- Posted by Christopher Estep on January 4, 2008
Campaign Carl at FoxNews says:
Christian conservatives do not explain the whole Mike Huckabee win.
And technically that's true, but it's not as true as Carl Cameron thinks.
Now that Huckabee's won Iowa, the media and its pundits want to ascribe a reason to Huckabee's win to anything other than the fact that he's the Evangelical darling. It's not that there are Christian conservatives, but that there are Evangelical conservatives. There are some very specific reasons that are unique to Iowa and Romney as to why Huckabee won.
- Iowans have an inflated view of their clout. In spite of decades of varied results for candidates that won or lost in Iowa and whether or not they became president, Iowans are regularly made to believe that they "make or break" a candidate and that's simply not true. Because the media always want something to report, they naturally report the heck out of Iowa because it's the first. As a result, Iowans believe they are more important than they are. It's like when a mother tells a child that she's prettier than everyone and ultimately she realizes that she really isn't. In this case, the media is the mother and the child is Iowa.
- Iowans like to punish candidates that they feel are too negative. This is an effect of the "spoiled brat" mentality I mention above. Because they feel their role is so great, they expect people to cater to them. The candidates demonstrate their obedience and submission by not "going negative". It's the faux-utopian ideal that has no basis in reality, but since Iowa is the first and only game in town, they are indulged.
- Romney dared to say things that needed to be said, regardless of whether they played to Iowans' sensibilities or not.
- Evangelicals make up 40% of the GOP electorate. Huckabee on nearly 40% of the GOP caucus vote. Do the math.
- Huckabee is an ordained Baptist minister. To many evangelicals, that's a position akin to "Deputy Jesus".
- Romney was the prominent religious conservative in Iowa until Huckabee, but Romney is a Mormon.
- Evangelicals really hate Mormons. This cannot be underemphasized. Evangelicals really, really hate Mormons. I was one of them and I'm a Mormon now. Many evangelical churches have classes and speakers devoted to running down Mormonism, calling it a cult, and generally bashing it it. That Mormons are called non-Christian is barely the tip of the iceberg. Until your church has protesters (who are almost always Evangelicals) on a regular basis, you can't really understand how deep their hatred runs. Whether an Evangelical would call it "hate" or "exposing Mormonism", the result is the same. They have a great dislike for anyone and anything related to Mormons.
- Huckabee is personable and he also has a very quick wit which makes him extremely quotable.
- Huckabee has not undergone the scrutiny that the other candidates have.
When you look at all of these together, you see begin to see how Huckabee won. It had nothing to do with his "man on the street" or "one of us". It doesn't have to do with his "populist" message because he doesn't have one. He has a message of "I'm a Christian and I want to take back America for Christ" and that is what resonated combined with the inability of candidates to point out his flaws without being "punished".
(via Fox News)