Prominent Christian leaders have been slow to embrace Huckabee, and [Gary] Bauer told WORLD that his primary concern is the candidate's electability in the upcoming primaries.
In a private meeting with supporters after his speech, Huckabee expressed frustration over Christian leaders' reticence to back him: "It's a little bit like a soldier who goes to war and his own army won't give him the supplies he needs to win."
But evangelicals at the conference handed Huckabee a huge win over the weekend: In a straw poll conducted by the FRC, Huckabee garnered 51 percent of those who voted on-site, swamping every other candidate. Romney trailed in second place with 10 percent of the on-site vote. (The FRC allowed online voting as well, and Romney edged Huckabee by 30 votes in the overall tally.)
In my opinion, there is a demonstrable rift between the so-called "Christian Leaders," and the Christians they are presumed to be leading. That rift is essentially that the aforesaid leaders are pursuing pragmatism, whereas those who are not leaders are pursuing principle. The leaders are openly skeptical of Huckabee (for unprincipled reasons, I might add), but nevertheless the voice of those attending the Values Voter Summit handed Huckabee a resounding amount of support.
