The Republican Race is Romney vs. Huckabee

Here's an article that best sums up the state of the Republican race right now. That race is up in the air in large part because the "values voter" base of the party has not coalesced around one candidate. Romney has been heavily courting their vote. But there's the flip-flopping issue, since he is taking positions now that he disavowed in the past. Huckabee is a real option for these voters in a way Giuliani isn't because of his issue positions and Thompson isn't because of a lack of charisma.

At a values-voter summit in DC this weekend:

The results of the event’s straw poll were especially telling: Of the 5,775 votes received at on-site voting kiosks, by mail, and online, Romney won 1,595, while Huckabee was only 30 votes behind, at 1,565.

But these baseline numbers don’t tell the entire story. Voting online required only a nominal donation to the Family Research Council, the organization that ran the poll and the leading sponsor of this weekend’s summit, held at the Hilton Washington. Candidates sent out appeals to their supporters to cast an online vote in the poll -- such votes turned out to generate about 94 percent of Romney’s support.

Among people who actually paid to attend the conference, people FRC President Tony Perkins has called “influencers” within their communities and church congregations, the result was far different, and a decisive victory for Huckabee. Over 51 percent of those who voted at the conference chose the former Arkansas governor. Romney was a distant second, garnering just over 10 percent of the vote.

Tony Perkins predicted that Huckabee, who also finished second to Romney at the Ames, Iowa straw poll in August, would see a benefit once attendees made their way back home from Washington. “I believe that Gov. Huckabee will get a significant bounce out of this,” Perkins said, later adding that Huckabee could join the company of Romney, Giuliani and Fred Thompson at the front of the GOP pack.

This is the real race, between these two candidates. The only thing Romney really has on Huckabee is his funding. This is obviously a huge asset.

But other leaders within the evangelical movement are not sold on Huckabee, particularly Gary Bauer, head of American Values, one of the summit’s co-sponsors. He said Huckabee, who raised only $1 million in the third quarter of the year, doesn’t have the time or resources to compete with the top GOP candidates.

“I’m skeptical, I am,” Bauer said. “I just don’t see how you go from having $600,000 in the bank one year before the election and go on to leap-frog everybody else, beat Giuliani and then go on to beat Hillary Clinton. I just don’t see it happening.”

Will this argument sway Republican voters? It could. The Iowa voters could very well make the rational decision to go with the wealthy candidate. But they could just as well go with the personality candidate. This thing is still up in the air. If the Huckster has untold millions, it would be a no-brainer. If he starts raising money, his campaign will really take off.