Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee comes in first among likely Republican voters for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll released today.
And even though former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s forthcoming autobiography has topped Amazon book charts for weeks, she trails (18 percent) Huckabee (29 percent) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (24 percent). In July, voters placed Romney (25 percent) and Palin (24 percent) in a close tie while Huckabee finished a close third at 22 percent.
This time around among evangelicals, Huckabee leads Palin by 17 percent while Palin beats Romney by 14 percent.
In other news:
– Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, apologized last week for giving a “Josef Mengele Award” (referring to a Nazi doctor) to President Obama’s health care adviser Zeke Emanuel.
“I was using hyperbole for effect and never intended to actually equate anyone in the Obama administration with Dr. Mengele,” he wrote. “I apologize to everyone who found such references hurtful,” Dr. Land continued. “Given the pain and suffering of so many Jewish and other victims of the Nazi regime, I will certainly seek to exercise far more care in my use of language in future discussions of the issues at stake in the healthcare debate.”
– U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder focused mostly on hate crimes in his address to the Anti-Defamation League Saturday night, touching on anti-Semitism and crimes against Muslims.
– While the world waited for each update on balloon boy last week, another boy–4th-grader Terence Scott–asked Obama at the University of New Orleans, “Why do people hate you?” “They supposed to love you,” said the youngster, “and God is love.”
