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Huckabee seen facing tougher road in New Hampshire

BY CRAIG GORDON | craig.gordon@newsday.com

9:02 PM EST, January 4, 2008

HENNIKER, N.H. - Republican Mike Huckabee brought his bass guitar licks and his stunning Iowa victory here Friday, pledging to move beyond the appeal to religious voters that powered his caucus-night win.

But Huckabee will struggle to score a second victory here in a state where religion is practiced quietly rather than preached, analysts say.

Huckabee, who was mired in the single digits in presidential campaign polls until a few weeks ago, scored a come-from-behind win over Mitt Romney by tapping evangelical Christian voters in Iowa, where 60 percent of caucus-goers identified themselves that way.

In New Hampshire, only 18 percent of Republicans consider themselves evangelicals, and many Republicans here take a dim view of candidates who wear religion on their sleeves.

Huckabee seemed mindful that the playing field had shifted, downplaying talk of family values while playing up his pitch to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and replace it with a sales tax as high as 23 percent.

"This campaign is not just about people who have religious fervor. It's about people who love America but want it to be better and believe that change is necessary, and it's not going to happen from within Washington," he said.

In a speech to a mostly full auditorium here, where he joined the band Mama Kicks to play a few songs on bass, he made scant religious references, saying at one point: "We ought to get on our knees every night and thank God we live in a country people are trying to break into, not trying to break out of."

But most analysts believe Huckabee's Iowa victory probably gives him only a shot at third place here, rather than a straight-up win over Romney, who spent millions in TV ads. Instead, Iowa is seen as a boon to John McCain, who has been pulled into the lead here by voters who propelled his massive 2000 win.

A second Romney loss here could doom his once high-flying candidacy, while Huckabee would survive to the next major contest in South Carolina -- where 53 percent of Republicans are evangelicals who have searched in vain for a candidate they can support. Huckabee's campaign hopes his Iowa win will show he's the one.

And it seemed clear Friday that Huckabee was tapping into what religious voters there are in New Hampshire. Several in the crowd here said they had recently decided to support Huckabee, and cited his Christian beliefs as part of the reason.