Analysis: Can Huckabee broaden appeal?

This much is known: Mike Huckabee, a one-time Southern Baptist preacher, attracts fellow Christian evangelicals in droves.

Still a question is whether can he appeal to a broader scope of the GOP electorate and swing voters the Republican Party needs to beat Democrats in November.

The answer could come Tuesday when Michigan votes.

Demographically, the Midwestern state looks more like the country than Iowa and New Hampshire. Independents and Democrats also can vote in the Republican primary. That makes Michigan a test of whether Huckabee's populist pitch can pull in GOP moderates and others uneasy with his hard-right stances on cultural issues, outward emphasis on faith and mixed record on economic issues.

"People are coming to us who have never voted for a Republican before, in many cases haven't ever voted before, because America realizes that what we have had isn't working," the former Arkansas governor told a boisterous crowd Saturday in Grand Rapids, sending the message that all are welcome — and trying to counter the notion that he's a one-constituency candidate.

"If we're going to win in November," he added, "we'd better elect somebody who can attract folks that aren't necessarily hard-core Republicans or hard-core Democrats, but that are hard-core Americans who love this country."

Nevermind that he, so far, hasn't proven he's such a candidate.

For all his effort to broaden his reach, Huckabee is still almost exclusively an evangelical Christian candidate. Exit polls from Iowa and New Hampshire show that most of his support comes from that voting group; he holds little appeal among more moderate Republicans and independents compared with his GOP rivals.

Complicating the task in Michigan is John McCain. The Arizona senator has the momentum from his win in New Hampshire, he won Michigan during his bid for president in 2000 and Democrats and independents who like McCain can vote Tuesday in the GOP primary.

Privately, some party strategists grumble that having Huckabee on the ticket in November could spell disaster for Republican candidates for Congress in swing districts. They fear that Huckabee wouldn't be able to get more than 40 percent of the vote, and question whether the GOP would end up ceding critical states like Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania to the Democrats.

"All his talk about God and faith could reinforce the view of moderate voters that there's too much co-mingling between religion and politics. But he's got this populist appeal that could attract them," said G. Terry Madonna, a pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania. "We don't know yet whether his populism trumps the religious side of his campaign. But either way you cut it, I don't think Huckabee is a candidate who will do well in swing states."

Steve Mitchell, a Republican pollster in East Lansing who is unaligned in the race, counters with Huckabee's elections in Arkansas.

"It's not an easy state for a Republican to win in," Mitchell noted.

That's Huckabee's argument for those who question his reach. He preemptively reminds audiences that he twice was elected governor of Arkansas, one of only a few Republicans to do so in 150 years, and battled a Democratic-controlled Legislature.

As he runs for president, he puts his faith at the forefront of his campaign, and that leads some Republicans to wonder whether there's still too much of the preacher in the politician. They get queasy about a candidate who, for example, raised his hand when GOP debaters were asked who didn't believe in evolution, or one who once expressed a need to "take this nation back for Christ."

"There is a concern on the part of some Republicans that the Southern Baptist thing will be a definite liability in a general election," said Susan MacManus, a former chairwoman of the Florida Election Commission who now teaches politics at the University of South Florida in Tampa. "Republican moderates already are worried about the perception that evangelicals have captured the party."

It's not just Huckabee's religious emphasis that gives some in the party pause. There's his economic record. As governor, he supported fuel and sales tax increases. Other taxes went up as Arkansas changed its property tax system and improved its schools.

These days, Huckabee promotes the idea of a "fair tax," which would replace the current tax system with a 23 percent sales tax. Both liberal and conservative economists caution that such a plan could mean the poor would pay more in taxes than they currently do.

Reed Galen, a moderate Republican strategist in California who has worked for President Bush and McCain, said he, for one, could look past his differences with Bush on social issues because the president also offered a proven low-tax, strong-on-defense record.

"The problem that I see with Huckabee is that he has not demonstrated from an economic perspective anything that I've seen as fiscal conservatism," Galen said. "I don't know that the moderate Republican could vote for Hillary (Rodham) Clinton. I'm not necessarily sure they come out and vote for Mike Huckabee though."

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Liz Sidoti covers the presidential campaign for The Associated Press.