You're talking about RETIRED admirals or generals, right?
Posted on 02/04/2008 8:20:41 PM PST by JRochelle
Of all the possible Super Tuesday outcomes, one is more certain than any other: Mike Huckabee will not carry the state of Utah.
In large part it’s because Mitt Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the man credited with saving the Salt Lake City Olympics, is more popular here than in any other state.
But the other reason is that overwhelmingly Mormon Utah has taken a profound dislike to the Southern Baptist preacher best known for his nice-guy persona.
The wellspring of Huckabee hate is a now-famous Dec. 16 New York Times Magazine interview in which the former Arkansas governor, in an “innocent voice,” is reported to have asked, “Don’t Mormons ... believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”
To Mormons, Huckabee’s eyebrow-raising question represented not only a gross distortion of their beliefs but also a carefully calculated move by a Christian politician who surely knew better.
Huckabee’s remark prompted Romney to call the comments “just not the American way” on NBC’s “Today” show.
Huckabee quickly apologized, saying that Romney’s Mormonism had nothing to do with whether he should be president. With that, the candidates and the national media moved on to other topics.
In Utah, however, all was not forgiven.
“There is a feeling that Huckabee has exploited a lot of the anti-Mormon sentiment,” said LaVarr Webb, a political consultant and publisher in Utah.
“The feeling is that he would certainly know the answers to these questions that he’s been asking sometimes,” said Chuck Gates, assistant managing editor of Utah’s Deseret Morning News.
According to Webb and other state political insiders interviewed by Politico, many Mormons maintain that Huckabee’s apology did not go nearly far enough.
Quin Monson, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University, says many observers believe that “evangelicals have rejected Romney, and that Huckabee is aiding and abetting that. ... He’s egging it on.”
As it turns out, this isn’t the first time that Huckabee has rubbed Utahans the wrong way. In the summer of 1998, then-Arkansas Gov. Huckabee, along with fellow national church leaders, attended the National Southern Baptist Convention in Salt Lake City.
At the time, the decision to hold the event in the shadow of the Mormon Tabernacle was viewed by many Mormons as an insulting stab directed at the very heart of the LDS church.
Worse, according to an account published in the Salt Lake Tribune during the convention, some 2,000 “messengers” of the Southern Baptist Convention went door to door in Utah and proselytized, “armed with questionnaires and their personal belief in Jesus Christ as their savior.”
Because of his participation in that convention and because of his theological background, many Utahans believe that Huckabee has been deeply disingenuous throughout the campaign — not just in one well-publicized interview — in his approach toward the issue of Romney’s Mormon faith.
The Huckabee campaign did not respond to e-mail and phone requests for comment.
The Baptists’ choice of Salt Lake City was a deliberate one, said James Guth, a leading authority on the influence of religion in politics and professor at Furman University.
The Baptists intended to “create a new mission field.” Mormons and the Southern Baptists, he explained, are members of “competing missionary religions.”
“It used to be that the Mormons were in Utah and Southern Baptists were in the South,” Guth said. “Now, Mormons are all over the world, and Southern Baptists want to be all over the world.”
Aside from the issue of clashing faiths, there is a more practical component to Huckabee’s unpopularity.
There is a widespread belief, not just in Utah but among many Romney partisans, that Huckabee’s long-shot — and lingering — candidacy is serving little purpose other than to siphon votes from Romney, Utah’s adopted son, by splitting the conservative vote against John McCain.
“There’s just the feeling that if we really wanted to unite behind a conservative candidate, we would unite behind Romney,” said Dave Hansen, former campaign manager for Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).
“You can’t force [Huckabee] out, but all things considered, I think there are a lot of conservatives who wish he were not still in the race.”
In the unlikely event that Huckabee does capture the Republican nomination, his Utah baggage could come back to haunt him.
In the deeply red state where President Bush still maintains some of his highest approval ratings, a place that has ranked as the most Republican state in the nation in six of the past eight presidential elections, a BYU poll released Monday reveals that Huckabee would pull off the seemingly impossible.
As GOP nominee, he would lose the state of Utah in a hypothetical matchup with Democrat Barack Obama, 58 percent to 42 percent.
Romney, by contrast, would defeat Obama 69 percent to 31 percent. McCain would also win against Obama, though by a more modest 55 percent to 45 percent.
Still, there are limits to how much Utah dislikes Huckabee: In a head-to-head matchup with Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, Huckabee wins handily, 60 percent to 41 percent.
I won’t get over it, or support liberal huckster.
“I just don’t like liberals.”
You mean you don’t like liberals like this guy? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJDhS4oUm0M
pesky little fact: Romney is a baby killer.
I dont want obese Hillbillies with 90 IQ's carrying loaded weapons into a pressurized cabin of an airplane, no thanks. Personally, I wouldn't trust that good ol boy with driving my car out of the parking garage, let alone something complicated like boarding an airplane without getting arrested.
instead of serving the country he went off to France. What a patriot.
You can be religious and still serve your country like everyone else in this country.
Why did you used to kiss all of those baseball players?
You're talking about RETIRED admirals or generals, right?
anyone
So Reagan was a young Hollywood liberal in 48 BC before he figured out how the world works? We all knew that. Who was the guy/gal who once said....If you are not a liberal when you are 18 you have no heart, if you are still a liberal when you are 30 you have no brain.
>>>...I haven’t heard The Huck say you should take it out of the public’s hide at the point of a gun either.<<<
Either you haven’t been listening, or you haven’t a clue how so-called “compassionate conservatism” works. It works like this:
1) Bush: let’s implement a Medicare Prescription Drug Plan to help Senior Citizens pay for their drugs.
Solution: increase taxes on those who actually earn enough money pay taxes, or borrow from our posterity and hope we are dead when the bill comes due.
2) Huckster: let’s provide tuition assistance to children of illegal aliens.
Solution: increase taxes on those who actually earn enough money pay taxes, or borrow from our posterity and hope we are dead when the bill comes due.
Does any of that ring a bell? If item number 2 does not, then you are absolutely clueless.
Certainly better than an election where the candidate is chosen based on perceived likelihood of winning the nomination, or as a strategic move to prevent some other candidate from winning.
Fred Thompson got 1.2% of the vote in New Hampshire. How many New Hampshire voters would have preferred him but voted for McCain or Romney because they didn’t think Thompson could win?
screw the babies...I want my %$%$%$ tax cut!!!
Lubavitchers dont go to Half-Jews homes looking for converts. Theyre generally just looking for lapsed, self identified, Jews. BTW, it aint easy to convert to orthodox Judaism; you have to really want to do it, in the end. I’m not sure you can say the same thing for Christians and Mormons.
Looks like if the Huckster were to be playing for Captian Quigg's VP spot, the GOP could write off Utah for the first time in recent memory.
No doubt that Huckabee was playing in anti-Morman prejudice space when he made that comment. It's fitting that it should come back and bite him in his rather ample ass.
There should be no place for that crap in the Republican party.
BTW. I actually met the guy, shook his hand and talked to him a number of years ago. I was not especially impressed then, and I'm far less impressed now watching him smooze on the stump. He's an Arkansas politician and IMHO, he is Clintonesque. I just don't trust him.
Nuff said.
Huck is not Presidential material.
Would you clarify what you're getting at?
Is there something wrong with a Jewish person believing in Jesus - is that not "allowed" -
Most of the early Christians and leaders were "Jews for Jesus" - including every apostle and disciple Jesus hand picked during his years of teaching -
Your question is ambiguous
Worked with a Mormon (Republican) in Arkansas who said he would never vote for Romney under any circumstances. He said Romney wasn’t a good Mormon.
I agree
>>>screw the babies...I want my %$%$%$ tax cut!!!<<<
I wonder if the unborn would prefer abortion over paying off the massive liberal debt?
As an aside, Jim’s statement, “Free Republic’s goal is to elect conservatives, and Romney is NO conservative”, does not clarify his (alternative?) position when the only remaining GOP candidates are McInsane and Romney. Personally, I will vote for Daffy Duck before I will vote for McInsane. But what do I know?
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