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.
Amazing. After listening to Christian Conservatives bitch for decades about the bigotry expressed towards them by the Republican Establishment based wholly on their religious values to now watch so called “Christian” Conservatives turn right around an express the same reason the Republican Establishement used against them, towards Romney.
Huckleby is a clown act, McCain is a nutcase. Neither will ever be president. May as well support Romney who at least knows what the h%ll he's doing.
Whoever yall vote for tomorrow.....please don’t do exit polls. NOYB is an appropriate response.
What are you going to do, hit me with the mail?
I'm voting for Mitt but I don't really like any of them.
Might as well not.
>>>>“There is a feeling that Huckabee has exploited a lot of the anti-Mormon sentiment”<<<
Of course he has. The Huckster is Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggert and Ted Haggert all rolled into one. Anyone who believes the Huckster follows Christ’s doctrine is a good candidate to buy the Brooklyn Bridge at a premium price.
who was against the assault weapons ban? who campaigned for state constitutional amendments against gay marriage (he was opposed to a federal amendment on states rights principles)? Who was always opposed to gays in the military?
McCain said, “I believe polarization of personnel and breakdown of unit effectiveness is too high a price to pay for well-intentioned but misguided efforts to elevate the interests of a minority of homosexual service members above those of their units.
“Most importantly, the national security of the United States, not to mention the lives of our men and women in uniform, are put at grave risk by policies detrimental to the good order and discipline which so distinguish America’s armed services.”
McCain, who voted in favor of “don’t ask, don’t tell” when it was enacted in 1993, concluded that “I remain opposed to the open expression of homosexuality in the U.S. military.”
Who has this record?
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/elections/statements/mccain.html
While Huckabee deserves my vote for being stronger on those key issues, there can be no doubt that McCain is miles beyond Romney and would be a commander in chief the military can respect.
SO far this year I have followed countless presidential primary threads and have to say FR has not bathed itself in glory on any candidate. Supporters of each and every one of them have been perfectly ugly against other candidates and their families. It’s really too bad it’s all preserved for posterity.
I’m a Jew from NY and have no problem with a mormon, like Senator Hatch or an evangelical like Huckabee AS LONG AS THEY ARE PRO-LIFE
Have you seen this?
Romney last year.
“I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there and in some ways it was frustrating not to feel like I was there as part of the troops that were fighting in Vietnam.”
Romney in 1994.
“I was not planning on signing up for the military. It was not my desire to go off and serve in Vietnam,” Romney told the Boston Herald.
http://townhall.com/Columnists/DeroyMurdock/2008/02/04/mitts_vietnam_flip-flop_his_most_disturbing_yet?page=full&comments=true
Would he just make up a line and stick to it?
Some of the "best stuff" you can lay on the Mormons (theologically speaking) comes from guys who were actually booted out, or left in the early days.
Then, too, getting a total picture of the context of the statements ~ particularly those being cited 20 and 30 years later, or in newspapers by reporters who had only the slightest idea what they were writing about, wil help you figure out some of it.
No doubt this stuff gets recycled from time to time. Doesn't mean it's bigotry though.
The faithful of any religion, or branch of a religion, have to learn that the non-believers, and/or non-members probably don't know about the context, or the correct interpretations, or the reputation of the speaker or writer. Knowing that they can patiently explain things to their critics and frequently win them over. No need to be like the Moslems about it.
“Those polls are inconvenient for Romney supporters but they will know tomorrow won’t they? (unless they deny the results of the elections too).”
Maybe, but if it turns out the Romney leaning polls, like the one that has him up 8 in California, are accurate he might not do too bad.
If you look at those national polls every one except Rasmussen has McCain doing better than he’s actually done in any of the states so far.
Add to that the fact that 15% of the delegates on Super Tuesday (and 20% of delegates in the race overall) come from Caucuses, an arena where Romney has beaten McCain in delegate by 3-1 so far, and I think Romney still has a reasonable chance, though he’s certainly the underdog.
fyi, Georgia’s non-Mormons loathe Huckabee as well. We don’t take kindly to liars and hypocrites here.
Look at it this way, either way this thing turns out, Huckabee is TOAST.
If McCain wins, Huckabee will be the most hated man in the US by conservatives, and trust me, they won't forget.
If Romney wins, Huckabee will look like an even bigger fool for backing that loser, McCain and consistently and constantly bad mouthing Romney.
Why don’t you go buy some mange shampoo for your dog?
Hucklemoron is not a dividier, hes a uniter!!
Not only is Elmer Huckaby's appeal limitted to single issue Southern Baptists, he's managed to alienate the most conservative constituency in the entire country! A real no - nothing, in the venerated tradition of the great WJ Bryan! Pound that Bible hard, Huckleberry! You lead, we'll follow!!
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