Different GOP Politics, Rules Help Shape Md. and Va. Contests

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The Candidates React -- Huckabee

Presidential candidate former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) addresses his supporters from Little rock, Ark. after Tuesday's Potomac primary election results filter in.

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Huckabee supporters in Maryland also pointed to larger rural swaths in Virginia.

"The rural population is also significantly larger in Virginia than Maryland, and Governor Huckabee has been able to connect with those areas," said Del. Christopher B. Shank (R-Washington), the minority whip in the Maryland House of Delegates and a leading Huckabee supporter in the state.

Shank was among only a handful of elected officials in Maryland who supported Huckabee's bid. The state's most prominent Republican, former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), and other members of the party establishment rallied around McCain in the closing days of the race.

In Virginia, even some of McCain's supporters saw a mixed message in his victory.

"John McCain has got some work to do to demonstrate his conservative bona fides," said Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell, a conservative who threw his support behind McCain only last week. "John McCain is excellent on spending, on defense issues, getting a budget under control and fighting terrorists. But on immigration or campaign finance or energy policy or some of the traditional values issues, he's got some work to do."

McCain has had a difficult relationship with conservatives, and Virginia holds a special place in that history.

His advocacy of granting illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, his refusal to back a national ban on same-sex marriage and his support of campaign finance restrictions have caused small-government, social-values conservatives to bristle.

During a campaign swing through Virginia in 2000, for example, the candidate sealed his fate with conservative voters by calling two of the state's most prominent religious leaders, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, "agents of intolerance." George Bush won the state's primary.

McCain has made peace with key conservative leaders in Virginia, including Falwell before he died last year. But Huckabee was expected by many to fare well with the estimated one-third of Virginia adults who call themselves evangelical Protestants.

Mark Vayda, 82, voted for Huckabee yesterday at Park View High School in Sterling. Of McCain, he said: "I don't trust the man at all. I believe in sealing the borders. I like Spanish people, but I'm against all forms of illegal immigration."

Party rules also helped explain yesterday's results, analysts said.

In Virginia, independents were allowed to vote in the Republican and Democratic primaries. Given a tighter, more exciting contest on the Democratic side, many of those independents probably participated in that contest. That left a more conservative pool of voters participating in the Republican primary, said Thomas F. Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

In Maryland, only Republicans were allowed to vote in their party's contest.

And campaigning probably mattered, too. Huckabee put in one appearance in Maryland in the closing days of the race. He was a more familiar presence in Virginia, where his television ads aired with greater frequency.

Staff writer Amy Gardner contributed to this report. Bacon reported from Little Rock.