After Mike Huckabee's bad news week his poll numbers must be completely shattered, right?
Not so much. Our monthly look at the 2012 Presidential race, due out Thursday, will show Huckabee's favorability at 35/35, pretty much unchanged from 36/37 on our November poll. And not only does it show him once again as the Republican who comes closest to Barack Obama, but it also shows him coming closer to Obama than he has in any of the previous nine monthly polls.
Does that mean he's getting a free pass on the Washington cop killings by an inmate whose sentence he commuted? Probably not. I'm sure that would be a massive liability if he did get into the 2012 Republican field, and used effectively against him by his opponents. But it's a good reminder that the vast majority of Americans do not live and die by the 24 hour news cycle. Huckabee's numbers haven't changed because more than likely few voters who didn't already have their minds made up about him are familiar with his connection to last week's tragedy.
The incident will probably hurt Huckabee's political standing in the long run, but for now it's not having an impact on him.
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8 comments:
Tom, I think that you're wrong. Nobody was able to miss this story that was running for a few days all the time. I as a Republican that supports Huck and many of my friends that think the same aren't going to change our vote in the primary b/c of one stupid story which for many republicans who get their news from FOX and Drudge, so they got the whole story which was that Huck wasn't really to blame much b/c it was reccomended to him by the authorities and even someone who thinks that he's a bit to blame on this and they support his views and policies, who should they change their mind. So here you get it from the point of view of a Republican who explains to you the results of this poll. have a good day!
24/7 misleading coverage on Clemmons commutation and Huckabee still comes out on top, just the way I like it. Just goes to show that Americans value facts over fiction.
The people the spewed the most against Huckabee this last week already hated him. This includes conservative with grunges from the last GOP primary and some liberals.
Overall though, when most people read the details of the case, they realized Huckabee's decision, based on the facts at the time was actually not unreasonable.
I don't think you are right on people not knowing, Tom. Many non-political people (who never follow politics) approached me this week because they heard of the incident and knew I am a Huckabee supporters. With a 24/7 media ravage from both right and left, as well as Huckabee's appearances on O'Reilly, Hannity and the View (not to men Jon Stewart tonight) I don't think people were totally in the dark. He just did a very good job clarifying the misinformation being distributed by his political enemies.
Huck signed it. Man up and own it. Despite what may be strong support today the "huckster" will never become a nominee for Repubs. Bank on it. Wasn't he waffling on the immigration thing once upon a time?
As a CONSERVATIVE I think "we" need a more inspiring, solid candidate. Ain't buying the "heehaw/gomer pyle act" either.
The 5th poster has inspired me to comment. They are a perfect example of someone who is not well-informed, yet highly vocal in their opposition to a candidate from the south. Like it or not, the Southern Strategy is real, it is the only way that Republicans can ever win the White House, and it's not because we're all a bunch of hillbillies. We just happen to have common sense. We southern Republicans are the ones who understand that baby in it's mother's womb is entitled to the right to life and we were the ones who were against the TARP bailout, just like Gov. Huckabee. There's no other potential candidate out there like that and until there is, false accusations against Gov. Huckabee and mud-slinging will simply never work - in fact, they only make him stronger so, go ahead, keep it up!
Just what we need, to put the executive in charge of one of the 10 most corrupt administrations in US history up as a candidate. The non-partisan JudicialWatch ranks the Huckabee governorship an order of magnitude more corrupt than even the Clinton governorship. The fact that this does not seem to matter to my fellow Republicans is an indication that our party must reverse course or face dissolution. As a conservative, a Republican, and a passionate and devout Christian, I could never vote for this criminal. Those who do, merely because he pretends to be a Christian, will surely answer for their short-sightedness.
I do not know why you guys think that this reduction of sentence is even an issue. Huckabee did not pardon the guy. He reduced the guy's sentence to 45 years from an unreasonable 108 years for a strong arm robbery as a teen.
The judge rethought it and asked Huckabee for the reduction. The fact that the parole board released him much earlier is not Huckabee's problem. The fact that both Washington state and Arkansas refused to follow the law and put him back in jail when he violated his parole is sad, but Huckabee had nothing to with it anyway.
Huckabee was not even in office and let alone had no influence over Washington state's decision not to extradicte this guy back to AK. Voters are smarter than you consultants think.
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