Maybe it's the Chuck Norris factor

Posted at 5:30 PM on December 7, 2007 by Tom Scheck (2 Comments)

Newsweek has a new poll which shows former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee with a commanding lead over the other GOP candidates. The magazine says Huckabee now leads former Massachusetts Gov. Romney by a two-to-one margin, 39 percent to 17 percent, among likely GOP caucus-goers. Those Chuck Norris ads must really be working!

The mag's poll says Illinois Sen. Barack Obama "has gained some ground, moving to within a point of Hillary Clinton among all Democratic voters (29 percent vs. 30 percent), with John Edwards in third place at 21 percent."

Comments (2)

From the article you link to:

"Questions about religion—in particular skepticism about Romney's Mormonism—appeared to play a role in the latest results on the GOP side.

... close to half (46 percent) said at least some Iowa Republican voters will not consider supporting Romney because of his Mormon faith. More than a quarter (27 percent) said they don't consider Mormons to be Christians, and one in six (16 percent) said they are less likely to support Romney because he is a Mormon.

Huckabee's religious credibility, by the same token, appears to be a key factor behind his surge."

I never understood why you guys at Polinaut are so reluctant to discuss the "evangelical political movement" thing, as it affects GOP politics. Here's Tom Scheck with the Chuck Norris ad joke--and that's cute, but the EPM is the reason that MN Rep. Bachmann is in Congress, and now here's the national media finally recognizing that the EPM's is the key factor driving the GOP presidential nomination these days. If you guys still refuse to address candidate's "politics of religion"--you're out of touch, and have been for a while!

Here you had Mitt Romney with all the traditional advantages going into Iowa: big money, a big organization in Iowa, key "secular" conservative promotion and endorsements. And he's losing to Huckabee! Why? Because Huckabee sewed up evangelical backing, had a killer evangelical voter mailing list, rallied the pastors and the guy who wrote the "Left Behind" series--and because there are Huckabee supporters all over Iowa who've been calling around to give voters a "heads up" on how Mormon doctrine isn't Christian and is a heresy. Huckabee himself has asked them to stop--but they did it, and evangelical paranoia about the LDS faith is paying off big for Huckabee.

Get with the program, guys. The EPM counts: start covering it, whether it's Huckabee nationally or Bachmann and the EPM's in-state organizations locally. You can't explain what's going on in the GOP without it, it's been that way for years now.

Posted by Bill Prendergast | December 8, 2007 12:59 AM

From the article you link to:

"Questions about religion—in particular skepticism about Romney's Mormonism—appeared to play a role in the latest results on the GOP side.

... close to half (46 percent) said at least some Iowa Republican voters will not consider supporting Romney because of his Mormon faith. More than a quarter (27 percent) said they don't consider Mormons to be Christians, and one in six (16 percent) said they are less likely to support Romney because he is a Mormon.

Huckabee's religious credibility, by the same token, appears to be a key factor behind his surge."

I never understood why you guys at Polinaut are so reluctant to discuss the "evangelical political movement" thing, as it affects GOP politics. Here's Tom Scheck with the Chuck Norris ad joke--and that's cute, but the EPM is the reason that MN Rep. Bachmann is in Congress, and now here's the national media finally recognizing that the EPM's is the key factor driving the GOP presidential nomination these days. If you guys still refuse to address candidate's "politics of religion"--you're out of touch, and have been for a while!

Here you had Mitt Romney with all the traditional advantages going into Iowa: big money, a big organization in Iowa, key "secular" conservative promotion and endorsements. And he's losing to Huckabee! Why? Because Huckabee sewed up evangelical backing, had a killer evangelical voter mailing list, rallied the pastors and the guy who wrote the "Left Behind" series--and because there are Huckabee supporters all over Iowa who've been calling around to give voters a "heads up" on how Mormon doctrine isn't Christian and is a heresy. Huckabee himself has asked them to stop--but they did it, and evangelical paranoia about the LDS faith is paying off big for Huckabee.

Get with the program, guys. The EPM counts: start covering it, whether it's Huckabee nationally or Bachmann and the EPM's in-state organizations locally. You can't explain what's going on in the GOP without it, it's been that way for years now.

Posted by Bill Prendergast | December 8, 2007 1:00 AM

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