Huckabee knocking Romney’s evolving stances on values issues like abortion rights is nothing new, but comparing him to the flip-flopping John Kerry in an interview with CBN’s David Brody is. The question is whether Huckabee’s latest salvo says more about his own vulnerabilities than about Romney’s. God-o-Meter sees that the former Arkansas Governor is struggling to translate his second place finish in this month’s Ames straw poll into a surge in fundraising or support, while Romney finished first in Ames, is raking in the dough, and leads early primary state polls. Trying to maintain his Mr. Nice Guy image, Huckabee calls Romney a “man of integrity” but “It doesn’t mean the Democrats will lay off of him when it comes to doing the same thing to him in a general election that Republicans did to John Kerry by rolling those pieces of videotape with conflicting statements.”
Romney’s evolving views, Huckabee says, “causes people to say how many different changes of position can one have during an adult’s lifespan as a politician and then be confidant that that person is going to have another epiphany at some point in the future?”
In the same interview, Huckabee says it’s only natural for voters to take Romney’s Mormonism into account. While other candidates have been queasy about doing so, God-o-meter notes that Huckabee has pretty great political cover in doing so: the former Baptist preacher wants voters–particularly the GOP’s evangelical base–to consider his own faith, too: “[E]verybody’s faith, their career, their family, all of those things are part of what helps people to determine whether a candidate is acceptable to them.”
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