Why Huck Fights On

February 7, 2008 by Doug Wead

So why is Mike Huckabee staying in the race for president? What does he hope to gain? What is he seeing that the rest of us don’t see?

Ahhhh, it is the last question that answers the first two. Huckabee is reading different numbers on his chances and so far, his numbers are proving the more accurate. The cable networks and their pundits who keep telling him to drop out of the race are reading the numbers of evangelical voters in a given contest. Huck, who is afterall in a different business than entertainment news, is reading the “born again” numbers and it has made all the difference in the world.Here is how it works. A young couple and their family has been attending a Nazarene Church for the last six years. They like it, they are comfortable, they support the values, they will vote for a candidate who lines up. At the exit poll they are asked by a cable news network if they are an evangelical?

Well, they aren’t sure; this is a term that has been imposed from without, a catchall with negative connotations. In 2000, John McCain called evangelicals “agents of intolerance.” They don’t give to television evangelists. They are just Nazarene, or maybe their church is Southern Baptist, or Assemblies of God or some other “community church.” A huge percentage of evangelicals still do not know that they are, in fact, part of “the evangelical group.”

Huckabee is working with Gallup numbers, the only truly reliable numbers on religion. It is what we worked with in our successful 1988 campaign for George Herbert Walker Bush, who won 81% of evangelicals nationwide. Gallup’s numbers could be trusted then because they offered a definition inside the question itself. And because they offered a point of reference. (They had been publishing their surveys of religion for years.) And because no special interest drove their polling, it was strictly a curious socio-cultural snapshot of America.

Here was Gallup’s question…

“Are you a born again Christian, that is, have you had a turning point in your life in which you committed yourself to Jesus Christ?”

In 1984, as we looked ahead and planned the GHW Bush presidential run, 39% of the American public said “Yes” to that question. Today the number is closer to 42%.

In 1992, Gallup finally added an addendum to the above question to make it clear…

“And / or, are you an evangelical?”

To all of the above that Nazarene couple would have answered yes.

This year, Evangelicals have watched with bemusement and then horror as the cable news networks have hashed and rehashed who they are, what they believe and why they vote the way they vote. One would think that having an evangelical or two also commenting would be good marketing. Can you imagine networks full of whites talking on and on about Black voters with nary a word from the Black community itself? Well, you got it with evangelicals.

And the same arrogance led to their pointless, irrelevant polls. It led to them believe that Huckabee’s diminished evangelical pool could not support wins in the South on Super Tuesday, for example. But while they saw 28% of the voters in a given state as evangelical, Huckabee knew that twice that many were born again Christians who would support him.We encountered a similar problem in the 1988 cycle. CBS News had exit polls showing that 17% of the nation were fundamentalist Christians. This was a period in which national ignorance of religion in the media was so widespread that we couldn’t get the media to see the difference between fundamentalists, in the John Rice tradition, Jerry Falwell, for example, and the larger evangelical movement. The difference was huge. For example, our Gallup polls, including an excellent purloined survey that had been commissioned by Robert Schuller, showed that only 2% of the nation considered themselves as Fundamentalists, while the 39% claimed to be born again.So where did CBS get its 17%? Most of the public was far more informed about religion than the elitists in media who covered it. Some people answered no to CBS, even though they were born again Christians, some thought, well, I am not a fundamentalist but I think they are really wanting to know if I am born again. They said, yes. Others thought, maybe they are getting it mixed up with evangelicals, and so CBS came up with a bogus, irrelevant number that represented nothing more than a grasp in the dark.

For a brief period, the national news media had a perfect window into this world through John Ellis, a cousin of the Bush family who ran the polling division at NBC. The computer programming pioneer, Roman Godzich, who would later become famous for introducing news on the internet, had set up the NBC system. And we, evangelicals at the Bush campaign, were backtracking to NBC, to help them ask the right questions. The secular media thought our campaign was out of its mind for its early courting of evangelicals. But we got our work done, most of it by 1986, and we were moving into mainstream waters completely by the last year, unscathed by media antipathy toward our Christian allies.

This week, as frantic conservatives tried to drive Huckabee out of the contest, he saw numbers twice as big as theirs. He, alone paid attention to how evangelicals were cutting in Iowa in the last three days when the estrangement between Mormons and Evangelicals surfaced. He knew that if he dropped out, his supporters would not go to Romney. The race would be over. He knew that the bogus attacks on his conservative credentials would not phase his base. (Huckabee’s most liberal moment as governor of Arkansas was raising cigarette taxes in state. Evangelicals don’t care about “sin taxes.” They cared more about Romney’s support of gay civil unions and pro choice in Massachusetts.)

So why does Huckabee stay in the race?

Because in their rush to destroy his chances they have frightened the whole evangelical movement, maybe even awakened parts of it and united parts of it that Huckabee had not been able to reach. MSNBC openly sneered at him, for no apparent reason other than his faith. CNN marginalized him, excluding him from a debate when he was only 1 point separate from Mitt Romney in national polls. FOX News led its Super Tuesday morning program with Karen Hanratty’s anti-Huckabee rant, “Thank God he won’t be the nominee. I don’t care what he does.” Evangelicals themselves feel under attack.

But Huckabee’s numbers proved prescient, the networks bogus. And he is still reading those numbers and must follow them to their end conclusion in Virginia and elsewhere. Now he has become something more. He represents a huge segment of the nation that is feeling excluded, ripped, vilified and powerless. The media hostility and pushing and shoving is awakening the giant. Too late to win the nomination but not too late to bargain at the table of a beleaguered candidate.

This week the media elites, in their great ignorance of evangelicals, will announce that the negotiation have begun at C-PAC between Movement Conservatives and the nominee, John McCain. But C-PAC will represent only the Catholic talking heads and institutions inside the beltway. The negotiations will not be over. Any bargaining with evangelicals will now have to pass through the hands of Governor Mike Huckabee.

NRLC's Dr. Franz Forges Faulty Fred Facts

This morning the National Right To Life Committee endorsed Fred Thompson as their choice for the GOP Nomination for President. Just so you know, if Fred Thompson wins the GOP Nomination - he is the only other candidate I could support other than Mike Huckabee that will keep my vote in the GOP - and that secondary support is quickly waning as the primary process continues.

However, many conservatives, values voters, single issue (pro-life) voters, have great difficulty with today's endorsement. The NRLC commented several factors (faulty as they are) that they considered in selecting a candidate to endorse.

Wanda Franz, Ph.d., President of NRLC stated:
"Our endorsement is a testament to Senator Thompson's long-standing pro-life record, his commitment to unborn children, and our our belief in his ability to win."

Certainly I hear the same sub-text of "ability to win" - A cliche that Mike Huckabee has been tagged with from all sides of the GOP since his 2nd place position in the Ames, Iowa straw poll and his continued rise in popularity among GOP voters. There are certainly many issues that bring others to doubt Mike's ability to win - money not being the least of them - but all have been discounted time and again by our dark horse candidate, Mike Huckabee.

As I read the comment from Dr. Franz "Thompson's long-standing pro-life record" some comments come to mind:
"...an amendment...going back even further than pre-Roe V. Wade, to have a constitutional amendment to do that, I do not think would be the way to go." - Fred Thomson - on Meet the Press November 4, 2007

"Nobody's proposed a federal law on [banning abortion in first trimester]" - Fred Thompson - on Meet The Press November 4, 2007

FACTOID: There are THREE (3) laws currently pending in congress

1. "Right to Life Act" H.R. 618 (boasting of 94 co-sponsors)
2. "Sanctity of Life Act" H.R. 1094
3. H.R. 2597

Sounds like Fred is slipping on his "life-long" pro-life position, as a former Senator and a Presidential candidate seeking Evangelical support - shouldn't he be "UP" on this sort of thing?

Thompson also stated in that same November 4th interview with Tim Russert that states should have the right to determine the definition of Marriage being between a man and a woman. In other words - this is not a National Dilemma - it's a State dilemma.

Every Republican platform since 1980 has supported a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe. V. Wade and every GOP candidate nominated has supported that platform. Now we have a GOP slate of candidates - of which Fred Thompson is a member that does not support a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe V. Wade. I have seen this coming since the GOP started touting "We re the party of INCLUSION." Now we have arrived at the result of compromise which is division within our own house. The Bible will prove itself once again to be true and accurate - "A House divided against itself will not stand."

Mike Huckabee on the other hand - is not on the same page as the other GOP candidates. He virtually stands alone in his support for a constitutional amendment for overturning Roe V. Wade. In fact, Janet Folger's [WorldNetDaily.com] stated today: Governor Huckabee is "exactly where Ronald Reagan was in 1979 in the polls and in finances." That fact alone throws the argument of "winnability" right out of the window.

Lest I be accused of being a "one-issue" voter - let me state that I am not, I'm simply dealing with this one issue now. Across the board - no matter how faithless the "Faith.org's" may be at the moment - Mike Hucakbee is a real man of Faith and Character. I believe he will win. If I'm proven wrong, I will say "he should have won." I will not enjoy an election that I have to choose between the "lesser of two evils." Mike Huckabee has stated many times: "The way to beat the Democrats is NOT to be LIKE the Democrats." That philosophy was proven true in the Virginia elections last week. those GOP's that compromised on their message lost, those that stood true to the conservative message across the board, won.

Dr. Franz also states in today's endorsement that "unlike endorsements by single individuals, this endorsement was made by representatives of statewide pro-life organizations across America which themselves are comprised of local community chapters and grass roots activists."

In this link you will be directed to an article by Jerry Cox - the Arkansas chapter of NRLC (I think you'll find -once again - faulty facts in Franz's statement).
http://www.mikehuckabee.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=697

By the way - I can't help but laugh at how the NRLC tries to sell the endorsement "NRLC Shake Up Race For Republican Presidential Nomination" Yeah - - - Right!!! I'm ALL Shook Up!