In the comments on the post about Mike Huckabee winning the “Values Voter Summit” strawpoll there’s a lot of fear. I’m generally sanguine for two reasons:
1) A lot changes between now & then.
2) Populist candidates usually can’t override the veto of the elites (arguably Goldwater in ’64 and McGovern in ’72 were recent exceptions).
But as others noted below, Huckabee has a “structural” problem: he seems a regional evangelical candidate. In fact, Mitt Romney had the inverse problem, he tended to win outside the South and among non-evangelical conservatives. The combination of Romney + Huckabee, winner-take-all, and McCain’s strength in a few key states, resulted in the unlikely outcome in 2008. So it isn’t as if everything is predetermined, the combination of these candidates resulted in an equilibrium whereby John McCain gained the Republican nomination.
Some of this is probably just the candidates in that race, but it might also be the primary schedule. To the left are the breakdowns from a Pew survey from 2008. If South Carolina was the first primary a social conservative candidate would probably start out strong, with “momentum.” As it s, rather atypical (for the nation) New Hampshire gets its say first.
I jsut dont get Huckabee, how can people support him after 8 years of Bush. Compassionate conservatism FAILED, religion aside, the movement was an utter failure. Huckabee personifies that to an extreme so it just leaves me utterly bewildered.
a substantial minority of americans voted for mcgovern and mondale, even in the wake of the chaos which occurred after great society. point being: ideologies have a floor of support no matter the outcomes. very liberal democrats remained viable primary scale candidates because the center of gravity in the democratic party was left of center. same dynamic for republicans in the wake of the disaster which was “compassionate conservatism.”
I predict that the first political party to defect from the current system that allows Iowa, New Hampshire and a few other states to have a disproportionate influence on the nomination will produce a candidate that will win the general election that year.