McCain Recruits Huckabee to Sink Romney on Supper Tuesday
Mitt Romney took his leave from the Republican presidential race following disappointing results from Super Tuesday. The event was preceded by a series of seemingly coordinated political attacks from Senator John McCain and Governor Mike Huckabee. There was little doubt of the conspiracy to derail Romney’s efforts in light of what occurred with the West Virginia delegates as recounted in this Fox News article:
“Huckabee won in the second round of voting, even though Mitt Romney led after the first round. The former Arkansas governor won with 51.5 percent to Romney’s 47.4 percent, pulling ahead after John McCain’s delegates apparently defected to his side.”
A constant theme of Romney’s opponents has been his changing policy on a variety of positions ranging from abortion to illegal immigration. Not satisfied with the evidence that substantiates these claims, Senator McCain resorted to fabrication claiming that Mitt Romney “… wanted to set timetables for withdrawal…” of U.S. Troops from Iraq despite vehement denials from the former Massachusetts Governor. Governor Huckabee was happy to join the chorus with “.. I heard that …” references to McCain’s statements. Meanwhile, both have tried to paint Romney as the one engaged in unfounded allegations. In answering a question from Fox News regarding his friendship with McCain, Huckabee claimed both of them had been “brutally assaulted” by misleading attacks from Romney.
That these fabrications resulted in blemishing Romney in the eyes of conservatives is possible. A more interesting question is why these conservatives would prefer the Huckabee alternative. His record on illegal immigration would seem to be at least as loathsome to them as McCain’s efforts to pass a deplorable immigration reform bill in cooperation with Senator Kennedy last summer. As Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee supported higher education benefits for the children of illegals, opposed roundups by federal agents, opposed legislation requiring proof of citizenship for elections in his state and supported drivers licenses for illegals.
Truth be told the religious right was more willing to overlook Huckabee’s immigration track record or McCain’s moderate history and defiance of the Republican party than Romney’s faith. Media Matters had a post back in February of 2007 titled Fox News whitewashes evangelical hostility to Romney’s faith sighting evidence that conservative evangelicals who make up a large portion of the Republican base consider Mormonism an un-Christian cult. While surveys provided evidence that race or gender would be less of an issue for most voters, conservative commentators such as Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard dismissed the notion as “liberal intolerance” of Mormonism when if fact it was from the religious right.
Evangelical attacks were in full swing last summer as it appeared Romney may overtake a declining McCain. Max Blumenthal wrote a post in July of last year titled The Swift-boating of Mitt Romney chronicling the petty attacks stating
“With onetime Republican presidential front runner Senator John McCain in meltdown, Mitt Romney suddenly finds himself under fire from some of the Christian right’s most influential activists. Romney’s evangelical critics claim the former Massachusetts governor and devout Mormon was complicit in the Marriott hotel chain’s sale of pay-per-view porn on its in-room television sets when he served on the corporation’s board of directors from 1992 to 2001.”
As Blumenthal writes the press has been quick to echo Romney’s critics. They have failed to echo his success. Now the religious right is left left with a pair of candidates that are failing to bring significant numbers to the polls comparable to what the Democrats are achieving. They backed Huckabee to drive out Romney and now the self aggrandizing former Baptist minister won’t go away. What they have bought themselves is a front row seat to a rodeo of two of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate who have generated the momentum to tie this thing up unless some traumatic event changes the course of history. [ro_35]