of gaffes on the campaign trail. He ticked off a demographic-filled list about Pakistan when quizzed about a misstep, but spent several moments slamming back at Romney for his critical advertisements.
Huckabee said Romney was running a "desperate and dishonest campaign."
"If you aren't being honest in obtaining the job, can we trust you to be honest when you get the job," Huckabee said.
Romney's national spokesman, Kevin Madden, responded to Huckabee's attack noting that the rival candidate "never refutes the facts of his troubling record."
"It's a record that is tough to defend, so his testiness and irritability when being questioned about it is obvious," Madden said.
"But Mike Huckabee's lashing out with personal attacks against Governor Romney that have no merit or substance is quite unfortunate. Campaigns should be about the issues."
You are so full of doom and gloom - that is playing right into the hands of Hillary.
Well, Romney's not my first choice, but he is one of the ones I'd care to have beat Hillary. If our nominee is Giuliani, then I officially don't care. We will have to build our strength by seeing if we can get Congress back.
Agreed that the truth about the Huckster is what's sinking his ship, but Mitt's had a lot of stuff to deal with as well, and has kept his base. Unfortunately, that's more than I can say for Fred, I'm waiting to see his resurgence.
I am afraid of Romney too. Any real conservative should be afraid of Romney.
This merits repeating. Hunter and Thompson are the only two conservatives in this race. I will not vote for another liberal Republican because he has nice hair or because the MSM likes him. If Hillary wins, so be it.
Not only will he get the nomination, he will beat Hillary and become POTUS.
Are you saying Romney hasn’t been endorsed by LCR?
Your tactics really are despicable. You should be ashamed
I don’t have any tactics. I’ve been stating consistently here who the Log Cabin Reps are. My threads go back for 2 years now.
There is no false accusations. Romney is LCR. That is affiliated with commies and NAMBLA. And I’ve hard sourced it.
No, there’s a third choice that should be obvious; Get gov’t out of the health care/health insurance business! It’s gov’t involvement that has caused health care and insurance costs to skyrocket. Increasing the government’s role fixes NOTHING, but only exacerbates the problem.
You are absolutely correct.
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