2006 Arkansas Poll: Clinton 51% vs. Huckabee 36%. Why are we DOOOOOMED if he is nominated?

According to many on DU, Huckabee is the GOP's strongest candidate, and Hillary our weakest. Yet in the state that knows those two candidates the best, a state that voted about 7% more Republican than the rest of the country in 3 out of the last 5 elections, I see no evidence of this supposed Huckabee strength.

Here is a 2006 Arkansas poll:
In poll results released Thursday, 51 percent of respondents said they would vote for Clinton in a head-to-head match-up with Huckabee and 36 percent favored the governor, with 15 percent undecided.
Asked about a potential contest between Huckabee and Clark, respondents favored the retired Army General and former NATO commander 51 percent to 37 percent, with 12 percent undecided.
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2006/08/25/News/337438.html

Here is a newer Arkansas poll from October:
"If the presidential election were held today, who would you vote for for president?" In answer to this open-ended question, 35 percent of respondents named Hillary Clinton. The next most frequently named candidates were Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee at 8 percent each.
http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/11709.htm

Wow. The people who know him best don't seem to be that into him. What is everyone so scared about again?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

will vote for him. Arkansans know he raised taxes and messed with local control of school districts. Didn't set well, especially in the conservative northwest corner of the state.

Democrats have too much wimp in them to use this issue against Huckabee. But Republicans will use ANYTHING -- and even make up stuff -- to slander their political opponents.

That means somebody -- Romney, Giuliani or Thompson -- is soon going to start harping on the Wayne DuMond incident, in which Huckabee let the right-wing media and paranoid right-wing websites like Free Republic pressure him into prematurely freeing a rapist, simply because his victim was a distant relative of Clintons.

It isn't a story that makes the right wing look good, so the meda has avoided it. But it's a silver bullet to opponent of Huckleberry and, being conservatives, they are sure to use it.

punishment? I remember something about actions taken against him five times.

any of the main Democratic candidates. The momentum is very much with the Democratic Party in most layers of government.

Huckabee is off the mainstream contest radar. Once nominated he seems the "nicest" person to schmooze over his terrible shortcomings. That is all the goon and scandal weary GOP needs to put its miserable machinery into motion against a moderate, restrained Dem candidate. His national polling numbers now are meaningless. It only depends on whether the GOP machine decides to support his primary victories should they seal the deal.

Of course it is right not to proclaim him "invincible" versus Hillary. That is obvious projection of the anti-Hillary DU campaign and boosting these GOP idiots into demi-gods is the sinful right of their media machine. It might be nice if someone stuck to the possible point that the right counter to Hillary is NOT Guiliani but a non-threatening fresh face that disguises ideological nuttiness. His problem with the GOP is that he might be too intelligent, too independent or too honest for the establishments real desires. However he seems enough the fool to do any harm they care to manipulate him into. Of course Al Capone would invite the same GOP moral reservations at this stage. Whichever of our candidates run the GOP has its own problems. If Edwards, then they must choose Huckabee, I should think. If Hillary, they would actually be tempted to field a weaker, more acceptable goon. These speculations create more headaches than gotcha points.

He was their fucking Governor for Christ sake.

in that case other governors have had similar lack of enthusiasm for their national ambitions. I should have said(having nothing to say) that we need to see how it plays out nationally. Governors, even popular ones, usually pursue the presidency after their peak in popularity and tasks in the state. The danger is always the state people have grown weary of what the nation in newly asked to enthuse about.

He's disassociated from the war, he's disassociated from the catastrophe that is Washington Republicans, and he's not got the baggage that Giuliani and Romney have in attracting the religious right and bringing them back to the polls. And he comes off on TV as being smart and personably, and not bat shit crazy, even though he is.

And it isn't wonderful to be the least embarrassing choice.

...having to do with his time as governor. Don't expect the MSM to spread those tales very far in the rest of the country.

the top three repukes have little chance of carrying their home states - MA and NY will be strongly dem as usual. Looks like a Huckabee isn't all that popular in is home state.

Good news as far as I'm concerned.

But carrying one's home state isn't the most important characteristic of a president.

as they did for georgie. the media is not on america's side.

looks less uptight than Hillary (a DailyKos person said that she's doomed if he plays bass if he's nominated at the RNC... she can't hope to beat that image), is refreshingly fiscally liberal (and sounds less corporatist and more populist than Hillary), and despite all of the anti-science allegations, he's more environmentally-friendly than most Republicans.

why does Ankansas prefer Hillary? I'd love to see him play the bass at the RNC. He looks like a fucking dork on that thing.

But the rest of the country might. Just be warned, is all.

And dork or not, I can't think of anything that Hill can do to look more folksy and less uptight than Huck.

ask Fred Thompson, the last guy DUers were claiming would DOOOOOOOOOOM us.

Rolling Stone magazine website, I think. It is called "Five Things you should know about Huckabee" or "Five Things that Huckabee Doesn't Want You to Know". I think that might have been where I read about him destroying the hard drives in the office computers, along with other assorted nasties. A good read. Huckabee is a loon.

Matt Taibi (sp?) wrote the article. It is called "Our Favorite Right-Wing Nutjob".

Doesn't matter. I mean, this stuff will get dragged out as he rises, but scandals tend to slide off candidates' backs if they're sufficiently popular enough. Worked for the last few presidents. And I honestly don't see anything exceedingly crazy from Huckabee so far on the religious front in the Tabbi article- he's just staying a doctrine that's held by a large number of people in the U.S. I'll be alarmed when it actually appears in his proposed foreign policy.

And again, his anti-Darwinism stuff is meaningless if he sidesteps it with a progressive environmentalist/anti-Global Warming. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/19/huckabee/">Like so. You're better off trying to look up his scary anti-contraceptives stuff.

I think that the pardon won't stick. He'll probably play it off as an act of Christian charity. Commentators would probably accuse Democrats of a double standard. I think what will really hurt Huckabee will be his insane son.

the rest of us unless he is elected President!

making the race closer than it needs to be.

We need a candidate that represents our ideals, not one that just screws us slightly less than the GOP does.

Rudy turns off the religious right and has a couple box cars of dirty laundry.
Thompson enrages women and is extremely lazy.
Rommny is considered an apostate by most of the base of the Republican party.
Is McCain still running?

Huckabee has "legitimate" religious values and comes across as somewhat likable.