This week Huckabee continues to gain support from the American people. In addition, Huckabee exceeded his monetary goal for November, raising an astonishing $2,076, 467.73. On Monday, Huckabee released a new television ad called “Believe,” in which he emphasized, “faith doesn’t just influence me, it really defines me.” This ad is one of Huckabee’s methods to gain votes from Republican Christian in Iowa, as well as other Republican Christians. Whether this ad completely influenced Huckabee’s support in Iowa, or the other Republican candidates suffered criticisms this past week (or because evangelical Christians are opposed to Romeny’s Mormonism), the ad definitely helped Huckabee move to 1st place in Iowa. According to a Rasmussen poll (on Wednesday), Mike Huckabee received in Iowa 28% of the votes, followed by Romney with 25%. In addition, on that same Monday, a Zogby poll claimed that Clinton would loose to all the major GOP candidates in the Presidential election; Huckabee received the highest margin of votes of the GOP candidates (45.8% to 39.6% for Clinton). In Florida, Mike Huckabee came in last place according to an October insider advantage poll (because he did not register, or received such a small percentage of votes). This week, however, Huckabee has risen to second place among fellow Republicans with 17% of the vote.
In addition, nationally (according to a Rasmussen poll), Huckabee reached third place among Republican voters this week. In South Carolina, Huckabee is implementing a different strategy (contrary to his faith-based efforts in Iowa). Huckabee aims to receive a broader amount of support from Conservative voters (not only traditional Christian and social conservatives) by focusing on more consumer-friendly issues, including federal arts funding, climate change, and health care. This strategy may have helped Huckabee “make it on the radar” in South Carolina. In New Hampshire, according to a recent poll, Huckabee’s support has increased 6%, moving him to third place among Republican candidates. In addition, this week Huckabee was claimed the winner of the CNN/You Tube Republican Debate by various political analysts. In fact, Huckabee is claimed to have increased his support (among Republican voters) after his performance in the debate. The audience really supported his responses to illegal immigration, as well as taxes. When asked if Jesus would support the death penalty, Huckabee claimed, “Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office;” this statement led to great applause from the crowd, as well as fellow Republican candidate Giuliani. Moreover, this week, Huckabee formed the Faith and Values Coalition for Mike Huckabee to “join [him] in [his] efforts to reach out to Christian and social conservatives across the country”. This coalition is made up for 30 supporters of Mike Huckabee for President, who will help advise him on policy issues that will affect the faith community, as well as families.
In addition, Huckabee criticized the Bush administration for their “muted” response to Saudi Arabia’s decision ordering 200 lashes to a woman who was gang raped. Huckabee asserts, “The United States has been far too involved in sort of looking the other way, not only at the atrocities of human rights and violation of women.” Furthermore, Huckabee wants to make the United States energy independent in 10 years; thus, we can abandon our reliance on them. Huckabee claimed, "Every time we put our credit card in the gas pump, we're paying so that the Saudis get rich - filthy, obscenely rich, and that money then ends up going to funding madrassas," schools "that train the terrorists.”
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Interestingly enough, Huckabee's poll numbers aren't too detrimental for all the other Republican candidates. He's pulling ahead in part because everyone else banked so heavily on Iraq (which is now a non-issue). But, if Huckabee managed to pull off an Iowa win, that would not be so bad for Giuliani. Romney has invested the most time and money into Iowa, and until recently was the Republican favorite for the state. If Huckabee were to win, Romney's support in New Hampshire might dry up - allowing Giuliani to sneak in and pull off an upset. It'll be interesting to see what happens - if Giuliani recognizes a possible concession, and lets Huckabee take Iowa -- or if Iowa becomes an all-out war between Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani.
I guess the question really is whether ads and/or attack ads really help a candidate. For Huckabee-even though before the ad he was doing well in Iowa-the ads may have given him the extra boost needed to win Iowa. All of the candidates need to be concerned with Huckabee's advancements. It also seems that his steadfast religious views and statements are helping him as much as his ads. Will the American voting public ever support a non-Christian candidate? Also, Huckabee is most likely not going to drop out of the race for quite some time...if at all. Will this help or hurt the Republicans? The Democrats?
I am really scared. With Huckabee doing so well in Iowa and now beginning to rise up marginally, Huckabee might continue on a stride that sets him up next to Giuliani for the national republican primary. Its not so much him winning the Iowa that might concern other Republican candidates such as Romney or Giuliani, its the precedent of winning such an early caucus that might lead him to gain substantial support in the following states. I agree with Bonacci, when she stated that he's pulling ahead due to the semi-futile investment in campaigning with a heavy Iraq policy. However, one other aspect to Huckabee, which will be a leading factor in the subsequent caucuses, is that Huckabee is becoming the 'every man'. If you look at all the other candidates, Huckabee is the only one that strongly appeals to the evangelical, religious working man types that allowed Bush to garner so much suport in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Splitting Republican support on the issues that are associated with the 'every man' will impact the other, more socially moderate, Republican candidates. A man who doesn't believe in Evolution might be frontrunner and might take away votes from those who were timid in their support for Giuliani. And if Giuliani does win the primary, we have yet to see how the Huckabee factor might affect the 2008 elections.
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