All Blog Posts from Horserace

Time Magazine is reporting that "about 100 conservative Christian leaders from around the country agreed to unite behind the candidacy of John McCain" at a meeting yesterday in Denver.

The decision appears to be a pragmatic one: Though many conservatives were resistant to McCain's candidacy during the Republican primary, they believe he is closer to their viewpoint on many issues than presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

"Collectively we feel that he will support and advance those moral values that we hold much greater than Obama, who in our view will decimate moral values," Mat Staver, chairman of legal advocacy group Liberty Counsel, told Time.

As the magazine notes, McCain has recently declared positions likely to appeal to conservative Christians, including his support for a gay marriage ban in California and his backing of a Bush administration proposal to allow faith-based organizations that accept federal funding to make employment decisions based on religion.

Looks like Mike Huckabee has the inside track on the pro-Confederate flag vote in South Carolina.

New radio ads airing in South Carolina during conservative talk shows praise Huckabee for calling disputes over the confederate flag an issue for the states, the Associated Press reports. South Carolina Republicans go to the polls Saturday.

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," Huckabee said in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Thursday. "In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole, that's what we'd do."

The radio ads, from Americans for the Preservation of American Culture, also take aim at John McCain – he has been "calling the flag a racist symbol for years," one spot says – and Mitt Romney, who said "that flag shouldn't be shown" in a debate.

Huckabee, by contrast, "understands that all the average guy with a Confederate flag on his pickup truck is saying is he's proud to be a Southerner," according to one ad. "Mike Huckabee understands we value our heritage and why."

The flag flap is not the only social issue Huckabee finds himself involved with: He is taking heat for comments he made to beliefnet about gay marriage this week.

"I think the radical view is to say that we're going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal," Huckabee said.

David Smith of the gay rights group the Human Rights Campaign told CNN that Huckabee is "equating a loving marriage between two people of the same sex with some form of bestiality. I think that's really out of the mainstream of American thought, and most people will find that offensive."