A minority in a small state making a choice for US?

Michael Barone:

Every so often, I page through my copy of the Constitution, searching for the section that says Iowa and New Hampshire vote first. I've yet to find it. But Iowa and New Hampshire are set to lead off the presidential voting on January 3 and 8. Right now, Iowa, where about 200,000 people--around 10 percent of registered voters--are expected to attend the party caucuses, is producing great ruction in both parties' races.

The most startling news comes on the Republican side, where Mike Huckabee has pulled about even with Mitt Romney.

Huckabee, who finished second in the August straw poll in Ames, never topped 14 percent in polls taken before October. But a late-November Rasmussen poll showed him leading Romney 28 to 24 percent, and in the most recent polls, Romney has an average lead of only 27 to 26 percent.

Huckabee is an ordained Baptist minister as well as a former governor of Arkansas, and he seems to draw most of his support from the roughly 40 percent of caucusgoers who are evangelical Protestants. They account for two thirds of his support in the latest ABC/Washington Post poll.

A Huckabee victory in Iowa would seriously damage Romney, who has held leads, often wide leads, in Iowa polls since he started running TV ads there in the spring. It would hurt Fred Thompson, who needs the votes of religious conservatives in Iowa and elsewhere. It would help Rudy Giuliani, who has been running third in Iowa polls and second in New Hampshire to Romney, whose support there could evaporate if he fails to win in Iowa. It might help John McCain, who is banking on duplicating his 2000 win in New Hampshire.

Huckabee may have a hard time capitalizing on an Iowa win if he is unable to expand his appeal beyond evangelical Christians. New Hampshire is much more secular than Iowa and seems to have a distaste for southerners. George W. Bush lost and Al Gore barely won there in 2000; Bill Clinton lost there in 1992; Jimmy Carter won in 1976 but with only 29 percent of the vote.

Huckabee's considerable charm and wit may take the hard edge off for many who find his emphasis on religion unnerving; he fended off one hostile question in the CNN/YouTube debate by saying that Jesus was too smart to run for office. And there's a large evangelical base in South Carolina and Florida, which vote January 19 and 29.

But it's not clear whether Republican voters in other states, eager to nominate a candidate who can win in November, will embrace a candidate who will be portrayed by many in the media as an extremist on cultural issues and who has little experience relevant to protecting the nation--one issue on which Republicans have often held an advantage over Democrats.

...

Being the choice of a few church goers in Iowa is not necessarily a ticket to the White House. Ask Pat Robertson who also did well in the Iowa caucuses. While the state has picked a few who went on to win the nomination, it, like New Hampshire has picked some guys who never came close, remember the other Pat--Buchanan. John McCain win in 2000 also did not mean much in the end. But the media and many bloggers will continue to look at these races as if they are important, until the contest moves on to states that are more reflective of the national mood.