According to the latest MSNBC/Newsweek poll, Mike Huckabee is surging past Mitt Romney and the rest of the GOP field in Iowa:
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has vaulted over his major GOP challengers to take a commanding lead in the race to win the Iowa caucuses, while Barack Obama continues to edge ahead of Hillary Clinton among Democrats likely to participate, a new NEWSWEEK poll shows.
The most dramatic result to come out of the poll, which is based on telephone interviews with 1,408 registered Iowa voters on Dec. 5 and 6, is Huckabee’s emergence from the shadows of the GOP race into the front runner’s spot in just two months. The ordained Southern Baptist minister now leads Romney by a two-to-one margin, 39 percent to 17 percent, among likely GOP caucus-goers. In the last NEWSWEEK survey, conducted Sept. 26-27, Huckabee polled a mere 6 percent to Romney’s 25 percent, which then led the field.
Huckabee has also opened up a wide margin over the next three leading candidates, who all show signs of fading in Iowa: Rudy Giuliani, who dropped from 15 percent in the last survey to 9 percent in the current one; Fred Thompson, who fell from 16 percent to 10 percent; and John McCain, who slipped from 7 percent to 6 percent. “You rarely see anything like [Huckabee's surge],” says Larry Hugick, who directed the polling for Princeton Survey Research Associates. Hugick added that the reason has as much to do with a leeriness of the other candidates among Republican voters as Huckabee’s folksy success on the stump. “He’s filling a vacuum,” Hugick said. “Nobody on the Republican side was getting strong support.”
If Huckabee wins in Iowa and Romney wins in New Hampshire, the GOP race could quickly turn into a two-man race.
Libertarians need to smarten up. Fiscal cons and libertarians need to start rallying behind one candidate to head off the most antilibertarian candidate – Huckabee.
Club for Growth, Grover Norquist, Cato types and other prominent libers are lining up behind Rudy. I agree. We should all now rally behind Rudy.
But some Reagan Cons aren’t happy with Rudy.
So, I’d settle for Mitt or Fred.
But we’ve got to act quick!!
Huckabee is almost worse than Hillary!!
Eric,
Why would we as Republicans nominate anyone the NRA will not support?
Just thinking….I like Guiliani ok, and will support him if he is the nominee, but I think there are other candidates we have to chose from that are better.
Why do you say the NRA won’t support him? Rudy’s position on guns is rock solid. Of course, Rudy-hating Libertarians and Ron Paulists have overblown some minor differences Rudy has on guns.
Hey, I, like Rudy, am not at all in favor of allowing Retarded people the right to own a handgun, and I certainly don’t want Ex-Cons having the right to own them either. I challenge you to tell me how that is “unlibertarian”?
Do you honestly want some guy straight out of a mental hospital walking into a pawn shop and being able to purchase a gun, with no background check?
I think even the most hardened libertarians would agree, that that’s not such a good idea.
Democrat strategists fear that Huckabee’s conservatism on social and fiscal policy could pose major problems for their candidate. He has the capacity to win African -American votes and also votes from Independents and conservative Democrats.
What you see is what you get
Huckabee has clear cut policies on major issues. He supports the Fair Tax so he is a tax cutter. He is strong on the Federal Deficit. He is implacably opposed to abortion. He stresses the importance of God…what more do we want ???