Mike Huckabee,
nursing a second third-place finish in northern states,
looked ahead to the South, where he hopes his Arkansas roots
and Baptist background will put him back on a winning
track in South Carolina.
''Ladies and
gentlemen, we're going to win South Carolina,'' he declared
to supporters in Lexington, S.C.
Huckabee, the
winner of the Iowa caucuses, has emerged from the back of
the pack into an improbable contender. But he has since had
to watch John McCain win New Hampshire and, now, Mitt
Romney win Michigan. He is staking his new foothold on
South Carolina's social conservatives and religious
voters as well as young working-class voters attracted to
his economic populist message. South Carolina's GOP
primary is Saturday.
''We put a flag
in the ground here Saturday,'' he said of the state.
''We're going to make it real clear that the
first-in-the-South primary is going to give their
support to the first-in-the-South candidate.''
The state is
more-familiar ground for the folksy ordained Baptist
minister. More than half of the state's likely Republican
voters are white evangelicals, according to the Pew
Research Center for the People and the Press. It was
those voters who carried Huckabee to victory in Iowa.
But there are no
guarantees for the former Arkansas governor. According
to exit polls in Michigan, about four in 10 voters in the
GOP contest called themselves born-again or
evangelical Christians, and they split about evenly
between Huckabee and Romney. In New Hampshire last week,
those voters split evenly among Huckabee, Romney, and
McCain.
Huckabee will
compete for those voters in South Carolina with Romney and
Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and television
actor who is staking the life of his campaign on a
victory in South Carolina.
''Whatever it
takes, we're in it for the long haul,'' Huckabee said on
CNN.
As he did in
Michigan, Huckabee was expected to rally pastors to help
turn out their flocks. He draws heavy support from parents
who homeschool their children, a small but actively
engaged bloc that populate his cadre of volunteers.
Huckabee repeated one of his favorite applause lines
Tuesday, telling supporters, ''Mothers and fathers raise
better kids than governments do.''
Huckabee has
drawn distinctions with his rivals over abortion and
same-sex marriage by calling for constitutional amendments
to ban both. Thompson and McCain oppose same-sex
marriage but stop short of calling for a
constitutional amendment. On abortion, Huckabee is alone in
calling for a constitutional amendment.
''I believe it's
a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be
to change the word of the living God,'' Huckabee said Monday
night in Warren, Mich. ''And that's what we need to
do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's
standards, rather than try to change God's
standards.''
He also talked
tough on immigration. Arriving Tuesday in Rock Hill, S.C.,
Huckabee called for suspending immigration from countries
that sponsor or harbor terrorists, going further than
any of his rivals in proposing to clamp down on
immigration.
''I say we ought
to put a hiatus on people who come in here ... if they
come from countries that sponsor and harbor terrorists,'' he
said. ''Let's say, until you get your act in order and
we get our act in order, we're not going to just let
you keep coming and threaten the future and safety of
America.''
His campaign
quickly backtracked; Huckabee dropped the issue in his next
speech, and an adviser, Jim Pinkerton, said Huckabee really
meant he wants a ''thorough review'' of immigration
problems.
He has appealed
for working-class voters by saying he was the first among
the Republican candidates to recognize economic hardships
that many Americans face.
''If you spend
some time listening to people, you're going to find that
there's a world of hurt out there in America,'' he told his
South Carolina supporters.
Huckabee trails
his rivals in financing and was outspent by both Romney
and Huckabee in Michigan. He spent about $480,000 in
advertising in the state, compared to more than $2
million by Romney. (Libby Quaid, AP)
