My Take on Huckabee’s Last Gaffe
So, who do you think is going to come in second in Iowa?
Gov. Huckabee, we hardly knew you. Then we started to learn a bit about you and promptly ran in the other direction. I could pretend that I’m angry about Huckabee’s baldly duplicitous press conference this morning, but I can’t. His attempt at playing the poor Christian martyr refusing to fight back (against legitimate ads focusing on his poor policies), but-here’s-the-ad-we-were-going-to-show-anyway-so-you-can-play-it-a-thousand-times-tonight-and-I-can-pretend-I’m-running-a-completely-positive-campaign spin was so badly mangled that the press corps laughed in his face. It was a gut-check reaction from a group of people who didn’t have time to filter their thoughts on the subject through a thousand different prisms and decide whether the strategy was brilliantly conceived or not. For that moment they were human, and the level of political theater had reached such a high degree of B.S. that it was on par with Ahmadinejad’s assertion that there are no homosexuals in Iran. Any credibility he hoped to achieve could get tossed right out the window with one simple soundbite.
I’m not angry because the con man has been exposed completely and there’s no putting that genie back in the bottle. Of course, we’ve known that Gov. Huckabee has been playing on the people of Iowa’s emotions for months without the slightest hint of substance. No, the emotion that I’m feeling today is more along the lines of schadenfreude. Our opponent has been kind enough to give us a sword and then proceeded to run into it a few times himself.
Bye-bye Huckster.
Now on to the campaign ahead of us. I feel confident tonight in stating that Gov. Romney will win Iowa. Yesterday the big question was who would come in 3rd. Now, I think, the question has shifted to who comes in 2nd.
Obviously, the best scenerio we could hope for would be a wounded Gov. Huckabee coming in 2nd with Sen. Thompson coming in a distant 3rd, but that seems unlikely. More probable we’ll see a last-minute surge from Sen. McCain and Sen. Thompson that may well overtake Gov. Huckabee. But the nightmare scenerio of Sen. McCain coming in 2nd might well be the “big story” of the night (for Republicans anyway).
Somehow, I don’t think that would happen though. Gov. Huckabee’s support really did not come from the Sen. McCain wing of the party. Really, the most obvious beneficiary of the southern-style social conservative, 2nd Amendent heavy candidate is Sen. Thompson.
So, I’m making an official ending prediction for Iowa:
1. Gov. Romney 35%
2. Sen. Thompson 23%
3. Sen. McCain 19%
4. Gov. Huckabee 15%
What this means for a resurgent Sen. Thompson campaign, I do not know. His odds tonight are better than the 1% chance I gave him yesterday though. S. Carolina again becomes an important state.
~~~Thomas
December 31st, 2007 at 10:14 pm
I think Huck is still going to come in second. You should see some of his supporters on Politico, feigning (I hope) ignorance and commenting on Huck’s new positive ad “That doesn’t seem so bad to me, I wonder what all the fuss was about?” As if they don’t realize that is not the same ad which is causing all the controversy. I hope they are not really so dumb but who knows??
December 31st, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Agreed Thomas, though I would be shocked if Thompson finished 2nd. If so, this nomination fight will quickly go from Romney vs. the Populists (Giuliani, Huckabee, and McCain) to Romney vs. Thompson, who represent traditional conservatism. May the best man win if it comes to that…
January 1st, 2008 at 12:20 am
I think Huck will come in only two points behind Mitt. McCain will finish third. Many of the Evangelicals supporting Huckabee care for nothing but his faith.
January 1st, 2008 at 12:49 am
Inside Huckabee’s secret strategy meeting:
“I’ve got an idea. We’ve got nothing in the bank, right? Nothing to fight off Romney’s ads with our own, right? Let’s get the media to run our attack ad for us: call a meeting say we were gonna hand out an attack ad but changed our minds, say we just were too Christian to go through with it. The ad gets tons of coverage, I come out smelling like a rose, and not a penny spent on air time!”
…
At the press meeting:
Reporters: “Hahahahahahahahahahaha!”
Inside Huckabee’s head: “whoops!”
January 1st, 2008 at 2:03 am
I’m in agreement with Rusty on this one… The stupid Des Moines Register poll showed Huck holding his lead. I can’t necessarily say if that’s accurate, but it will encourage a few questionable Huck supporters to hold. Meanwhile it shows Fred back in the back, and many Iowans will shy away from a guy that they don’t see as having much of a chance.
Pessimistically, Huck could still win, though he would accomplish nothing with his campaign but screwing up Romney. I’m thinking Mitt will win this though, narrowly, and hopefully Huck will hold 2nd.
If Thompson does pull something out though, then so be it. If not, we still need Huck to be around though. McCain getting the silver will be even more of a disaster than Romney failing to get the gold though. The mainstream media will be (even more) unbearable in promoting him than they have been already. A “nightmare scenario,” as Thomas put it, indeed.
January 1st, 2008 at 6:10 am
Mitt by 11 points! Huck and Thompson vie for 2nd. The MSM disses Mitt’s win. Hillary 3rd! Edwards wins, Obama a close 2nd. Bill Clinton throws a FIT!
January 1st, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Paulie, DMR polls are not all bad news. True, they have Huckabee ahead at 32, vs Mitt’s 26. However, if you do dig in their report, you will see that first, they have polled about 50% of what they said are “Fundamental Christians.” That is a bit too high, considering there are only 35% to 40% of cacus goers who are Evangelicals.
Then there is the number of those who are sure of their decisions. With the previous polls, Huckabee had as high as 75% of his supporters so sure of voting for him. Now it is about 45%. Mitt has remained stable at 55% the whole month. Mitt can do it!