Go suck a bee, Sparky.One of Sparky's silliest theories of all time is that Mike Huckabee would have won the 2008 Republican presidential primaries were it not for his lack of funding. Sparky's logic goes like this:
- Mike Huckabee was the most openly religious of all the candidates (being a Southern Baptist minister), and therefore had the undying support of the majority of Republicans, who are all religious wackos
- Since Mike Huckabee was running a grassroots campaign and John McCain was not, John McCain was able to raise more money than Mike Huckabee
- The only reason that largely non-religious John McCain was able to win the Republican primaries was that he was able to outspend Mike Huckabee
- Although Mitt Romney outspent every other candidate, he did not win because he is a Mormon
It would be quite a task to prove that not all Republicans are religous wackos. Instead, I will prove that Republicans did like John McCain the best despite the fact that he was one of the least religious candidates.
According to the Campaign Finance Institute, John McCain did in fact outspend Mike Huckabee. In 2007 alone, Huckabee was able to raise only $9 million to McCain's $42 million.
However, Rudy Giuliani raised $62 million that same year. According to Sparky's theory, shouldn't he have gained the upper hand by January 2008? He didn't. By the end of February, Giuliani had raised only about $2 million more, Huckabee only $7 million more, and McCain about $14 million more.
According to the numbers, McCain was more popular than Huckabee all along. But wait, that doesn't take into account Huckabee's "grassroots campaign". Could it be that McCain's fundraising success was not due to the support of everyday Republicans, but rather to the support of a bunch of evil corporations and CEOs?
In 2007, John McCain raised $55 million in individual donations. Mike Huckabee raised only $15 in individual donations. If the majority of Republicans supported the religious guy, why didn't the religious guy get the most donations?
The one point that Sparky may be right on is Mitt Romney. In the same year that McCain and Giuliani spent about $60 million each, Romney spent about $110 million. Furthermore, Romney was well-known for his executive experience in business and as Governor of Massachusetts. It could be true that Republicans rejected Romney because they found his Mormon beliefs to be outlandish. It also may have been because of his political missteps on the campaign, such as when he claimed to remember hearing a speech he wasn't around to hear.
Nonetheless, Sparky is wrong about Mike Huckabee.
Most Republicans did not support Mike Huckabee. Most of them supported John McCain, and that is why he won the primaries. That's how fundraising and voting works!
1 comment:
At last Sparky has finally decided defend himself. First off Mr. Smarty pants I will redirect you to a site and that is "http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/22/opinion/main3737540.shtml" Now at First it might seem it doesnt defend my point but it does. As the reporter suggests
"The evangelicals within the evangelicals - i.e., hardcore evangelicals, like pastors or those who go to Saturday Bible study and Wednesday prayer circles, Hamlet's "real" evangelicals - went for Huckabee; but a lot of other self-identified evangelicals felt free to pick McCain on the basis of electability and national security." then there is also "In other words, if more candidates had been pro-choice, hostile to religion, and exhibited other red-flag issues for evangelicals, a protective or boosterish instinct would have incited more voters to vote for Huckabee." and there is also this from The Morning News Arkansas (Mikes home state) "Mike Huckabee on Thursday lashed out at religious leaders who did not support his failed run for the presidency, saying their help may have kept him in the race." the report also says this "Huckabee surprised many Americans with Republican primary victories in eight states, despite a low-budget campaign void of what he called "traditional, establishment political money." Because he ran a shoestring campaign, he wasn't perceived as a serious candidate, he said." and this ""There were leaders of the conservative movement that, had they stood with me early, I think the outcome would have been different," Huckabee said." Now the debate here is because of his lack of funding well it seems that everybody agrees that the "Repub" party is a religious party and that if it where not for some people being more adamant about supporting him it seems he might have done better. Huckabee did better in "rural" southern states then any other candidate, now I don't think that is a coincidence, do you? So, in that case with much more funding he would have done better but he was not funded because people (as in mixed up repubs) didnt know what they wanted, a crazy religious man or a crazy man who will say anything to be elected and picked possibly the most dumbest VP of our fine nations history.
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