Voters: Huckabee is just right

January 3rd, 2008 at 11:38pm Aaron Chambers

Mike Huckabee won an astounding victory in Iowa tonight. The Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor bounded from relative obscurity to GOP frontrunner in just months.

He did this without the aid of an expansive, well-funded campaign that presidential candidates generally depend upon. And he did it while promoting his own Christian conservatism and despite a series of campaign missteps over the last couple weeks.

When a Huckabee campaign representative stepped before the 314th precinct and argued that Huckabee is just “like us,” I wondered whether this was an attempt to neutralize concern that Huckabee is too extreme.

Two Huckabee supporters I talked to at the precinct caucus said it’s not Huckabee that’s off the page. Rather, they said, it’s the others to the left of him.

“I don’t think he is off the page as much as Americans are off the page or the general national media (is off the page),” said John Gerdes, a 29-year-old accountant. “I don’t think California is ‘on the page’ by any means, and yet the media kind of portrays that as the general consensus in America.”

Gerdes continued: “In looking at all the candidates, I think that he exemplifies my beliefs and what I think a president should stand for. He is the candidate who hasn’t really changed his views on anything. You know, a lot of times candidates kinda test out the waters; they say one thing then go back on it. He hasn’t done that.”

Brooke Vaske, a 26-year-old teacher, concurred.

“I share a lot of the same values that he has,” she said. “I guess being from the Midwest, (I feel) that he would represent us well. I think the man who spoke as a representative was just indicating that we are the heartland and that (Huckabee’s) representing us and that’s what we want our country to be portrayed as.”

Indeed, most voting Iowa Republicans agreed.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized