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.
Oh, you're saying this forum should be purged of everyone that doesn't fall into line with you foaming at the mouth Romney haters?
If that happens, I guess the traffic here will slow down by a good 90% or so, huh?
but the signal to noise ratio would improve tremendously
He stated many times that he did’t leave the Democratic party, the democratic party left him."
You are absolutely correct. Reagan was a democrat not a liberal. He certainly was never anything like these liberals today. I usually have to explain this over and over again to Romney's people. They just can't seem to understand that candidates back then, not even the democrats, got as liberal as Romney did up in Massachusetts. Trying to excuse their liberal candidate, they disparage Reagan and anyone else they can think of to try to help Romney's judgment appear better.
Well that, and his conversion to conservatism didn’t happen a year and a half before he ran for president. If Romney had gone through his big transformation 20 years ago and since then had a consistent conservative record - it would be a totally different situation.
I agree.
The fact that it was a quote from JimRob in not significant. Truth stands on it's own no matter who proclaims it. The intent is not to intimidate but offer mutual support and give other Freepers food for thought.
“That’s one thing the McCains don’t worry about.”
That’s true, the McCains don’t have to worry, we do. The last thing I want is John McInsane’s finger on the button.
From the 1:52 minute mark forward, he is right on!
He doesn’t want the U.S. putting caps on itself and regulating itself out of business (as McCain and Huckabee would have us do), while Russia, China, India, etc. grow unabated building new coal power plants every week.
I don’t want another WTO, either. Nor did Romney advocate any such thing.
Romney will be next.
...as well, that may happen, but, not without a lot of us doing all we can to prevent it from happening for the hope of America's future.
I appreciate the sincerity of your answer...although, I’m not sure that others that practice this have your purity of motive.
I’m an Evangelical and I loathe Huckabee and support (since Fred left) Romney.
If McCain is President, it will make the third military aviator in the last three Presidents, and the second Naval aviator.
Yeah, that’s about equal.
A lot of these “conservatives” are just plain ignorant and untrained in manners.
Not a Huckabee supporter, just a defender when needed.
Hmmmmmm! Why don’t you find out the whole truth about this very old story, instead of just repeating what you think it is?
I know what a REAL HERO is, and McCain is only a survior at best.
You mean like how we lost control of the country after 1986?
I’m sorry, I wasn’t talking to you or referring to you or even referring to those who won’t vote for Romney in general.
I was referring specifically to JRochelle, who has consistently demonized and misrepresented the beliefs of Mormons here on Free Republic for quite some time.
Frankly, I find the actions of anti-Mormons like JRochelle verging on the obsessive. It is amazing at how much time and effort they put into demonizing Mormons. They just can’t seem to stop or get on with their lives.
As an American citizen we all have a right to worship the god of our choice. I only ask that you stop scaring old ignorant folks out of their SS dollars to buy a Rolex or build a mega church.
I am shocked, shocked that you would imply that Mitt Romney is not totally sincere when he takes a position in a debate.
Romney trying to be more liberal than Ted Kennedy when he seeks liberal Massachusetts votes
Romney on gun control when he seeks liberal Massachusetts votes
You can assure you Mom that, if her positions match the positions of the voters that Romney currently wants to court, he will back her position 110% until he wants to court the voters who think otherwise.
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