Home-schoolers backing Huckabee

ELDORA, Iowa — Julie Roe, an early believer in Mike Huckabee, worked with what she had.

With no buttons, no yard signs and no glossy literature from his nearly invisible Iowa campaign, she took a pair of scissors and cut out a photograph of the former Arkansas governor. She pasted it on a piece of paper, scribbled down some of his positions, made copies and launched the Huckabee for President campaign in rural Hardin County.

Roe contacted friends in her home-schooling network and bought a newspaper advertisement for $38. She spread the word in the grocery and the church foyer: "I would tell them about Mike Huckabee and they would say, 'Who's Mike Huckleberry?' I'd say, 'No, no, no, it's Huckabee.' "

Huckabee's name is no longer a mystery to Iowa's Republican voters, in large part because of an extensive network of home-schoolers like Roe who have helped lift his underfunded campaign from obscurity to the front of a crowded field. Opinion polls show his haphazard approach is trumping the studied strategy of Mitt Romney, who invested millions only to be shunned by many religious conservatives such as Roe, who see the former Baptist preacher from Hope, Ark., as their champion.

While early attention focused on Romney and other better-known and better-funded opponents, home-schoolers rallied to Huckabee's cause, attracted by his faith, his politics and his decision to appoint a home-school proponent to the Arkansas board of education. They tapped a web of community and church groups who share common conservative interests, blasting them with e-mails and passing along the word about Huckabee in social settings.

It was the endorsement by prominent national home-school advocate Michael Farris that helped propel Huckabee to a surprising second-place finish in the Iowa straw poll in August. And it was the twin sons of a home-school advocate in Oregon who helped put Huckabee in touch with television tough guy Chuck Norris, who has appeared with him on the campaign trail.

Home-schoolers also could prove to be a powerful force on caucus night. By one estimate, about 9,000 Iowa children are home-schooled. Their parents could form a sizable portion of the 80,000 or so Republicans expected to show up Jan. 3.

Home-school parents tend to be heavily involved in community activities, from the arts to conservation, giving them wide circles of potential allies, said Roe, who home-schooled her oldest child for a year and now keeps her two youngest at home.

"Even though the media makes it seem that we are a homogenous group of Bible-thumpers and flat-Earthers, there is a variety of opinion," Roe said.

By the end of September, the campaign had finally raised its first million dollars — a benchmark total, yet barely pocket change in present-day presidential politics. Things picked up in October, especially after Huckabee's enthusiastic reception at the Values Voters Summit in Washington. He raised $2 million in November, and began running television ads, including a clever spot with Norris.

For Norris' boost, Huckabee can thank Brett and Alex Harris, 19-year-old twins and sons of an Oregon home-school activist named Gregg Harris. They started blogs to promote Huckabee and had the idea of sending e-mails to prominent conservatives, urging them to get behind the former Arkansas governor.

One of the e-mails from the Portland pair was read to Norris, who climbed aboard.

The candidate and the actor cut an ad that aired in Iowa last month, in which Norris explained his support for Huckabee and Huckabee quoted several of the humorous sayings about Norris' toughness that have become an Internet phenomenon. Sample: "There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live."

The ad, which began running Nov. 19, drew laughs, attention and more money. The campaign followed with a spot that makes a direct appeal to conservative faith, flashing "Christian Leader" on the screen in large letters.

When a group of more than three dozen pastors in Iowa endorsed Huckabee this month, it solidified his standing as the leading candidate among conservative Christians in the state. Yet the ministers were trailing their flocks, whose enthusiasm for Huckabee was already showing up in polls.

By this week, polls showed him ahead by 2 to 1 in Iowa and close in South Carolina and Florida.

Huckabee supporters are debating whether his from-the-ground-up Iowa model can work in the rest of the country. Last weekend, he attended a rally in South Carolina sponsored in part by home-schoolers and headed to Florida to campaign.

"Home-schoolers organize in every state," Farris said, "so the ability to build fast networks in every state is very realistic."