Talk about bad timing. On Friday, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) - who has endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) - called Fmr. Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) to make the case that dropping out of the race was in the best interests of the party. The next day, Huckabee decisively won the KS caucus (60 percent to 24 percent), and edged McCain out in the LA primary (43 percent to 42 percent). In the WA caucus, the final tally is so close that Huckabee is challenging the results, claiming that the state Republican Party chairman prematurely declared McCain the winner with only 87 percent of the votes counted and just 242 votes separating the two candidates. (As of this writing, neither CBS News nor Fox News has called the race.)

Huckabee characterized the conversation as “cordial” but said he could not take it seriously, telling Perry “since he was already on someone else’s team that I had to discount his advice since he had a vested interest in my not winning and McCain winning.”

Even though he could not have foreseen Huckabee’s surprise blowout in KS, Perry was just wasting his breath. Huckabee has repeatedly insisted that he’s in it to win it – or, at least until McCain has the 1,191 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination.

Here’s how Huckabee explained his rationale for staying in the race to Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet The Press”:

Tim Russert: [Y]ou have 231 … That means you need 960 … There are only 819 delegates to win.  So how are you going to do that?

Mike Huckabee:  Well, you know, I don't know how the math works out, but there's always the chance something stumbles.  The thing is it's not just how many I need, Senator McCain also needs that many.  And if he doesn't get that many, he's not the nominee either.  This thing could go to the convention. Who knows?  But the one thing I know, when people say, "Isn't it a rather complicated and convoluted path to victory?" You bet it is.  But it's a real easy path to defeat.  All I have to do is walk off the field, game's over. …

Huckabee also believes that that he’s doing McCain a favor by staying in. After speaking before the attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday, Huckabee told reporters:  

You know the old proverb is as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. The fact is no boxer is ever prepared to go into the ring if he's never sparred. If we're really serious about taking it all the way to November, we better have a candidate who's truly battle-tested.

On “Meet The Press” Huckabee made a convincing case that “healthy debate” on the issues is good for voters and for the party:

Russert:  Are you concerned that you're draining resources that the Republicans need, that you're embarrassing Senator McCain, and that you're providing the Democrats an opportunity to win in November by continuing this fight?

Huckabee: I didn't set the rules for how one obtains the nomination; the party did. So the party sets rules and says, "Here's how the process works." They were the ones who front-loaded and allowed it to be front-loaded, so you had states like California and New York going up early, large delegate counts.  But neither of those states, Tim, are going to be really decisive for the Republican in November.

Now, the question I have is, do we tell the people in Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania and all these other states - North Carolina, Nebraska - that “You don't matter. … We're going to go ahead and pull the plug on this whole thing and not even give you a chance to express yourselves”?  If our party can't have a thoughtful discussion and some meaningful debate and dialogue about the issues important to us as a party, then … we're really not prepared to lead. … And the Democrats haven't settled their nominee either.  So for us to suddenly act like that we have to all step aside and have a coronation instead of an election … that's the antithesis of everything Republicans are supposed to believe.  We believe that competition breeds excellence and that the lack of it breeds mediocrity.

Writing for Townhall.com, David R. Stokes, Senior Pastor of Fair Oaks Church in Fairfax, VA, argues that until Mitt Romney (R-MA) quit the race, conservatives never really took a good look at Huckabee: “Is it too much to ask that before Republicans rush to the warm fuzzy of unity that one more look be given to the man from Arkansas? … [M]aybe it will be the first look for some. What’s the harm in that?”  

With the Dem race in such disarray – over the week-end Barack Obama trounced Hillary Clinton in LA (57 percent to 36 percent, NE (68 percent to 32 percent), WA (68 percent to 31 percent) and ME (59 percent to 41 percent) and Hillary barely leads in the delegate count (1,148 to 1,121, according to CNN) – so there is no harm whatsoever.  

Huckabee’s wins indicate that McCain still needs to shore up his conservative cred, but do not in any way threaten his status as the presumptive nominee. Turnout was higher amongst conservatives (especially those self-identified as “very” conservative) than moderates in both KS and LA, and those voters were likely casting protest votes against McCain. Some 20 states have yet to vote, and conservatives want to keep McCain striving for their support. They may also find it cathartic to vote against him while they have the chance – and if they can get their pique out of their systems now it will be easier for McCain to unify the party as the Republican standard bearer.  

Besides, if all the drama were on the Dem side, neither McCain nor Huckabee would get any media attention for weeks – and maybe not until the Dem convention, if the race between Obama and Hillary remained unsettled until the bitter end. 

 

The "Shawn Bradley" Effect

The Washington Post’s Libby Copeland wonders whether the presidential candidacy of Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) was “good for the Mormons.” She never really answers her own question, but The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press do: No, it was bad for the Mormons, because Romney’s run for the White House unambiguously revealed - perhaps for the first time - how far out of the mainstream many Americans consider Mormonism.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken in January “showed that far more Americans say they'd never vote for a Mormon than those who admitted they wouldn't choose a woman or an African-American,” according to The Journal. Two months earlier, half of those participating in an Associated Press-Yahoo poll said they had “some problems supporting a Mormon presidential candidate. Among white evangelicals, more than half expressed reservations about backing a Latter-day Saint,” reports AP.

The antipathy was broad-based, with atheists and evangelicals alike taking a dim view of Mormon beliefs and practices – and they made no bones about it. As AP puts it: “Mitt Romney isn't the only casualty in his failed presidential bid. The Mormon church, yearning for broad acceptance, also took a beating.”

You could call it the “Shawn Bradley” effect.

This, from The Journal:

In December, political pundit and actor Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. unleashed a tirade on the "McLaughlin Group" television talk show, tearing into the Mormon Church and Mr. Romney's faith. "Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. And he comes from that lineage and says, 'I respect this religion fully.'...He's got to answer." …

On the Internet, the Romney bid prompted an outpouring of broadsides against Mormonism from both the secular and religious worlds. Evangelical Christian speakers who consider it their mission to criticize Mormon beliefs lectured to church congregations across the country. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the Catholic journal First Things, wrote that a Mormon presidency would threaten Christian faiths. Atheist author Christopher Hitchens called Mormonism "a mad cult" on Slate.com, and Bill Keller, a former convict who runs an online ministry in Florida, told a national radio audience that a vote for Mr. Romney was a vote for Satan.

This, from AP:

Extremists denounced Romney's campaign as a Mormon plot to take over the country. Some Evangelicals feared that a Mormon in the White House would draw more converts to his faith. …

Many Christians said they were raising legitimate theological concerns, not Mormon-bashing.

The news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, which considers the LDS church a cult, ran a six-part series through December explaining why they don't consider Mormonism to be Christian. (They also profiled a distant Romney relative who is Protestant and manages a Southern Baptist-affiliated bookstore in Salt Lake.)

In just one example of the practices that set Mormons apart, LDS church founder Joseph Smith revised — and in his view corrected — parts of the Bible.

Interviewed by AP, Brigham Young University professor Robert Millet, wondered: “How can it be the case that Gov. Romney and his feelings about Christ and his feelings about religion have been so little understood?” Because – as The Stiletto has repeatedly argued – Romney either dismissed people’s questions about his belief system as “bigotry” or glossed over the doctrinal differences between Mormonism and gospel-based Christian religions. He never invited understanding.

Ironically, Fmr. Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), an ordained Baptist minister, may get hoist by the same petard: That Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll also found that 45 percent of voters are not thrilled by the idea of a president who is an evangelical Christian.  

Why? Probably because they’re discomfited he can quote scripture better than they can. When National Public Radio sent a crew to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., they found that few people understood the biblical allusions with which Huckabee lards his speeches. NPR could not find a single person who knew that the “little boy with two fish and five loaves” who “fed a crowd of 5,000 people” was Jesus; or that “one small smooth stone is even more effective than a whole lot of armor” refers to David slaying the giant Goliath with his slingshot; or that “the widow's mite has more effectiveness than all the gold in the world” refers to a parable in which Jesus tells of a poor widow donating two coins of the smallest denomination in circulation to G-d – which was all she had.

The Stiletto Scoops Townhall.com And The Washington Post

Despite a concerted effort by the conservative chattering class to tar Sen. John McCain as a “liberal” or a “phony Republican,” and Fmr. Gov. Mike Huckabee as a “spoiler” who would “hand the nomination to McCain” by not dropping out, voters were not persuaded to support Mitt Romney to save the party from perdition. …

[T]he relentless pounding McCain got from Limbaugh and other conservative pundits had some effect amongst hard-core conservatives – but did not sway evangelicals and Christian conservatives who were inclined to support Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, or moderates who don’t rely on Limbaugh to tell them how to vote.

- Republican Voters Defy Pundits, Radio Talk Show Hosts, The Stiletto Blog, February 6, 2008

Conservative bloggers, radio hosts and opinion leaders have been unabashedly promoting Mitt Romney as their candidate by unprecedented personal attacks on John McCain and Mike Huckabee and their accusations that these candidates are “liberal.” … they seemed to say “we know what we’re talking about so just take our word for it and go out there and vote the way we tell you to vote.” …

The American public doesn’t take orders very well. They felt like they were being steamrolled. … The public didn’t buy it; they rejected the “know-it-alls” and simply didn’t vote for the favorite candidate of the movement heavy-weights.

- The Pushy Pundits Forced Romney Out, Townhall.com, February 8, 2008 

Having spent the better part of three months attacking Mike Huckabee and John McCain as crypto-liberals who would destroy the Reagan coalition, the pundits, talk-radio stars and professional activists who make up the establishment of the conservative movement had to grit their teeth this week as their preferred candidate, Mitt Romney, bowed to the inevitable and abandoned the field. Mr. Huckabee and Mr. McCain are now the last men standing in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Worse than watching the two heretics celebrate in the right-wing temple, perhaps, was that many of the conservative movement’s own constituents had put them there. Despite Rush Limbaugh’s insistence that nominating Mr. Huckabee or Mr. McCain would “destroy the Republican Party,” on Tuesday more than half of self-described conservatives voted for one of the two men over Mr. Romney, the candidate endorsed by Mr. Limbaugh.

- The Republican Reformation, The Washington Post, February 10, 2008