Huck reportedly raises eyebrow about Romney on call boosting Akin

Via Peter Hamby, Mike Huckabee rallied pastors and religious talk radio hosts in a conference call earlier tonight to support Missouri Senate hopeful Todd Akin in the wake of the crush of calls for him to quit the race:

Speaking harshly about establishment Republicans who have tried to force Akin from the Missouri race, Huckabee at one point compared the National Republican Senatorial Committee to "union goons" who "kneecap" their enemies. The former Arkansas governor said party bosses were "opening up rounds and rounds" of ammunition on Akin and "then running over with tanks and trucks and leaving him to be ravaged by the other side." “This is unprecedented, to see to this orchestrated attempt to humiliate and devastate a fellow Republican,” Huckabee said of Akin, who has deep ties to the Christian conservative movement. Akin spent Thursday in Florida meeting with evangelical leaders and evaluating his political future... ...At one point, Huckabee mused about whether Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney affected his poll numbers in Missouri by not coming to Akin's defense. Romney encouraged Akin to leave the race after his "legitimate rape" comments set off a political firestorm earlier this week.

The line about Romney, albeit not a direct quote so it's unclear exactly what he said, appears to be a departure from Huckabee's general support of the presidential nominee since he clinched the nod.

Huckabee is reflecting a larger sense of frustration among some social conservatives and evangelical leaders, who have said they are unhappy with how he handled the situation, by pressuring Akin to quit, including through a call from his running mate Paul Ryan.

As it happens, Romney has gotten two forms of negative spillover from the Akin situation - there was his call for a Senate nominee and staunch conservative to leave a race, as well as the campaign's initial statement about Akin that didn't strongly condemn the comments about women and rape, but instead said he disagreed with what Akin had said, and with the policy the candidate was referring to, saying his administration would have an exemption for abortion in cases of rape.

Romney strongly denounced Akin's words the next morning, in a phone interview with National Review.

* This post has been updated