Political Buzz

Many observers and commentators view Mike Huckabee’s sudden rise in the polls as coming at the expense of Mitt Romney. Huckabee has supplanted Romney in the lead in Iowa, and in that respect, he has hurt Romney’s campaign the most in the short term. A loss there will seriously dampen Romney’s chances for the nomination, considering that he has spent more money and time in Iowa than any of the leading Republican candidates. But Romney’s numbers in Iowa are not going down as Huckabee’s go up. Romney is still pulling around 25% of the vote among likely caucus-goers. Huckabee is gaining voters that Romney may otherwise have won over, but he does not seem to be taking previously committed support from the former Massachusetts governor.

Where Huckabee has been gaining voters is from former mayor Rudy Giuliani. As Huckabee’s numbers have gone up, Giuliani has seen his support collapse in South Carolina, where he had been in first or second until the first week of December. Giuliani now places fourth in that state, behind Huckabee, Romney, and former Sen. Fred Thompson. More worrying for him, however, is Florida. A recent Rasmussen Reports poll shows Huckabee taking votes away from Giuliani there as well, dropping him to third place behind Romney. The poll is the only one to show this dramatic swing in Florida and may well be an outlier. But the phenomenon of the relatively unknown and unexamined former governor of Arkansas taking votes from Giuliani and eclipsing Romney speaks to something fundamental about the nature of the 2008 race on the Republican side.

There has been a dichotomy within conservatism since at least the end of the Reagan Administration. It is the internecine battle between fiscal and social conservatives. Not since Reagan has a Republican candidate completely unified these two often competing factions of the Republican Party’s base. This year’s campaign is proving to be no different. Indeed, the Huckabee and Giuliani campaigns are mirror images of each other in terms of their appeal to the two major Republican factions. The fortunes of these two candidates, and Mitt Romney in the near term, is tied then to how the Republican base decides to settle this internal rivalry.

For most of the last 20 years, social conservatives have rode herd over the Republican Party. Fiscal conservatism was considered a given amongst rival candidates as all Republicans supported the Reagan supply-side economic philosophy of tax cuts coupled with spending restraint. But the era of compassionate conservatism and a Republican Congress prone to spending excesses has changed that. The presidential candidates must prove their bona fides to both camps within the conservative coalition, and it is far from clear which side will hold the most sway over primary voters.

Giuliani is strong on fiscal matters, with his record of tax cutting and budget balancing in liberal New York City. Aside from his reputation for strength on terrorism, earned by being a near victim on September 11th, executive experience and fiscal conservatism are his campaign’s brightest selling points. He is not very conservative on social issues. Giuliani is personally pro-choice, sympathetic to the gay rights agenda, and soft on gun rights. His campaign has tried to make assurances that Giuliani will apply principles of federalism if elected and has put together a solid core of conservative judicial advisors; but lately these overtures to social conservatives have fallen flat. Huckabee’s perceived more genuine appeal on these issues has rallied social conservatives to at least temporarily abandon the Giuliani bandwagon.

Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, is solid on issues important to social conservatives. He is pro-life, anti-gay marriage, and a staunch gun rights supporter. His speech at the Family Research Council’s Values Voters Convention, a fiery sermon, prevented Mitt Romney from walking away from the conference with the consensus endorsement its organizers and began his campaign’s upward momentum in the polls. But with momentum comes resistance and Huckabee’s less than stellar record on fiscal matters is starting to come to light. The Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative watchdog group, has savaged Huckabee over his support for tax increases during his tenure in Arkansas. Other candidates have piled on as well. At the last televised debate, Thompson’s campaign, sensing that it is in a position to pick up disaffected Huckabee voters, chose as its campaign sponsored video a clip of Huckabee practically begging the Arkansas legislature for a tax increase. The stepped-up fiscal scrutiny of Huckabee’s record has not yet registered in the polls, but Thompson, Giuliani, and Romney stand to benefit the most if Huckabee’s numbers begin to slide.

Huckabee and Giuliani have targeted their campaigns almost exclusively at opposite ends of the Republican coalition’s spectrum, while the rest of the major candidates are attempting to straddle both sides. It’s a question of emphasis and timing. The candidate that can balance his message on the right pressure point at the right time has a chance of unifying the base behind his campaign. The other may have to settle for a nice speaking slot at the convention.

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Mark Impomeni is a contributing editor at RedState and covers the White House for AOL’s new political blog, The Political Machine. He writes a column with a conservative’s take on the state of the 2008 presidential race for Political-Buzz.com.

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Filed under: 2008, Mike Huckabee, Republicans, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani