Mike Huckabee’s victory in Iowa’s Republican caucus may end up disappointing all those supporters who have been robotically comparing the candidate with Ronald Reagan.
Huckabee’s success can be largely attributed to his overwhelming support among evangelical voters and women. Evangelicals constituted the majority of Republican caucus goers, some 60 percent. CNN’s entrance polling showed Huckabee won 45 percent of that group. Mitt Romney, who has feverishly wooed social conservatives, only drew 19 percent of those voters.
Huckabee also seems to have overwhelmingly won the female vote. He picked up close to 45 percent of women, to only 23 percent for Romney, according to CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider.
Coupled with the surge of that other “non-conservative” John McCain’s in New Hampshire, Huckabee’s win will keep pundits on the right busy dis-equating the ideology with Republicanism.
Rush Limbaugh grappled with several calls Thursday afternoon from Huckabee enthusiasts who compared the former Arkansas governor to The Gipper. Reagan, too, had raised taxes as governor of California and signed off on amnesty for illegal aliens as president, they claimed.
After the first call, Limbaugh struggled to maintain his composure. In the process, he launched into a brilliant tour de horizon of Reagan’s conservative credentials as both a thinker and practitioner. (Reagan’s 1964 exposition on the conservative movement remains one of most brilliant tracts.)
If anything, Huckabee’s record, Limbaugh concluded, made him another version of Slick Willie. Like Bill Clinton, Huckabee is making himself malleable enough to everyone just to be elected.
The Reagan comparison is where Hucksters, no doubt egged on by their man’s campaign, have gone terribly wrong – and may live to regret.
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