Could Mike Huckabee be the Republican nominee for President?

Mike Huckabee has been making significant progress in the past two weeks to become a main Republican candidate for president. For example, according to a November 16th poll, Huckabee is tied for 2nd place nationally with Romney and Thompson, among the Republican candidates. Receiving 12% of the national vote, Mike Huckabee is only 17% lower than Giuliani, the Republican front runner. In Iowa, according to a CBS/New York Times Poll, Huckabee is in 2nd place for the Republican nomination with 21% of the vote compared to Romney with 27%. The Research 2000 Iowa Poll as well confirms Huckabee’s 2nd place standing (with 18% vs. Romney with 27% of the vote). In Michigan, Huckabee’s percentage of votes rose from 3% in August to 9% this week. Ed Sarpolus, a pollster claims "Huckabee is a big player in determining who wins the Michigan primary.” With Huckabee’s rising in the polls, he plans to use the $1,000,000 he raised last month for campaign ads.

In addition, throughout these two weeks, Huckabee has traveled throughout Washington, Iowa, and New Hampshire. To prepare for the Iowa caucus, Huckabee has moved the majority of his Little Rock staff to Des Moines, Iowa. In addition, Huckabee visited the Iowa Spinners metal fabrication company. Here he was greeted by many local and national reporters. In the company he met the CFO, Janet Ekstrom, whose birthday it was that day. Thus, Huckabee started singing happy birthday to her with the multitude of reporters. Later, at Doughy Joey’s Peetza Joynt in Waterloo, Jolene Tagtow of Waterloo’s Republican Party central committee was celebrating her 49th birthday; Huckabee asked the press people to sing to her too. Furthermore, in New Hampshire, Huckabee joined the TKE fraternity members of UNH in a 5K race. In Washington, Huckabee spoke at the King County GOP dinner ($150 per person, $500 for a private reception) to raise money for the Republican Party. In addition, over these past two weeks, Huckabee has given his support to a national smoking ban and named Tim Michels, a previous US Senate Candidate, his Wisconsin State Chairman. When speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation, Huckabee acknowledged the success of President Bush leading Pakistan and Musharraf “back to reality;” however, Huckabee strongly disagreed with Bush’s call to suspend Pakistan’s constitution.

As Huckabee is moving up in the polls, he is gaining much criticism from the Republican Party presidential candidates. For example, Thompson called Huckabee a “serial tax killer [in Arkansas];” However, Huckabee countered this statement affirming that Thompson’s accusations that Huckabee was "one of the highest-taxing governors that we had in this country" are "on their face just not true." In addition, Huckabee claims that while he raised some taxes, he lowered 94 others. Mitt Romney criticized Huckabee for giving “special tuition breaks" to children whose parents are illegal immigrants; Huckabee defends his action by claiming that these children should not have to suffer because of something their parents did. Huckabee has also become more aggressive when attacking the other primary Republican candidates for their views on same-sex marriage and abortion (Huckabee’s views are much more conservative). In addition, over these past two weeks, Huckabee has gained important support from strong faith leaders and faith-based organizations. For example, Jeff Broderick who owns HisHolySpace.com, the quickest growing Christian social network, Donald E. Wildmon, who founded the American Family Association, and members of the Southern Baptist Convention, will be endorsing Huckabee for president. Furthermore Ms. Star Parker founder of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education is supporting him.