CE Week #13: “Huckabee shaves Romney’s Iowa lead”
Long dismissed, he’s now among top GOP contenders
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Michael D. Shear and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post
November 25, 2007
DES MOINES, Iowa – For six months, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has owned Iowa.
He spent millions on TV and unleashed his extended family to blanket the state. He survived a farm-town blitz by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and the late entrance of former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson into the Republican race. His money and organization bought him a convincing victory at the Ames presidential straw poll and a seemingly unshakable lead in the Iowa survey.
But Romney’s vision of quick, one-two victories here and in New Hampshire is crumbling, suddenly threatened by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a candidate who spent most of 2007 out of the spotlight and has struggled to raise money. Polls now show the pair in a virtual tie in Iowa, a development that not only threatens Romney’s carefully laid plans but could reshape the GOP nominating contest.
Huckabee has received glowing reviews for his debate performances, showing off his folksy charm and playing to conservatives. But despite his second-place showing in the straw poll this summer, his campaign didn’t take off until this month, when polls began to show him overtaking everyone but Romney in Iowa. Money started flowing in – $1 million online in less than one week, according to his campaign – and he started to catch the attention of both pundits and rivals.
“There is nothing like winning,” says Bob Vander Plaats, Huckabee’s Iowa chairman. “If we come in second, that’s a story. If we beat Romney, the whole universe just changed.”
Huckabee’s surge here has further scrambled a race that already defied easy prediction. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has consistently led national polls testing the Republican field, drawing on his name recognition and his performance after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But the GOP contest remains competitive in New Hampshire, wide open in South Carolina and now, Iowa is up for grabs.
Even Huckabee appears to have been caught unprepared for the sudden turn of events. His Iowa state director is in Costa Rica hunting snakes over the Thanksgiving weekend and won’t return to the state until Monday. On Friday afternoon, Huckabee’s Iowa headquarters at the corner of Locust and 6th in downtown Des Moines was locked and deserted.
“How much can you do on America’s number one shopping day?” Vander Plaats explained, saying the staff will gear up the office again on Monday.
With just a few weeks remaining before the caucuses, Huckabee is frantically trying to organize his supporters in the Hawkeye State. They include a network of evangelical Christians who like Huckabee’s pro-life, anti-gay marriage rhetoric, home-school activists who appreciate the work he did for their cause in Arkansas, gun-rights groups, and advocates of replacing the income tax with a national sales tax, an idea that Huckabee has championed.
His political enemies – no shortage of which have popped up in recent days – have gone on the offensive, accusing Huckabee of numerous tax hikes, ethics violations and an ill-advised pardon. The Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group in Washington, has all but turned themselves into an anti-Huckabee machine. The Eagle Forum’s Phyllis Schlafly charges that Huckabee “destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas.”
An ordained Baptist minister with a Southern drawl, much of Huckabee’s newfound support comes from the state’s conservative Christians, many of whom lost their favorite candidate when Brownback dropped out of the race in October. Some estimates say evangelicals could make up as much as 40 percent of GOP caucus attendees.
“That is his base. You consolidate that base in a year when the turnout is going to be pretty low, that’s a pretty good base to have,” said one longtime Iowa Republican who asked to remain anonymous to talk frankly about the candidates. He said religious voters had been disappointed by Thompson’s campaign and the decision of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia not to run this year. “Huckabee is kind of what’s left standing.”
Just like Kucinich on Kautzman’s web-site pole, who ever saw Huckabee coming?
It most definitely is because of the conservative Christians who have nowhere else to turn. They’re a religo-centric community, and people living in that type of fundamentalist atmosphere aren’t going to vote for a Mormon if there’s a Christian they like better; drops Romney. They aren’t going to vote for a gay-loving, baby-killing moderate from New York City (which does sound quite dastardly if said with contempt in a country drawl); drops Giuliani. They aren’t going to vote for someone who dropped out; drops Brownback. They’ve got no one to turn to, except the Baptist former minister with his down to earth rhetoric and his folksy charm and his promise to hit poor people where it hurts with a national sales tax. Yeah Huckabee, you hit those poor folks.
So what happens if Huckabee does do well? If he carries the flat 40 of Christian conservatives and Romney carries all of the rest of the 60 not much changes. Romney still meets expectations and rushes into New Hampshire (in a truncated transition period, mind you) on a mighty wind. But if Huckabee carries the flat 40 even, a huge number in a caucaus, and wins, Romney has almost no chance going into N.H. His staff won’t have the time to turn it around and around and around (spin it, that is), and all the New Hampshirian voters will hear on the news is how terribly he was disappointed. Huckabee won’t win again in N.H. –they’ve got less Christian conservatives and more poor republicans. Meaning it probably goes to Giuliani who uses the momentum to clean up in the rest of the states, and we hear something about 9/11 in his acceptance speech at the nominating comitee.
In conclusion, I don’t care who wins. I’m just not interested.
Mike Huckabee has obviously gained support and momentum recently. What has caused this surge if Huckabee support? I don’t know, but with momentum picking up and support growing anything can happen. He could win Iowa and then New Hampshire, which could propel him into the lead for presidency. Which is almost like what happened to former President Bill Clinton. He did better than expected in the Iowa caucus and from then on he just took off. If Huckabee just does a little better than predicted, he might be well on his way towards being the next president.
I predict that the growing support for Huckabee and the gaining financial support will help Huckabee become the front-runner for the Republican Party. However, I am not certain that if Huckabee wins, that he can beat out the Democratic candidate. This is just because of the barriers he has to overcome such making the Republican Party favored again in the eyes of the masses. I do feel though, that if Huckabee wins Iowa that he will have a pretty good shot at winning the Republican nomination and winning the presidency. This will become more visible after the Iowa caucus.