I'll raise your pictures one photo of Romney, flanked by Kennedy, signing his universal health care bill in Massachusetts. It's 400 million over estimated costs . . . and that's just for this year.
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 loathe Huckabee too and I’m not a Mormon. Trust me, lots of people loathe Huckabee, and - if McCain wins the nomination, even more people are going to loathe Huckabee.”
But look who does like Huck! Birds of a feather?
Mike Huckabee picked up a glowing character endorsement today.
From CBS Evening News, Feb. 4, 2008. “Mike Huckabee has been subjected to the millions of dollars of attack ads by Mitt Romney.....I think He’s a very good and decent man and I admire him. And I admire his humor and I think he’s elevated the entire presidential debate and campaign.”
That was the answer given when Katie Couric asked what the shortcomings of Huckabee were. The answer was quite the contrast to the same question about Mitt Romney. And who was giving this praise to Huck?
JOHN McCAIN! He went on to attack Romney with the usual unqualified sound bites and insulted Rick Santorum as a ‘defeated candidate’ who had no right to question his temper.
LISTEN HERE!
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3789591n&channel=i_video
Well, back in 2005 the establishment GOP said the war was going fine. The Voters in 2006 said otherwise.
If we listened to McCain in 2005, we’d still have control of congress.
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You’ve got something there I think.
Pretty tough talk from an old postal worker
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Only old postal worker I know could take down birds on the wing into his 90’s . . .
Senator McCain is pro-abortion?
Pretty tough talk from an old postal worker
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Only old postal worker I know could take down birds on the wing into his 90’s . . .
I was refering to this column by Stuart Rothenberg.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/12/why_mitt_romney_cant_solve_his.html
“Those polls are inconvenient for Romney supporters but they will know tomorrow won’t they? (unless they deny the results of the elections too).”
You must have been a huge Bill Clinton fan when he was elected twice by the American people. I won’t deny anything. If McCain wins I will be laughing at the GOP and you liberal establishment types all the way until 2012.
That would be why Romney has won among self identified conservatives in almost every state, right?
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Bravo-Sierra. Romney didn’t win among social conservatives in Iowa and S. Carolina for sure . . .
I'll raise your pictures one photo of Romney, flanked by Kennedy, signing his universal health care bill in Massachusetts. It's 400 million over estimated costs . . . and that's just for this year.
Romney went into a 1 Party Democrat State with a huge budget deficit and managed to balance every budget every year without raising taxes. When he left there was a surplus. Your guy Huckabee raised taxes and did it not kicking and screaming but by his own initiative.
Very heroic indeed! However, that does not get me to vote for him. He’s a liberal.
I could see him as SecDef.
Why do I get the feeling that these aren’t Huckabee supporters?
Senator McCain’s Liberal Record
1. Amnesty = McCain / Kennedy (D)
2. Censorship = McCain / Feingold (D)
3. Gas Tax Increase = McCain / Lieberman (D)
4. McCain’s Proposed Democrat Ticket = Kerry / McCain (D)
5. Turncoats Who Asked to Switch Parties: McCain / Jeffords (D)
6. McCain’s American Conservative Union Rank= 47th / 100 = RINO
7. New York Times (D) Endorsed: McCain
8. Opposed Bush Tax Cuts = McCain + (All Ds)
9. McCain wants to keep the Death Tax
10. McCain wants to raise Social Security Taxes
11. McCain / ACLU (D) is Pro-Terrorist Rights
12. McCain/Kennedy(D)/Edwards(D) Tobacco=Trial Lawyers Dream Act
Why vote Democrat when you can have a real liberal:
John McCain?
Top Ten Reasons to Vote For McCain
1. Amnistía Si! Vota Para McCain!
2. Shut Up and Vote McCain / Feingold!
3. $4.00 Gasoline, here we come!
4. Clinton / McCain: The NY Times’ Ticket!
5. RINOs 4 McCain!
6. More Payroll & Death Taxes!
7. Gitmo Detainees Agree: Vote McCain!
8. Kill Conservatism: Vote Liberal, Vote McCain!
9. He Can’t Possibly Stab You in the Back Next!
10. He’ll find out who really stole the strawberries! – Vote Captain Queeg McCain!
VOTE FOR MITT! or go down with the Ship!
Thanks for playing though!!!!!
If you are a Romney supporter you are ignoring Romney’s government funded universal health care program in Massachusetts. 400 million over estimated costs this year alone. He’s more liberal than McCain or Huckabee on economic issues.
Fair enough.
Those who are trying to smear his Vietnam service, however, are crossing over the line of decency.
Presumably “conservatives” are a subset of “social conservatives” that are also conservative on other issues.
Since Romney has been beating Huckabee among self identified conservatives (i.e. people who are both economic and social conservatives) and among moderates (including, but not limited to people who are socially conservative but economically liberal) , it seems to pretty obvious to me that Romney is trusted by social conservatives more than Mike Huckabee is.
Never met a southren baptist who was not a “do as I say not as I do” person and I have know a lot of them grew up in the middle of them. Would not trust any of them. Left the Baptist religion and the democrats, as soon as I left home. Now for 50 years my family still can’t beleive I am a republician and no longer a baptist.
Rather suspect, unless he is a ‘Jack’ Mormon.
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Your statement shows that Mormons go lockstep for a Mormon candidate. Evangelicals are all over the board politically . . . but any Mormon that supports a candidate other than the Mormon guy must be a “jack Mormon.” It’s an insular and cultish approach. Go ahead and support your own. But don’t pretend it is because he’s something he’s not . . . it’s because he’s a Mormon, pure and simple.
Nope, you have it backwards. Social conservatives are a subset of Conservatives (in general).
The Reagan Conservative Coalition was of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and foreign policy conservatives.
In this election the coalition is fractured. The bulk of the foreign policy conservatives are backing McCain (because Romney and Huckabee are weak); the bulk of the fiscal conservatives are backing Romney (because McCain and Huckabee are flippers having changed their positions on taxes, small government, etc.), the bulk of the social conservatives are backing Huckabee (because Romney is a flipper having changed his positions on guns, abortions, gay rights, etc., and McCain is weak; When it comes to trust, weak trumps flip, so without Huck, the social conservatives go to McCain).
Romney is getting the bulk of the conservatives which includes all three branches of the coalition. Huckabee is getting the bulk of the social conservatives, only one branch of the coalition.
McCain is winning because he is also drawing independents and so-called moderates (non-conservatives).
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