Huckabee Watch

During this week’s republican debate in Iowa, Mitt Romney introduced an intriguing model:

We’re not going to get the White House nor strengthen America unless we can pull together the coalition of conservatives and conservative thought that has made us successful as a party. And that’s social conservatives. It’s also economic conservatives. And foreign policy and defense conservatives.

Those three together form the three legs of the Republican stool that allowed Ronald Reagan to get elected and allowed our party to have strength over the last several decades.

Adopting Romney’s construction, we have three distinct stakeholders participating in the Republican nomination: Social conservatives, Economic conservatives, and Defense conservatives.

Clearly, Huckabee is enjoying strong support from the social conservative “leg” of Romney’s stool. He has either achieved — or is on his way to achieving — a plurality in every poll taken about the GOP nomination; meanwhile, his four other “viable” (McCain, Thompson, Romney, Giuliani) opponents have lost grip on the social conservative leg and are jockeying for the other two legs.

Romney’s model might suggest a balance of ideological influence by the three distinct stakeholders under the “Conservative” umbrella, but Huckabee reminds us that when it comes to electoral influence, social conservatives make Romney’s stool uncomfortably wobbly for the Defense/Economic conservatives.

The Defense/Economic conservatives have always had more influence and bigger megaphones. They have well-funded, palatial think tanks (with a quota of cubicles for their kooky cousins, the social conservatives), book publishing companies, newspapers, and magazines. They have Rupert Murdock on speed dial.

None of that is important to Huckabee, though. He’s got the numbers.

We’re seeing this paradox playing out right now: as the press on Huckabee gets louder and nastier (mostly from the Right), Huckabee’s poll numbers go higher and higher. This phenomenon (worse press = better numbers) will become even more incongruous over the next two weeks, and it will pave Huckabee’s way to becoming the republican nominee.

1:00 CST: Carolyn Washburn, Des Moines Register editor kicks off. “First time since summer Republicans have gone head-to-head in Iowa”
Stage setup (from left to right - audience view): Rudy Giuliani, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Alan Keyes

“6 in 10 [likely Caucus-goers] said they could still be persuaded”

“Not going to spend a lot of time on Iraq & Immigration”.. advantage: Huckabee?

What the hell is Alan Keyes doing on stage?

Question 1 - U.S. Debt: does it create a security risk?

Huckabee said yes, gave a pretty straight-forward 3-point answer. Alan Keyes gave a shoutout to the fair tax, a Huckabee platform cornerstone.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Hello all you happy people. You know what? I’m still going to win Iowa.”

The gloves are coming off, particularly on the Right…

You know you’ve rocked the boat when, as a Republican, you get this kind of rough treatment from Fox News Sunday.

Andrew Sullivan is (unsurprisingly) dismayed by Huckabee’s non-apology for the AIDS quarantine remarks, finds echoes of Bush.

National Review jumps Huckabee on foreign policy.

Huck (playa) hates Mormons? Drudge started this story by posting the speech - with friends like these…

Romney is “convinced as people take a good hard look at Mike Huckabee’s record, they’ll see this is a guy who is soft on criminals, soft on illegal aliens, but hard on taxpayers. And that’s not what’s going to lead the Republican party to take the White House.”
And Mitt will be the first to air a GOP-on-GOP attack ad, targeting Huckabee on immigration.

On the other hand - is all this Huckabee-bashing too little too late?

No wonder Mitt’s scared. From the WP: “Huckabee may well advance to the nomination finals,” said John Weaver, who was McCain’s chief strategists until they had a parting of the ways last summer, “and in doing so accomplish something neither Rudy or McCain could do: eliminate Romney.”

We already knew South Carolina would be a pitch straight into Huckabee’s wheelhouse, but keep an eye on what is sure to be an emerging story: Huckabee’s Iowa surge is starting to impact the New Hampshire polls.

And last but not least, Frank Rich asks whether Huck could be “The Republican Obama”. This is great press, but I’m more intrigued by Cornel West’s endorsement!
Even Barack can’t claim that.

Dawning the cover of this week’s Newsweek (as we kind of predicted), Mike Huckabee’s last few days with the press have been tumultuous, and as of noon today, everything seems to indicate this week could be worse than last.

A few noteworthy developments:

First there was the Huffington Post’s piece with Murray Waas unearthing new details in the Wayne Dumond scandal. Then on Saturday, the main Drudge headline ran an AP story of a questionnaire response in 1992. Huckabee implied those afflicted with HIV/AIDS should be quarantined. He also called homosexuality “sinful”. On Sunday he defended himself against both, but didn’t apologize. The Newsweek piece is mostly positive, but it raises some new questions about Huckabee’s past dealings with the tobacco industry. And today, the National Review carries a piece by conservative David Sanders discussing Jackson Stephens’ bankrolling a campaign against Huckabee based on his tax record, along with a diatribe on Huckabee’s foreign policy stances.

Where does all this leave Huckabee?

After reading Drudge’s Saturday headline on how “HUCKABEE WANTED TO QUARANTINE AIDS PATIENTS”, I initially thought, Wow — this is pretty radioactive stuff. Yet now I’m not so sure.

First of all, a 2:1 lead in Iowa against Romney will be hard to dent. Then we have to remember only 100,000 republicans in Iowa will show up to caucus. That number is very low. These 100,000 caucus-goers are hard line republicans. I’m still digging around for data to back this claim, but conservatives’ perceptions on HIV/AIDS and homosexuality aren’t too different than what Huckabee was saying in ‘92 (and stands by today). Huckabee could actually gain support based on his comments.  The Newsweek cover / story is a huge plus for Huckabee; anyone who isn’t taking him seriously now is just stupid.  He’s bruised at best, but still poised to win Iowa.

I’m on the edge of my seat over the latest polls in IA, NH and SC — if he gets a bump after his toughest week of press yet, he will be the nominee.

At this point, he has everything to lose.

Aaron Sadler (Stephens Media Group) has a contradictory roundup of some columnists’ prognoses of Huckabee:

“It will still be extremely difficult for him to win in New Hampshire,” said the Union Leader’s Drew Cline. “I don’t think Huckabee is going to do all that well in New Hampshire. I just don’t see him catching fire.”

and

“He won’t have the money and it will be difficult for him to respond,” said David Yepsen, a longtime columnist for the Des Moines (Iowa) Register. The timing would negate one benefit to Huckabee’s sudden surge - that criticism comes during the holidays. No one will attack Huckabee around Christmas, or risk voter backlash, Yepsen said. “What are you going to do? Roll out an attack ad on Christmas Eve with ‘Silent Night’ playing the background?” Yepsen said.

and

Jeanne Cummings, a columnist for the political newspaper, The Politico, said she expects GOP opponents to exploit Huckabee’s newfound momentum with anti-Huckabee direct mailings in Iowa just days before that state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. “He’ll never see it coming,” Cummings said, adding that the attacks by mail will probably be delivered to Republican voters right after Christmas...”The thing about Huckabee is he ran and won as governor as a conservative, small state. Right now, he’s running for governor of Iowa.”

First of all, isn’t it annoying when members of the mainstream media tell us what other members of the mainstream media are saying?

Setting aside mushy speculation (”I just don’t see him catching fire”) the only substantive criticism in this entire roundup that Huckabee is cash-strapped, and that he’ll hit a wall in New Hampshire after he wins Iowa. Fair enough. He might not have a sophisticated ground game in place, but thus far Huckabee has probably run the most cost-efficient national campaign in modern American history. Outspent 23:1 by Romney, he is poised to win Iowa. The ground game will be much less relevant in New Hampshire than Drew Cline suspects. However quick they are to boast their “independence,” New Hampshire voters live in Iowa’s shadow. With Rudy slipping in New Hampshire, and the collective “WTF” coming out from the national media in response to Huckabee’s win in Iowa, Huckabee won’t need a robust ground game — John Kerry didn’t.

Jeanne Cummings’ claims are simply bizarre. “[Huckabee will] never see it [pre-Iowa Caucus attack mailers] coming” … “[h]e’s running for governor of Iowa”?

He’s in the lead. I think a front-running candidate who has demonstrated he is capable of being 2300% more cost-efficient than another candidate, just might be able to anticipate some jabs from opponents. And, Jeanne, how is this anything like “running for governor of Iowa” when the republican Iowa Caucus attracts a mere 100,000 participants Oh, and his visit to Iowa this week has been the first time in almost a month.

Unbelievably, many in the mainstream media aren’t ready to accept Huckabee as a top tier candidate, and they will continue to put forth these half-baked analyses. The effect will be a lowering of Huckabee’s expectations, which will enable the fire in New Hampshire they “just don’t see [Huckabee] catching”.