“Bush Hawks,” the second-largest group, are the president’s most ardent supporters, as Fabrizio found, the only voter segment that says the country is moving in the right direction. They believe in a militarily muscular foreign policy that spreads democracy.

Criticizing Bush’s foreign policy, as Huckabee has done, would definitely rub this group the wrong way. Which is why Romney is attempting to bring Huckabee’s statements to the attention of these so-called Bush Hawks. ~The Swamp

Romney must have forgotten that he is competing in Iowa, where even a slim majority of Republicans wants withdrawal from Iraq within the next six months.  Fabrizio’s survey is useful for understanding the make-up of the modern GOP and may explain why Huckaabee is doing as well as he is right now.  If you tally up the groups that seem to align with many of the positions in the campaign that Huckabee has been running on, you come up with a large part of the Republican Party.  Consider: “Heartland” Republicans (8%) are “[n]ot opposed to more government spending & regulation, and action on environment,” the bizarrely named “Dennis Miller Republicans” (14%) are focused on social issues and illegal immigration and are more likely to be gun owners (Huckabee is solid on two of these three and is pretending to be care about the third), the “Government Knows Best Republicans” (13%) are focused on social issues and are more supportive of government intervention on social and environmental issues and, of course, the “Moralists” (24%).  This group includes a majority of evangelicals.  They have lower income than the GOP average and are, as the name suggests, preoccupied with moral issues. 

This 24% alone could possibly account for Huckabee’s explosion in poll numbers across the country, and then you realise that another 35% of the GOP would be open to the kind of politics Huckabee offers.  That’s approaching two-thirds of the party.  The 28% of “Bush Hawks” and “Free Marketers,” who are overrepresented among conservative and Republican elites, clearly don’t like what Huckabee represents, but if these categories and descriptions are correct they are outnumbered by people who would theoretically be very receptive to Huckabee.  This advantage is increased still more in Iowa, where the potentially Huckabee-friendly segments of the GOP are likely to be much stronger in numbers than the BHs and FMs.  The groups that make up this 59% are also the groups that value positions on issues more than they value leadership qualities in a candidate (while “Bush Hawks” and “Free Marketers” give the two equal weight), which probably works to the advantage of the candidate who is “right” on the issues even if his rivals have better reputations for competence and management.  The “Moralists” naturally strongly believe that the GOP has not spent too much time focusing on moral issues, and it against the rest of the party’s belief that it has that the “Moralists” may be reacting in propelling Huckabee into the lead.  Even in June, Huckabee was getting 4% of the DMRs and 3% of the “Moralists” when he was considered a nobody and was barely getting 1% overall.  From those two groups alone, he may have a ceiling of 37% of the party, which would make him very formidable.

There is something rather timid and unhopeful about all this. Mr Obama is not prepared to break ranks with his party in the same way that John McCain divides Republicans over immigration or Rudy Giuliani does over abortion. ~The Economist

Which is why he still has any chance of winning his party’s nomination, while McCain and, it appears, Giuliani have less and less hope of doing so every day.

Ron Paul appeared on Jim Kramer’s CNBC show Mad Money.  They make for a very unusual pair, but just watch them as they bash the Fed!

The next Ron Paul “moneybomb” event begins tomorrow on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.  If you haven’t given to Ron Paul’s campaign yet, I urge you to do so now.  The fourth quarter fundraising is already over $11.5, so there is a reasonable chance of a $16 or 17 million quarter.  Let’s make that happen.

Update: As of 12:26 a.m. Central Time, the $12 million mark had been passed.

Ghettoizing himself as a Christian warrior may win him Iowa, but it will only help Giuliani in Florida and on Feb 5. ~National Journal

This is the sort of thinking that propels the “Huckabee helps Giuliani” idea onward, despite its increasing implausibility.  Supposing that the Rasmussen result is a fluke, Giuliani is still in a lot of trouble.  Here’s one reason why:

“A lot of Florida’s social conservatives have been in somewhat of a wait-and-see mode,” says Florida Baptist Convention lobbyist and Tampa Bay-area Christian radio host Bill Bunkley, who counts himself among those waiting and seeing. “There hasn’t been a strong, viable social conservative candidate for them to coalesce around.” 

If social conservatives coalesce, they could play a decisive role in Florida’s Jan. 29 primary.

Quinnipiac University, which regularly polls Florida voters, estimates that more than one-third of state GOP primary voters [bold mine-DL] are “white, born-again evangelicals.”

If Huckabee can win over a large majority of these voters, which will also mean taking them away from Giuliani, Florida could conceivably be his, and he may have some built-in support networks in Michigan, where he is now apparently tied for the lead.  The establishment has six weeks to make Huckabee radioactive to his natural constituency before he is in danger of capturing enough delegates to make it a real contest.  Will they be able to do it without employing the sort of insults against evangelicals and Southerners that have started to gain currency?

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has surged in support in other early-voting states, is tied with Rudy Giuliani for the lead among U.S. Republican presidential candidates in Illinois, a poll showed on Saturday. ~Reuters

Huckabee is strongest, the Tribune reports, in the suburbs and Downstate, which makes some sense.  What makes less sense is how Huckabee can even be competitive here when he has never even made one appearance here. 

For those keeping track at home, Illinois is one of the most delegate-rich states voting on February 5.

The Des Moines Register’s editorial board has endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Iowa caucuses. ~The Des Moines Register

This doesn’t matter much for the Republicans, but for Clinton it is a significant boost, and the rumours were that it might go to Obama.  The endorsement was a bit grudging, but it validates Clinton’s claims to experience and preparedness:

Indeed, Obama, her chief rival, inspired our imaginations. But it was Clinton who inspired our confidence. Each time we met, she impressed us with her knowledge and her competence.

Is there any chance that this endorsement will make McCain a threat to Thompson?  I’m doubtful, but if so this could be the editorial that sent Fred packing.

The war remains enormously unpopular and major political liability for the Republican Party. The new ABC-Washington Post Poll finds Democrats favored over Republicans on the war by a 16 point margin, slightly higher than the Democratic margin earlier this year and last year.

The claim that public opinion has shifted on the war appears to be based almost entirely on a small uptick on one measure–opinion about how the war is going. There has been a small improvement on this question, presumably in response to reports of decreasing violence and, most importantly, decreasing U.S. casualties. But this shift is not indicative of any broader shift in public opinion toward the war. Opposition to the war remains as high as ever as does support for a withdrawal timetable. And Iraq clearly remains the most salient issue in the 2008 election. ~Alan Abramowitz

Maybe something drastic has changed in public opinion in the last four weeks, but I don’t think so.  If there are larger liabilities for the GOP than the war in Iraq, they are in even worse shape than I think they are, since that would mean that they have at least two huge electoral liabilities.

I’m the last person to say that this administration is subject to an arrogant, bunker mentality that is counterproductive here and abroad. ~Mitt Romney

Where was it again, James, that Romney was “offering a greater departure from Bush’s foreign policy than any Republican save Ron Paul”?  This is someone who wants to try Ahmadinejad under the Genocide Convention for giving his anti-Israel speeches.  He prattles on about incipient caliphates just as the President does.  On any issue where he has put forward his own view, it is usually an endorsement of the principles of the current administration.  Most of Romney’s proposed changes to the status quo are improvements in managing and implementing Bush’s broken foreign policy vision. 

His attacks on Huckabee are also rather remarkable.  In his actual essay, his concrete proposals are almost all the same in principle as Huckabee’s, and his essay is much more deficient in addressing Iran and Pakistan or indeed much of the rest of the world.  Does Romney really want to get into a fight in an area where his experience is no greater and his ideas, especially on Iran, are demonstrably worse?  What Republicans seem to dislike the most about Huckabee’s essay are the unprofessional language and the attacks on Bush.  Certainly, serious foreign policy arguments might stand fewer references to Brer Rabbit, but you’d be very unwise as a candidate to tie yourself as closely to the President as Romney is doing.  Republicans apparently love this, but the other almost two-thirds of the country might have different ideas. 

I suppose one can say that Giuliani also offers a “departure” from Bush’s foreign policy, in that it is entirely, and not just mostly, divorced from the real world.

The news story covering Huckabee’s FA essay has taken his opening lines about the administration’s “arrogant bunker mentality” and made them half of the entire story.  The blog right is, predictably, throwing a fit, with more than a few declaring that they cannot support Huckabee.  It probably cannot help Huckabee in the early voting that the only person I have seen praising the essay is…Joe Klein.  The remarkable thing is that Huckabee’s essay, while I have problems with a lot of it, does some of what the Republicans need to do politically (balance GOP support for the war with a broader break with at least some of the more egregious flaws of Bush’s foreign policy) and it demonstrates some reasonably good understanding of Iran and Pakistan.  Some of his proposals (launching attacks into Pakistan, remaining in Iraq, etc.) seem terrible to me, but they are exactly the kinds of things that Republican voters should appreciate about this essay. 

On the GOP’s largest general election liability and its worst policy position, the war in Iraq, Huckabee remains a loyal yes-man, so what do they really have to complain about?  His opposition to the Law of the Sea Treaty is red meat for the base, while his general interest in more robust diplomacy otherwise should satisfy more moderate Republicans.  Most of the opposition to the essay, I suspect, has been driven by a visceral reaction against the knock on the administration, as if criticising Mr. Bush were some unpardonable error.  If Republicans are going to make criticism of the current administration’s foreign policy completely off-limits and punish the candidates who make those criticisms, they are going to lose and they will deserve to lose.  My guess is that Huckabee’s foreign policy, whatever its substantive merits and problems, will sound reasonable and it will provide a refreshing departure for Republicans who don’t want to give up on the war but who also don’t want another four years of blustering militarism.  It isn’t the foreign policy I would prefer, but for a lot of disillusioned Republican voters it might be just right. 

Nonetheless, if he wants to shore up his reputation here, he really has to stop analogising international relations to family quarrels.  There is a way to make the argument he wants to make on Iran that doesn’t involve referring to reconciling with your estranged brother or what-have-you.

Update: James thinks the “arrogant bunker mentality” line has everything backwards–it is the administration’s enthusiasm muck about in the rest of the world that is the problem.  That’s true, but it doesn’t entirely rule out something like the mentality to which Huckabee is referring.  If I understood him right, the mentality in question is one that believes that the world is unipolar, we are indispensable and must be involved in everyone else’s business, but which also thinks that we are under dire threat from tinpot dictatorships on the other side of the planet.  The first part is the arrogance, and the second is the bunker mentality, and the administration displays elements of both.  Indeed it justifies its activist foreign policy in terms of its paranoia about overblown foreign threats.  Obviously, there must be a much, much better way to say it than he did (as with so many things Huckabeean), but there is something to this critique.

Philip Klein is also right that there is something in the essay to alienate all factions (conversely, there is something in the speech to reassure most factions).  It is true that it is incoherent, but that is what you will get when you are a candidate trying to shore up a pro-war base with a foreign policy that isn’t simply a reiteration of what we have now.  When every feint in the direction of realism is greeted by hostility, it will not be surprising that the would-be realist has to keep zig-zagging with promises to invade Pakistan and reject the Law of the Sea right after he denounces arrogance and the “bunker mentality.”  Also, the critique that he is proposing “a foreign aid program that would make Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society look like a trivial domestic initiative” must also be aimed at Romney, who proposed something very similar in hisFA essay:

 I envision that the summit would lead to the creation of a Partnership for Prosperity and Progress: a coalition of states that would assemble resources from developed nations and use them to support public schools (not Wahhabi madrasahs), microcredit and banking, the rule of law, human rights, basic health care, and free-market policies in modernizing Islamic states. These resources would be drawn from public and private institutions and from volunteers and nongovernmental organizations.