Bill O'Reilly Will Probably Owe Dick Morris Dinner
A Commentary by Douglas Schoen
The most recent Rasmussen Republican Presidential primary numbers show Mike Huckabee increasing his share of the vote to 8%. And while Rudy Guiliani leads with 24% and Fred Thompson has 21%, both have seen their share of the vote drop in recent weeks. Neither Mitt Romney or John McCain has broken 15% recently either.
This gives Mike Huckabee a real opportunity to become the candidate of the Republican right and demonstrate the kind of support he showed at Saturday's values voters convention when he finished within 30 votes of Mitt Romney and won the support of those who attended the gathering and voted in person(as opposed to online) by five to one.
Indeed, the Iowa numbers Rasmussen collected this week confirm that Dick Morris is well on his way to collecting on his bet from Bill O'Reilly. Morris is supposed to collect dinner if Huckabee reaches double digits in national polling.
In Rasmussen's Iowa poll, Huckabee is up to 18%. He trails Thompson by 1% and Romney by 7%. At the very least these numbers suggest, the Iowa Republican caucus is still wide open and that Huckabee is more likely than not to be a very strong contender.
Douglas Schoen is a founding and former partner of Penn Schoen & Berland, and a Fox News Contributor.
Schoen was President Bill Clinton's research and strategic consultant during the 1996 reelection campaign.
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