ANALYSIS
Mitt Romney supporters used to warn that a vote for Mike Huckabee was [cue the scary music] a vote for Rudy Giuliani. It wasn’t true of course — not in Iowa or New Hampshire or Michigan or South Carolina or Florida. Now they’re warning that a vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote for [cue the theme from Jaws] John McCain.

Nonsense, Mike Huckabee replies. Here’s what Gov. Huckabee said on his campaign website Thursday: “We are in this race to win despite the desperate efforts by the Romney campaign to try and say that ‘a vote for me is a vote for McCain’. Actually, a vote for me is a vote for me! And it’s a vote to say no to the underhanded efforts of the Romney campaign and his wholly-owned talk radio backers who are repeating that nonsense. We have outlasted Rudy, Fred, and others who were supposed to be the winners. Only 8% of the Republican delegates have been selected, and we have about the same number of delegates as McCain or Romney. We are in it to win.”

Why would a vote for Huckabee really be a vote for someone else? Well, here’s the Romney camp’s logic. Huckabee and Romney are both social conservatives, they claim. But Huckabee can’t beat McCain (or Giuliani.) Only Romney can beat McCain (or Giuliani.) So by voting for Huckabee, social conservative voters are “wasting” their vote, the logic goes.

This logic appeals to pragmatism instead of idealism. Don’t vote for the candidate you like most, it says. Vote for the candidate who can win. It appeals to fear instead of hope [only Mitt Romney can stop (allegedly) big, (allegedly) bad Rudy Giuliani...or John McCain...or Mike Huckabee].

But this is a risky argument for the Romney campaign. Because it can easily be turned against their man.

Click here and take a look at the polls and you’ll see what I mean.

In most National Head-to-Head polls, John McCain is narrowly ahead of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But Mitt Romney? He’s behind. Way, way behind. On average, Romney trails Clinton by 12 points. He lags behind Obama by 17 points.

Seventeen points.

If your vote is based on pure pragmatism, on sheer electability, then the polls suggest that John McCain is the candidate Most Likely to Succeed — at least this week. (Polls are a fairly fickle yard stick…)

At the moment, at least, polls suggest that a vote for Mitt Romney could be a vote for…………. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.