Huckabee steals middle-class southern evangelical votes from rich northern Mormon?

It's driving me nuts. The MSM keeps repeating the same old trope. Apparently, they still believe that Christian conservatives are uneducated and easy to command. And the Romney camp and his pals at Clear Channel are feeding this idea to the media, suggesting that Huckabee supporters are just stupid fodder for McCain's campaign and ought to rally around their annointed resurrected Reagan, Mitt Romney.

I just saw on CNN Anderson Cooper asking Democratic strategist Donna Brazille if Huckabee's presence in the race is hurting Romney's chances in the South. (As though this liberal Democrat has some special insight into the minds of the conservative Republican electorate?) She of course gave the oft-repeated conventional wisdom without any real data top back it up.

But I keep wondering - how many people do these media political elites even know who is voting for Huckabee? Of course they probably don't know any because Huckabee's stronghold is not in the D.C. beltway and the Manhattan press offices. These are the people who couldn't imagine in 1980 that anyone was voting for Reagan because of course they didn't know anyone who was voting for Reagan. Well as long as we are peddling in anecdotes, I know a number of people who are Huckabee supporters and none of them are excited in the least about Romney.

Folks, there isn't just some abstract "conservative" vote out there that Romney and Huckabee are splitting. All four of the GOP candidates are conservatives of one stripe or another. Ron Paul is a paleolibertarian Robert Taft conservative. McCain is a progressive traditionalist - a conservative in intuition and values rather than ideology - a virtue warrior rather than a culture warrior. Huckabee is a reformist anti-globalist social conservative. And Romney is a white bread technocrat institutionalist conservative. The conservatism of Huckabee is in spirit at least as different from the conservatism of Romney as it is from McCain or Ron Paul.

Medved notes:

To believe that Huck and Mitt are dividing conservatives, you have to believe that Huckabee is a conservative --- which Romney, Limbaugh, Igraham, and countless others have been denying (stridently and strenuously) for months. . . Either the elite commentators were wrong when they labeled Huckabee a “liberal populist,” or they are wrong now when they say he’s stealing conservative votes from Romney. The only other alternative is that they view conservative voters as just too stupid to see Huckabee for what he really is.

Patrick Ruffini writes:

The Romney campaign’s February 5th math is simple: move all the voters from the Huckabee pile onto theirs and claim a majority of conservatives. Unfortunately, it’s just not that simple.

To this Brainster replies:

What do you mean, not simple? Just move the pile! Now note what's not said at all; what the Huckabee pile is going to receive in return; one suspects that it's the chance to help Mitt Romney over the hump. Now of course, it should come as no news to anybody that Mike Huckabee isn't interested in this game. He has on many occasions expressed his admiration for Senator McCain, and his disdain for Mitt Romney.

And it's not just Huckabee who prefers McCain to Romney. Huckabee supporters seem to feel the same way. These numbers show three-fifths of Huckabee voters having a favorable view of McCain, while less than two-fifths have a favorable view of Romney.

Ruffini also notes the cultural and geographical difference in the Romney and Huckabee vote:

The problem with this analysis is that I’ve seen no evidence that Huckabee voters would go to Romney. On a county level, the Romney and Huckabee votes are negatively correlated, with Romney representing the conservative side of the Chamber of Commerce/Rotary Club vote and not really showing outsized strength with Evangelicals.

I've been looking at this sort of county level results at my new political geography blog. In states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, and South Carolina, Romney has done his best in the more urban areas, and Huckabee has done best in rural areas. McCain has done well in both urban and rural areas, among both lower and upper middle class, among both young and old. On a demographic level, it appears that McCain actually bridges the constituencies of the older and white-collar Romney voters and the younger and blue-collar Huckabee enthusiasts.

If we had excluded Huckabee from this race, its possible Fred Thompson could have gained some real ground in the Bible-belt deep South. But to expect that this would be the case for Romney is only slightly more realistic than the idea of Mormons voting en masse for Huckabee.

Is John McCain's nomination inevitable? No, it's not. It's possible that Romney will win the largest share of California's delegates. But McCain has locked up the Northeast (sans Massachusetts), and Romney looks like he's behind both McCain and Huckabee in every state south of the Mason-Dixon line or with a central time zone. Romney's road to the nominattion depends on a few closed caucuses along with his support from Money, Mormons, Michigan, and - maybe - Massachusetts. It's not impossible , but- as Anna Marie Cox points out*- it requires a bit of mental gymnastics.

*h/t ENHQ

Medved & Tucker discuss McCain vs. the dittoheads

(h/t Tony GOPrano)

McCain: Defender of the Free Speech Rights of his Right-Wing Rabid Radio Detractors

I was just about to bring up something great about McCain's credentials as a conservative and a man of decency that seems to have escaped the general attention of conservative audiences. But Medved just beat me to it.

Let’s say you’re attacking someone every day, criticizing some perceived enemy in a tone that is bitter, highly personal, spiteful and relentless. Now imagine, for the sake of argument, that at the very climax of your over-the-top abuse, the object of your assaults makes a point to defend your right to continue to slime him.

Wouldn’t it be appropriate to interrupt your derision for a few moments at least, to acknowledge the other guy’s courage and integrity—and to salute his support for the First Amendment?

Why, then, no acknowledgement by the most prominent conservative talkers on the radio of John McCain’s principled – and appropriate – efforts to block Democrats who seek to reinstitute the awful Fairness Doctrine?

. . . THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE WOULD BE A DEVASTATING ASSAULT ON FREE SPEECH; McCAIN-FEINGOLD, FOR ALL ITS FAULTS, WAS NOT . . . It matters far more, in other words, that McCain continues to battle the Fairness Doctrine (that would seriously damage political debate in the media) than that he cosponsored a silly and ineffective piece of legislation (that left vigorous debate vigorously intact).

Romney's Timetable Triangulation

After hearing endlessly from all corners about how McCain was lying about what Romney had said about timetables and that McCain was somehow going "below the belt" on Iraq, it's nice to see someone put the record straight.

From Stephen Hayes at The Weekly Standard:

Did Romney say he would, like Bush, veto anything with a timetable? Or does the rest of his answer suggest that he's for the timetables as long as they're private? Again, it's debatable.

But to go as far as CNN's Jeffrey Toobin, who claimed that McCain is "lying" about what Romney said, is a stretch. At the time Romney made the comments, many observers, including several reporters, took him to mean exactly what McCain is imputing to him now. If the Romney campaign protested that interpretation, their objections did now show up in any of the follow-up reporting on his comments.

McCain has long believed that Romney hedged on the surge and the war in Iraq. At a debate in Durham, New Hampshire, on September 5, Romney answered a question about the surge by saying, "the surge is apparently working." McCain pounced a moment later. "No, not apparently. It's working." It was one of McCain's strongest debate performances and he points to it as a "seminal" moment in the remarkable turnaround of his campaign.

UPDATE: Also, there's this from Byron York:

I think it's indisputable that, at the time, McCain's Republican rivals supported the surge but were also happy that it was McCain who was all the way out on the limb. Last February, someone in the Romney camp told me that yes, Romney supported the surge, but that "McCain owns the surge."

UPDATE: looks like some of Mitt's supporters are still thinking in these terms: Well if the surge continues to do well, Mitt can take the credit, but if it goes sour, Mitt won't shoulder the blame!

Reality Check - If IRAQ somehow gets WORSE with the current strategy in place, there is NO WAY *ANY* Republican (sans Ron Paul) would be able to win in November.

And if voters want an "outsider" in a Clinton v. Romney race, they are likely to go with Mike Bloomberg - who will see an opportunity to appeal to the broad center in such a polarizing contest.

Rudy and the New York Times Endorsement

I probably never did anything the New York Times suggested I do in eight years as mayor of New York City. And if I did, I wouldn't be considered a conservative Republican.

I changed welfare. I changed quality of life. I took on homelessness. I did all the things that they thought make you mean, and I believe show true compassion and true love for people.

I moved people from welfare to work. When I did that, when I set up workfare, the New York Times wrote nasty editorials about how mean I was, how cruel I was. I think there's a serious ideological difference.

- Rudy Giuliani at the debate on Thursday night.

Despite the many disagreements we have had with the Mayor over the last four years, we endorse his re-election enthusiastically.

- The New York Times Editorial Board, October 26, 1997.

how to be all that you can be

Two approaches to army recruitment:

1. Lead by example: elect John McCain commander-in-chief, inspiring young people to courage and a cause greater than their own self-interest.

2. The Axe Body Spray method, as demonstrated in this Ukranian commercial.