Huckabee to Conservatives: Back Mitt Romney

Even if Mitt Romney isn’t a perfect candidate, Republican voters need to support him to defeat President Barack Obama, says former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

“It would be real tragic if they stayed out because Mitt Romney may not be their first choice, but Mitt Romney every day of the week and twice on Sunday is gonna to be a much more effective president for issues that they care about than Barack Obama,” Huckabee told 77WABC New York "Investigative Radio" host Aaron Klein, Politico first reported.

“And I think sometimes there is this anxiety within the Republican Party of who is the perfect candidate. The answer is: there isn't one. And so, what you find is you have to decide who can survive the process. And whoever that is-- and if it's Mitt Romney, then I think Republicans and conservatives and tea party need to get behind him and say, 'You may not be our first choice, but between you and Obama, I'll vote forty times to help get you elected.”

Huckabee's comments are the latest indication conservatives are readying one another to "hold their noses" and vote for Romney, who opponents on both sides of the aisle paint as the most moderate major Republican candidate in the 2012 race.

Ann Coulter also has argued this line of reasoning.

"Everyone knows the nominee is going to be Romney," Coulter wrote in a column for Townhall Nov. 16. "That's not so bad if you think the most important issues in this election are defeating Obama and repealing Obamacare."

But Richard Viguerie and other leading conservatives have countered that not backing a true, consistent conservative will be a huge mistake.

"In Mitt Romney establishment Republicans have the perfect vessel for the content-free campaigns they prefer to run, but Romney won’t spark the conservative revolution that is poised to sweep President Obama from the White House and elect down-ballot conservatives across the country," Viguerie wrote in Newsmax. "If conservatives acquiesce in the nomination of Romney, and Republicans run the content-free campaign his handlers plan, then Washington’s inside elite will maintain their hold on the Party, but at the cost of losing winnable elections for the Senate, Congress and governor and saddling America with another four years of Barack Obama as president."