CE Week #9: “Don’t write off Huckabee”
James P. Pinkerton
Newsday
October 25, 2007
Remember “The Lord of the Rings”? Sure you do. So, now let’s play Republican “Lord of the Rings.” As in, who’s going to win the GOP presidential nomination?
The rings of political power tell the tale. Four rings, outermost to innermost, can give us clues. But it’s that innermost ring – the ring of buzz and momentum – that reveals the most.
The outer Republican ring – that is, the ring furthest from the minds of core activists – is the November 2008 election. In this “electability” ring, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is strongest in matchups against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the leading Democrat. Of course, Giuliani would run best in November, because by many measures he is more of an independent, even a liberal, than a conservative. And the middle is where elections are won.
But that’s not where primary contests are won. So we come to the next ring – the battle for hearts and souls within the Republican Party itself. And here again, Giuliani has the lead, though not by much. The folks at RealClearPolitics.com have averaged out the most recent polls, showing Giuliani with 27 percent – 9 points ahead of former Sen. Fred Thompson. It’s better to be ahead than behind, but if barely more than a quarter of primary voters support you, you aren’t a very strong front-runner.
And besides, a lot of those GOP voters are, by definition, in places that don’t have much say in the nomination. So, who speaks loudly re: The nomination? The answer can be summed up in four words: “Iowa and New Hampshire.” Those two states make up the next ring. After the Hawkeye State’s caucus and the Granite State’s primary, there won’t be more than three Republicans left in the race. Now that’s political power.
Interestingly, Giuliani is fourth in Iowa and second in New Hampshire. For all his strength across the country, he’s having trouble among close-in, hard-core Republicans. So, who’s ahead in those two states? It’s former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, according to the same RealClear site.
In fact, Romney always has been a favorite among many Republicans, especially professional Republicans. Why? Because he looks like a president – or, more precisely, he looks like Hollywood’s idea of a president; few actual presidents have ever been so handsome. And, oh yes, it doesn’t hurt that he has the most money to spend and doesn’t mind spending it. Professionals appreciate that about Romney.
But now we come to the innermost ring. This ring is the hardest to quantify because the key metric – “buzz” – can’t really be expressed in a hard number, at least not until Election Day.
But buzz is real, nonetheless. It’s the juice that animates the activists, the folks who actually power a candidate to victory. As the American Revolutionary Samuel Adams put it centuries ago, “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires.”
So who, if anyone, is burning up the grass roots? A visit to the Values Voters Summit, convened last Saturday by the Family Research Council in Washington, provided the answer. The “hot” candidate, measured by standing ovations, was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. As he said, “I am someone who comes not to the faith community but from the faith community.”
And the Values Voters straw poll underscored the power of Huckabee’s connection to these innermost voters: Romney won the overall balloting, including online “votes,” but of the 1,000 or so activists who cared enough to be in the room, 51 percent endorsed Huckabee – compared with 10 percent for Romney, 8 percent for Thompson and virtually none for Giuliani.
So then is Huckabee the front-runner? Nope. Way behind in money and name recognition, Huckabee is still a dark horse. But he is a buzzing dark horse, lit up by that fourth, white-hot, innermost ring.
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Wow, this is so true. It really all comes down to three things; money media and momentum. As this article pointed out, Huckabee is definetely behind in money, while people like Giuliani and Romney have plenty. The reason Huckabee is getting this article written about hims is because of his sensational speeches. Apperantly, he knows what to say and how to say it according to his standing ovation count. It all depends on if he has enough buzz to raise enough money. Without any buzz, there is no media, and people have no reason to be exited supporters of him if no one else likes him.
It should be interesting watching and waiting to see if Mike Huckabee can raise enough money to survive. Those statistics that 51% of the internet poll endorsed Mike Huckabee. Although this is a straw poll, not a scientific poll, it seems as if it is odd that an extreme right wing canadate would get over half of the votes on a internet poll. I thought the more moderate to liberal people would be the ones taking polls online. I like the whole analogy with the lord of the rings and the ways to get ahead in a presidential race.
Although Huckabee is behind in money, that’s not a big deal right now. If Huckabee can do better that expected in the New Hampshire Primary and Iowa Caucus, he could be propelled into the top spot. With that the money would role in from people who think that he is a strong candidate and that he has a chance of winning. The Internet polls although not one of the bests, show that Huckabee is getting support from people and that it could be a sign of his lucking changing and his momentum, money, and media attention skyrocketing.
I believe that if Huckabee is able to come out strong in the first primaries and caucuses, that he will have a pretty good chance of winning the Republican nomination. This is because the strong Republicans will feel more closely related with him than compared to an almost liberal candidate such as Gulliani. Who knows what can happen. Just like the 1992 election, this election might turn out completely different than from what was expected from the beginning.
First of all I really didn’t get the title of this article. It talks about how Huckabee wasn’t ahead in any of the polls, and then at the end it just says that he doesn’t have any money and is a long shot to win. I really don’t think that the article title really fit what the article was saying. In response to Matt, I think that he is right in saying that if Huckabee can do better than expected in Iowa and New Hampshire he could win the nominations. But on the other hand if any of the candidates can do better than expected then any of them could win. It is true that doing well in these two states could allow him to gain momentum and money, but I really don’t think that will happen. The article said that Huckabee is running out of money. If Huckabee is already running out of money right now, then I don’t think that he will last long enough to be a candidate in any the primaries. It is still a long ways away and I don’t see any way that Huckabee can gain back his fortunes without a very sizable donation from his supporters. I disagree with the title of this article. I think that we can rule out Huckabee as a presidential candidate. Unless he can do what Matt says and magically do better than expected in New Hampshire and Iowa, he won’t be the next republican candidate.