Elmer* leads in Iowa

From Newsweek:

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."

The poll, which has an overall margin of error of 3 percent, also indicated that on the Republican as well as the Democratic side Iowa is increasingly becoming a two-person race. Among likely GOP caucus-goers, 57 percent name Huckabee as their first or second choice and 39 percent give Romney as their first or second choice. On this measure, Thompson is a distant third, with just 20 percent.

Questions about religion—in particular skepticism about Romney's Mormonism—appeared to play a role in the latest results on the GOP side. The survey was completed on the day of the former Massachusetts governor's much-heralded speech in College Station, Texas, addressing his religion, though most respondents probably had not heard it. Still, only a small number of the 540 Republican voters surveyed in Iowa (10 percent) said they wanted to hear more from Romney about that issue, and 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.

Romney gave a very good speech in which he said a number of very true things which needed to be said but in the end all he may have accomplished was to remind the voters that he is in fact a Mormon.

The fact that only 27% of Iowa voters don't know that Mormonism is not Christianity is disturbing. The Churches clearly need to do a better job of instructing their congregants.

Still in those areas where religious faith intersects with matters of secular public policy Mormons are very similar to orthodox Christians. It is unfortunate that many Christians are not willing to make that distinction, but if an error must be made I suppose it is better to make it on the side of caution.

What is really sad in all of this is that Huckabee is a phoney liberal in conservative's clothing. If he gains the nomination I will support him because he will not tear apart the Republican Party and will be better than either Mrs. Bill Clinton or B. Hussein Obama.

In all the talk about how Huckabee is surging ahead of Romney I think that a gem of really good news is being overlooked. Giuliani is in free fall. As things stand now he will finish fourth. If this trend continues through the early primaries I believe he will have a very difficult time building enough momentum to win the nomination.

* I have decided that Huckelberry is not a good nickname for Mike Huckabee. I believe that a much better nickname for him would be Elmer Gantry.