Last week, I wrote that John McCain cannot win the Republican nomination with an outright majority because most Republican primary voters will split between Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Unless McCain takes every one of the “winner take all primaries” and takes lopsided wins in most of the others, that would leave him with less than the majority needed to win the nomination. After that anything can happen.

Recent polling analysis shows that most conservatives would never vote for Romney, but would support McCain. According to a poll by the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics GOP Primary:

“If John McCain and Mitt Romney were the only choices in the Republican primary, how would you vote?”

McCain — 62
Romney — 29
Unsure — 6
Wouldn’t Vote — 3

Compare those numbers with the latest Rasmussen poll:

McCain — 33
Romney — 29
Huckabee — 21
Paul — 5
Unsure or other — 12

Most of the vote that would be for Huckabee, Paul or “other” goes to McCain and not Romney!

Why? Because McCain is no more liberal than Romney. Huckabee’s and Paul’s base are evangelical Christians and libertarians who see Romney’s record on gun control, forced health care programs, pro-abortion and the fact that he is a Mormon. McCain has voted pro-life at least 75 percent of the time and at least pays “lip service” to his Protestant faith. Hopefully, most will pay attention to the candidates’ records rather than what they say on the campaign trail.

For as long as Paul and Huckabee stay in the race, McCain might still be blocked. Notice that there are no polls asking, “If John McCain and Ron Paul were the only choices …” or, “If John McCain and Mike Huckabee were the only choices …”

I am amazed at the arrogance of the media in reporting polling results. Essentially, they have taken the stance that Huckabee has been out of it since South Carolina after just one primary and three caucuses. The same media pundits pronounced Giuliani dead a day later. After Florida, they declared McCain the inevitable winner. While I don’t agree that this is inevitable, I don’t underestimate the bump this has given McCain in the polls. It’s huge. It looks as though McCain has taken virtually all of Giuliani’s remaining support — about 15 percent — and is now up to 43 percent after having been at between 18 to 28 percent for weeks. Romney’s recent surge came from Fred Thompson’s conservative supporters. Huckabee has been static at about 20 percent and Ron Paul at 5 percent. And unfortunately, many Republican primary voters follow the polls.

Meanwhile, Romney has successfully spun the myth that as governor of Massachusetts he was more conservative than Huckabee as governor of Arkansas. This is partially true and partially false. Huckabee cut taxes for working class people and eliminated the marriage penalty in Arkansas. Romney cut taxes on families and businesses in Massachusetts. Huckabee raised the state sales tax rate to pay for roads and education. Yet Romney appealed for billions of dollars in federal tax revenues to bail out Massachusetts during the “Big Dig” fiasco.

See: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5572480

Romney was solidly pro-abortion and advocated homosexual civil unions, favored gun control and favored making health care mandatory in Massachusetts, while McCain had about an 80 percent conservative voting record rating by Democrat and Republican watchdog groups alike. McCain and Romney got into a big hissy fight over who is more conservative in last week’s California debate, while Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee looked on disgusted at the media’s hypocrisy in portraying the election as a “two man race.” Of course, the media is going to prefer the two most liberal candidates!

The most arrogant of the media are conservative talk show hosts such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh who think that Romney is much more conservative than McCain. Last week, I heard Hannity say that that Huckabee was only in the race to throw the election to McCain because they had secretly “cut a deal” to make Huckabee the running mate. That may be. But it also assumes that most Huckabee supporters would vote for Romney and not Ron Paul or McCain.

Why do Limbaugh and Hannity endorse Romney over McCain instead of Ron Paul or Mike Huckabee? The answer is simple. These men are not classical conservatives. They are not Christian conservatives. They are Neo-Cons — men who have interpreted the liberalism of 20 years ago as the conservatism of today.

Today, Sean Hannity admires John F. Kennedy. Twenty years from now, will we find future Neo-Cons endorsing the policies of Bill Clinton? Neo-Cons have wreaked havoc on issues ranging from fiscal responsibility to abortion. For instance, Hannity, a Roman Catholic, says he is pro-life except for the cases of rape, incest, and danger to the health and life of the mother in the first trimester of pregnancy. Yet he pays lip service to wanting to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Yet what does the Roe decision say? It says that a woman should have the right to an abortion in the cases of rape, incest, and danger to the health and life of the mother in the first trimester of pregnancy. Of course, these “exceptions” make up less than three percent of all abortions. Companion court cases such as Doe v. Bolton expanded the “right to abortion” to include any abortion that is deemed necessary by a licensed physician. Doe v. Bolton made the decision a “private matter between a woman and her doctor.” So even an overturn of Roe would not stop abortion in any state that did not have laws in place that countered the “right to privacy” myth. We don’t enforce the “right to privacy” in cases of drug abuse or suicide, yet we use it as an excuse for killing unborn baby boys and girls.

What we need is a Sanctity of Human Life Amendment to the Constitution. Mike Huckabee is the only candidate in the running who advocates this. Pro-life voters should know this. Ron Paul and Alan Keyes are the only other candidates still on the ballots in most states who have uncompromising pro-life credentials. If enough pro-life Republicans vote their conscience and support one of these candidates, enough delegates will be amassed between them to keep the nomination from Romney or McCain.

If you are pro-life, make your choice wisely.