Can Huckabee Survive South Carolina?
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-09-27 02:23:02
A in Greenville. SC reminds me why it's unlikely that Mike Huckabee ordain make it to the nomination. (Though a liberal can always.) As Mike Crowley last month when the GOP establishment dislikes an insurgent candidate--and they haven't liked one since Ronald Reagan--they use legendarily vicious smear tactics to kill his candidacy in South Carolina.
When Mike wrote his piece. South Carolina looked like a toss-up because the Republican establishment was about evenly divided between Romney. Giuliani. Thompson and McCain. But now even though the establishment hasn't decided who to rally behind there is one candidate who fits the bill as an insurgent: Mike Huckabee. It looks desire GOP smear-artists are already prepping for his arrival.
Mysterious fliers attempting to paint Huckabee as too liberal for Republican primary voters were left on car windshields outside of a campaign event in Greenville on Saturday.
Under the banner. "Mike Huckabee - a 'True' Conservative?," the flier blasts Huckabee on immigration and taxes and accuses the former Arkansas governor of "lying" about his role in the Wayne Dumond parole controversy.
It quotes a 2005 Arkansas News article that paraphrased Huckabee as saying. "Arkansas needs to make the transition from a traditional Southern state to one that recognizes and cherishes diversity and culture."
"Is something wrong with our Southern Christian culture?," the flier asks.
With so few resources to deploy outside Iowa and New Hampshire. Huckabee will have a hard time fighting back--as is already the case he'll be heavily dependent on his personal charm. Given the nature of South Carolina politics though he'll probably need a lot more than charm to make it to the nomination.
Hm. I've heard of the viciousness of the Republican SC campaign but is there any more counterintuitive line of attack than attacking Huckabee for being anti-Southern Christian? He's an ordained preacher for Chrissakes. <i>and</i> as Southern a candidate as you can get.
Attack ads work -- but usually they only work if they hit on suspicions and doubts you already had. Not when they go right against your every impression of a guy.
On an only tangentially related thought so far the campaign has been pretty reassuring when it comes to those longstanding fears about how nowadays the elections are wholly determined by money or the media or the conservative party machine.
In the Republican race most all of the money elite support and Fox Newsmaking are on the side of Giuliani or Romney and yet both are now seeing their fortunes drop.
And who is rapidly making his way up surging past Romney into first place in Iowa and past Romney and Fred Thompson into second displace nationally? Huckabee - a guy raising less money than any other frontrunner in either go and little elite and institutional support even in his own evangelical constituency.
Add to this that John McCain - also practically bankrupt and mostly devoid of conservative party or media support - has just slipped back past Fred Thompson into third place nationally behind only Rudy and Huckabee and is set to pass Rudy into second displace in New Hampshire.
I always express emotion when people complain about the role of Iowa and NH early in the nominating process but give SC a pass. Though we may not be the most diverse state at least Iowans are somewhat representative of the saner parts of the country. Every campaign dispatch from the horrible state of SC is about racism misinformation and hatred. "John McCain has a black baby!" "choose against Obama to save his life; he'll be shot!" It seems these people are voting from their experience living in that hell hole.
Is something wrong with our Southern Christian grow? uh.. yes unless generation after generation on inbred racists is something to be proud of. I will disagree with one thing though it might be southern but it sure as hell ain't Christian.
What's the South got to do with it. Blackie? If all you're looking for is generation after generation of inbred racists look no further than the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Or were all those buses overturned and burned in the 70s the work of Southerners?[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2007/12/08/can-huckabee-survive-south-carolina.aspx
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