NRO: What the Huck Happened?

the following is a surprisingly fair and mostly positive from National Review Online:

What the Huck Happened?
From frontrunner to Florida failure — but not dead yet.

By David Freddoso

Tampa, Fla. — Who was it that won Iowa again? Oh, yes, it was that pleasant Christian fellow. What ever happened to him?

Well, he’s still alive and well. His supporters show up to events in much greater numbers than Mitt Romney’s. They show greater enthusiasm than Romney’s supporters or those of John McCain.

Mike Huckabee told the crowd of 300 well wishers last night that he hadn’t expected so many people to show up for an event in an airport hangar at 9 P.M. “I’d underestimated the people of Florida,” he said. “And I think the national media has underestimated the wonderful people of Florida, too.”

Huckabee worked the crowd of young families, senior citizens, small-business owners, and homeschoolers like a seasoned performer, drawing cheers loud enough to be confused for the airplane engines that occasionally filled the background. The appearance, which stepped on President Bush’s final State of the Union address, gave the impression that Huckabee could have done much better here. All he can hope for now is the moral victory — a third-place finish ahead of Rudy Giuliani. In a nearby parallel universe, though, he is probably winning Florida right now.

An entire Republican-heavy section of the state — the northern panhandle — could have been created just so that Mike Huckabee would win Florida. He has also gained endorsements, not just from evangelical pastors, but from real Reagan conservatives throughout the state. House Speaker Marco Rubio is a Roman Catholic, in addition to being the first Cuban to head a state legislative body. His endorsement of Huckabee came as a big surprise to many in Florida’s GOP, and gave Huckabee at least one inroad into the Cuban community that dominate Dade County GOP politics.

Mike Haridopolos is a young state senator who will either run for Congress this year or become the senate president. He helped lead the successful conservative coup against the moderates who controlled the state senate in 2006. Known principally for his knowledge of economic issues — not necessarily for his Baptist faith — Haridopolos announced his endorsement of Huckabee shortly after John McCain’s victory in South Carolina.

“Legitimately, the guy is a good conservative,” said Haridopolos. He admitted that Huckabee had raised taxes in Arkansas, but he said that the governor understands economic issues as well as the other issues that matter most to conservatives. “Whether you like his past or not, he’s been a really straightforward guy. He signed the no-tax pledge. He is strongly pro-gun — more so than anyone left in this race. He is strongly pro-life.”

Yet Huckabee knows he is lagging in Florida. The first clue is that he spent nearly all of Monday — election eve — in faraway Tennessee. Having given up hope of a victory in winner-take-all Florida, he has spent time there and in Alabama and other Super Tuesday states that are rich with evangelical Christians and award their delegates proportionally. Despite a lack of resources, he is planning for a long race, hoping to bring as many delegates as possible to the convention this fall.

He was once the national frontrunner. It was less than a month ago that he won in Iowa, but it feels like it has been a year. What the heck happened to Huck? Haridopolos offers the same frank assessment that many have offered before him. “Had he gone from New Hampshire straight to South Carolina, he’d probably be competing for the victory in Florida,” he said.

Instead, Huckabee went to Michigan, giving Fred Thompson a chance to come to life in South Carolina and erode his base. Huckabee had every reason to think he would perform well in Michigan. His message of economic populism seemed promising among the autoworkers in that state’s East, and he could have also caught fire with the Dutch reformed and Evangelical communities in the West.

It was a strategic error — a bridge too far for a campaign always short of resources. Macomb County, outside of Detroit, gave Huckabee a pathetic 13 percent. He lost to McCain and Romney among voters from union households, despite his witty ad contrasting himself (“the guy you work with”) to Romney (“the guy who laid you off”). Huckabee even lost to Romney (34 to 29 percent) among self-identified Evangelical and Born-Again Christians.

The subsequent loss in South Carolina definitely hurt his credibility with Florida voters. Polls from both Rasmussen and Quinnipiac show him losing six points in the Sunshine State since his close second-place finish there. At the same time, his rate of donations has stayed steady, if it remains comparatively slow. According to the live feed from his website, Huckabee had raised $2 million this month before the Jan. 19 contest in South Carolina. He has raised just under $1 million in the ten days since.

And he still draws those impressive and enthusiastic crowds. “He energizes an critical wing of the party and keeps them interested,” said Haridopolos. “If it isn’t Huckabee — whether it be McCain or Romney — I think he’s positioned himself very well to be vice president.”

An overall victory now seems unlikely. But Huckabee probably will not die today in Florida, either. If he does well in the south and shows up in Minnesota this September with enough delegates, the vice presidency could still be a possibility — which is probably what he was counting on showing up at the airport hangar last night.

— David Freddoso is an NRO staff reporter.

Don't Give Up On Huckabee Yet!

The following is a promising story from Newsmax:

Don't Give Up on Huckabee

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 8:28 AM By: Doug Wead

. Talking heads are saying that the race for the GOP nomination is now between John McCain and Mitt Romney. But as Lee Corson would say on College Game Day, “not so fast.” Gov. Mike Huckabee’s campaign has already startled the wearisome herd of pundits who visit the same watering holes in the Boston, New York, Washington corridor. Last September he was considered “peaking” as the national favorite of 9 percent of GOP voters which put him behind the anointed media winner Rudolph Giuliani, followed by Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mitt Romney and even New Gingrich, who had already signaled he wasn’t going to run. In January, the same ABC polls showed him second only to McCain nationwide and leading in Iowa. While the same mindless herd now gives it all to John McCain, with the same certainty that they had once consistently held for two years for Rudolph Giuliani, and while this time the herd is probably right, there are still some looming stories on the horizon for the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primary. As Lee Corso would say, “not so fast.” As of today, McCain will carry New York and California, which is, gulp, saying a lot, and neighboring states like New Jersey, Connecticut, and his home state of Arizona. Romney will try to make his stand in Illinois and carry Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. And Giuliani states, New Mexico, Delaware, and Minnesota will probably abandon the mayor after his expected trouncing in Florida. With Huck and Romney splitting the conservative vote in those states (oh, yes, there are conservatives in moderate-liberal states, and they are usually more conservative than many in the South,) McCain will probably pick up those too. But while Huckabee is being written off, perhaps a good thing leading into Super Tuesday, Huckabee is still leading in Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Alabama and his home state of Arkansas, all Southern states with higher delegate counts to the GOP convention than proportionate population. At this writing he is still ahead of McCain in the big Texas event set for March 4. The three, McCain, Romney, and Huckabee are virtually tied for Missouri. So why then is this being portrayed as a McCain-Romney contest? Who decided that Gov. Mike Huckabee is out? Obviously not the voters. Huckabee may have been partly done in by an unlikely source. “The Fair and Balanced” Fox television network. Remember, you were warned, it is fair and balanced, (wink, wink) but evangelical Christians failed to believe it. They became lazy, relying on Fox, who does indeed show some cultural diversity in its programming, to sort all of this out for them. There is good evidence to suggest that Huckabee has been “Miered.” Now, to explain what it means to become “Miered” you will have to venture back into my archives at Newsmax.com. You know what it means to be “Borked”? That’s when you’re denied something that you should probably get. As in Robert Bork, America’s premier judicial mind being denied his Supreme Court spot because liberals in the Senate decided he was too conservative. Well, being “Miered” is different. It is when you are accused by conservatives of being liberal even when you aren’t. As when Judicial Committee Chairman, Sam Brownback, Ann Coulter, Bill Bennet, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Paul Weyrich all openly questioned the conservative bona fides of George W. Bush’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers. Now, Harriet Miers, everyone now knows, is very conservative and always was. Her problem was that she was an evangelical Christian and her antagonists on television, those who questioned her conservatism, from Brownback to Weyrich, were all so-called movement conservatives. They were all Catholic, wanting another appointment of their own. Can’t fault that. Someone who they knew and saw at the G.K. Chesterton night dinners. Of course, the evangelicals need the Catholic spokesmen and thinkers and activists. In the past, they enthusiastically supported the nominations of Catholic Supreme Court appointments, Richard Bork, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and John Roberts. And although Bork didn’t make it, they tried hard for him too. Today, along with Anthony Kennedy, there are now five Catholic justices on the Supreme Court, two Jewish Justices, a woman justice, and two blacks, all commendable. Even the gay community proudly claims one: Justice John Souter, who although not gay, was embraced by many in the community and has consistently supported them on almost every issue. (Souter was a puzzling appointment by George H.W. Bush. I was on staff in the White House at the time and was curious to learn of the immediate support of Ted Kennedy.) So why not a born again justice? Someone to represent the 42 percent of Americans who according to Gallup claim to be born again Christians? I had had that discussion with George W. Bush a dozen times since 1987, how evangelicals chaffed under an IRS and INS devoid of anyone of their faith and how it led to abuse and how the absence of evangelical federal judges led to nuisance lawsuits that crippled evangelical congregations. So I was delighted that he remembered and made the Harriet Mier’s nomination. It was a wrong he was trying to make right. The problem was that the evangelicals were asleep at the switch. They didn’t even see it happening. And the movement conservatives where appalled. What? We don’t know her? Why not Sam Alito? Or someone we know? And so they rushed to their stations at Fox to declare she was not one of them, not a true conservative and her nomination collapsed. Now, we evangelicals are good sports. And we rallied to good old Catholic, Samuel Alito, and we put him on the Court too, with our phone calls and letters. And most conservative evangelicals would say he sure beats anyone who Obama or Clinton will pick, but couldn’t we have had just one? Just one? This is what happened when Mike Huckabee appeared on the scene. Fox had been talking about Catholic Giuliani for two years. Can’t blame em. They all live in New York City. It isn’t often that a politician actually does something you can see and they could all see the end of crime at the hands of the mayor. Impressive. And they held out for Newt Gingrich, teasing us for months, and finally poured on the gas for Fred Thompson. So when Southern Baptist, Gov. Mike Huckabee appeared out of nowhere, well, who was he? He didn’t quote G. K. Chesterton, he quoted Francis Schaeffer. Fox may have actually learned something since the Miers episode, at least behind the scenes. It knows that it needs evangelical viewers too, that Catholic conservatives are the intelligentsia, the spokesmen of conservatives, the leaders, but the money and numbers are almost all evangelical. So this time the attacks were less impulsive than they were for Miers. Nonetheless, Phyllis Schaffly and others challenged Huckabee’s conservative credentials and enough damage was done. Of course, it was pure nonsense. The problem was that many evangelicals fell asleep at the wheel, trusting Fox to look out for them, failing to do their due diligence, failing to believe that Fox really is fair and balanced and not their conservative watch dog. Many are only now waking up to the fact that Huck was their man all the time and they just didn’t see it. This past week I received a call from the pastor of a large Florida church who had just met Huck and was blown away and quite surprised. “I had been watching Fox,” he said, “I didn’t realize Huckabee was a true conservative. In the Bush, senior campaign of 1988, we met this same pastor, had our photo with him, and had him promoting us for two years before the Florida primary. This time he was just coming around, too late to do much. Evangelicals and movement conservatives need each other. Without evangelicals, Ann Coulter’s books would have never made the best-seller lists, Ed Feulner’s buildings would not have been purchased, and Phyllis Schlafly would have run out of hair spray long ago. But sorting all of this out in advance was critical to a Mike Huckabee’s shot at the White House. And now? The GOP will likely get John McCain but even so, as Lee Corso would say, squinting into the camera lens and pinching a little bit of air with his thumb and finger, “Yes, yes, it will be McCain, but this one will be closer than they think! Closer than they think!” Doug Wead, presidential historian, is The New York Times best-selling author of "All the Presidents’ Children." He also wrote biographies for both the Reagan and Bush campaigns. He has served as an adviser on evangelical matters to two presidents. Visit http://dougwead.wordpress.com/. © 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.