{"id":144,"date":"2007-12-03T12:44:32","date_gmt":"2007-12-03T12:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html"},"modified":"2007-12-03T12:44:32","modified_gmt":"2007-12-03T12:44:32","slug":"a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html","title":{"rendered":"A Vote for Huckabee is a Vote for Rudy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"romneyhuckabee.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/211\/import\/romneyhuckabee.jpg\" width=\"143\" \/><br \/>\nNational Right to Life general counsel and Mitt Romney backer James Bopp Jr. told the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iowachristian.com\/\">Iowa Christian Alliance<\/a> last week that a vote for Giuliani is a vote for Rudy Giuliani, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.washingtonpost.com\/thefix\/2007\/12\/romney_surrogate_pushes_antiru.html\">The Washington Post<\/a><\/em> reports. God-o-Meter remembers sitting down with a Romney aide more than six months ago and hearing that the campaign was likely to eventually resort to this &#8220;vote for your second favorite candidate&#8221; strategy to woo evangelical Christians. The thinking is simple: Huckabee doesn&#8217;t have the money\/organization to challenge a star candidate like Giuliani; Romney does.<br \/>\nFrom the <em>Post<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I love Mike Huckabee,&#8221; Bopp said, quickly adding: &#8220;Something I know for sure [is] he does not have the resources to compete.&#8221; Boiled down, Bopp&#8217;s argument is simple: You might like Huckabee best but he can&#8217;t win. So, vote for the guy &#8212; Romney &#8212; you like second best.<br \/>\nThe call to practical thinking represents a major break with the past approach of social conservatives when it comes to picking a candidate. In cycles past many social conservatives threw their support behind candidates like Alan Keyes, Gary Bauer and even Rev. Pat Robertson &#8212; none of whom were seen as top tier contenders or were able to compete with those &#8220;A&#8221; list candidates financially.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>God-o-Meter predicts that the power of this argument among evangelical Christians rides largely on Romney&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2007\/12\/romney-to-deliver-religion-spe.html\">&#8220;Faith in America&#8221; speech<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Right to Life general counsel and Mitt Romney backer James Bopp Jr. told the Iowa Christian Alliance last week that a vote for Giuliani is a vote for Rudy Giuliani, The Washington Post reports. God-o-Meter remembers sitting down with a Romney aide more than six months ago and hearing that the campaign was likely&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitt-romney"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Vote for Huckabee is a Vote for Rudy? - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Vote for Huckabee is a Vote for Rudy? - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"National Right to Life general counsel and Mitt Romney backer James Bopp Jr. told the Iowa Christian Alliance last week that a vote for Giuliani is a vote for Rudy Giuliani, The Washington Post reports. God-o-Meter remembers sitting down with a Romney aide more than six months ago and hearing that the campaign was likely&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-03T12:44:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romneyhuckabee.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dgilgoff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Vote for Huckabee is a Vote for Rudy? - God-O-Meter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Vote for Huckabee is a Vote for Rudy? - God-O-Meter","og_description":"National Right to Life general counsel and Mitt Romney backer James Bopp Jr. told the Iowa Christian Alliance last week that a vote for Giuliani is a vote for Rudy Giuliani, The Washington Post reports. God-o-Meter remembers sitting down with a Romney aide more than six months ago and hearing that the campaign was likely&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html","og_site_name":"God-O-Meter","article_published_time":"2007-12-03T12:44:32+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romneyhuckabee.jpg"}],"author":"dgilgoff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html","name":"A Vote for Huckabee is a Vote for Rudy? - God-O-Meter","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romneyhuckabee.jpg","datePublished":"2007-12-03T12:44:32+00:00","dateModified":"2007-12-03T12:44:32+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romneyhuckabee.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/files\/import\/romneyhuckabee.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/12\/a-vote-for-huckabee-is-a-vote.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Vote for Huckabee is a Vote for Rudy?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/","name":"God-O-Meter","description":"A scientific measure of God-talk in the elections","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/b7e97412c87d7a3b866e9972cc090db4","name":"dgilgoff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/858\/858da2927809a8352512cd24712c020cx96.jpg","caption":"dgilgoff"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/author\/dgilgoff"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}