Voters who decide to support a candidate who does not satisfy a broad coalition of goals within the party are undermining the ability of the party to win a majority, which is a prerequisite to achieving any other goal. To concentrate support on a candidate with narrow appeal is the same as running a third party in the general election. All you can achieve is to frustrate election of other candidates with other goals besides the narrow one you have chosen as your sole concern. Neither your own goal nor the goals of others in your party will be achieved, because you have not won a majority.

If the supporters of Mike Huckabee did so out of a narrow focus, without regard for the needs of other voters in the party, they can hardly expect that the other voters, whose goals were frustrated in this process, would be rallying to support their narrow candidate, who does NOT offer achievement of the other voters’ distinct goals.

Huckabee points out that John McCain has previously had problems getting broad support in the party, like Huckabee. The fact that Romney has endorsed McCain and other leaders in the party are coalescing in support changes this equation. But what if McCain continued only being supported by the third of Republicans closest to Democratic positions on issues? What if, instead of a strong Romney, there were just, besides Huckabee and McCain, a covey of favorite son candidates in each state who were collecting votes because other voters didn’t like either McCain or Huckabee? Could McCain’s supporters be criticized in the same way?

Possibly so. The difference could be on a policy like immigration, that has so much polarity among Republicans. A Republican Hispanic candidate who strongly opposed illegal immigration could make a run at a candidacy based mainly on that one issue because his own race would neutralize the normal criticism that those opposing illegal immigration are racist. So you could have factions based on factors other than religion. The real test would be, is the candidate leading a faction willing to ultimately unite the party, perhaps with some kind of deal on his issue of concern in return for his throwing support to the eventual nominee? Or is he going to insist on that one goal taking precedence over all others, so much so that he is willing to walk out of the convention and split the party? It would be a suicidal gesture, politically, because the splinter candidate would not achieve his own goal, and would undermine the achievement of all other party goals.

Huckabee has to decide if he is headed to a faction that would destroy all chances of a Republican presidency, or a reconciliation that will throw the votes of his supporters to candidates who don’t have the same priorities that he does. As long as he persists in his campaign, he appears to be making a threat to do a walkout. He appears to not appreciate that the strength of being supported by a large minority of Republican voters is in their being part of a potential majority of Republican voters. If they did not have that coalition, they could never hope to achieve any of their own special goals. To be a minority faction outside the context of a potential to forge a winning majority in the party and the world, is to be a powerless minority faction.