A Serious Contender Suddenly
Eastland, Terry
A Serious Contender Suddenly Can Huckabee make voters see him as a plausible president? BY TERRY EASTLAND In his trips to Iowa last summer, Mike Huckabee often joked about how he was...
...What’s certain is that Huckabee will continue to run against what he calls the Republican establishment, which he faults for its insular character...
...Huckabee made use of the bully pulpit in his ten years as governor of Arkansas, and he sees it as central to the presidency he envisions...
...Huckabee will have to hope that his expressions of empathy suffi ce in his efforts to expand beyond his base...
...On the night of the Iowa caucuses, he said that some Republicans are “out of touch” with what people in the heartland think...
...After all, any time a candidate spends asking for money is time the candidate is not at some rally asking for votes...
...He has yet to unveil any policy proposals that might appeal to lower-end voters (regardless of their religious affi liation), and Chip Saltsman, Huckabee’s national campaign director, says none should be expected in the next month...
...While Huckabee’s ability to meet the practical demands of January will turn on how well his fundraising goes, this, too, presents a problem...
...It would be a mistake to assume that he’ll be unable to broaden his appeal...
...Most of the money would go to advertising...
...Look for this debate to escalate in January with Romney taking the lead in opposing Huckabee...
...The debate could decide the nomination, even the presidency...
...In an interview with the Fox News Channel the night of the caucuses, Huckabee agreed that many states have “a different voter base,” but added that different bases still care “about the same things,” noting middle-class “anxiety” about the future...
...Huckabee hasn’t entirely ruled out negative ads, so watch for them in South Carolina, where, leading in the polls, he doubtless will face an avalanche of attack ads from Romney...
...They accounted for more than 80 percent of his caucus-winning total...
...In Iowa, the entrance polls showed that 60 percent of Republican caucus-goers identified themselves as either “evangelical” or “bornagain Christians...
...He has few full-time aides and few consultants...
...But funds are also needed to expand Huckabee’s staff...
...BY TERRY EASTLAND In his trips to Iowa last summer, Mike Huckabee often joked about how he was actually the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, notwithstanding polls showing his support in the low single digits...
...Huckabee is an extraordinary communicator— by far the best speaker in the Republican fi eld—and his rhetorical skill helped Iowa voters see him as a plausible president...
...He doesn’t have a real policy shop or the capability to do his own polling...
...A candidate can target it for months, as Huckabee did, working the state, an aide told me, as if he were in “a race for governor...
...He has real talent in his employ—the few ads he ran in Iowa were works of political genius—but the staff is tiny as presidential contenders go...
...But only a large national staff can meet the geographical challenges of the intensifying campaign...
...Anyone paying attention to HuckaTerry Eastland is the publisher of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...bee in recent weeks knows that he has been trying to address the concerns of Americans, as he says, “at the lower ends of the economic scale...
...Huckabee’s remarkable victory in the last poll taken in Iowa—the caucuses themselves—was no joking matter to Mitt Romney, who fi nished a distant second after leading in Iowa polling for much of the year...
...Forty-six percent of that group supported Huckabee, a Southern Baptist pastor before entering politics who ran ads highlighting his faith...
...He has been talking about the rising costs of energy, health care, and education, and how working- and middle-class Americans are being hurt...
...None” was polling higher than Giuliani, Romney, or McCain, and Huckabee would grandly announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am none of the above...
...Only in a few states—South Carolina is one—are evangelicals likely to constitute anywhere close to such a large portion of the Republican electorate as they did in Iowa...
...Huckabee’s victory means that the former Arkansas governor will be a serious contender for the nomination at least through the Florida primary on January 29...
...Huckabee aides already see a path leading to the nomination: Finish third in New Hampshire on January 8, be competitive in Michigan on January 15, win South Carolina on January 19 and then Florida on January 29, with those victories creating the dynamic for eventual victory...
...The obvious question for Huckabee is whether he can gain much support from nonevangelical voters who are at those “lower ends...
...None of this hurt Huckabee in Iowa because it is the fi rst state on the presidential nominating schedule...
...It’s common to associate the presidency with what scholars have called “the rhetorical presidency”—the televised speech from the Oval Offi ce, or the televised press conference, or the talk show interview...
...As one aide told me on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, “Four weeks from today he’ll either be the nominee or he’ll not be...
...Huckabee’s other challenge is whether he can expand beyond his political base...
...they’re not interested in the concerns of working- and middle-class Americans and in what they discuss around “the dinner table...
...Huckabee has also criticized the keepers of various conservative orthodoxies, including the Club for Growth, which ran ads criticizing him for tax increases while he was governor of Arkansas...
...Huckabee’s run a low-budget campaign, and what he needs is a massive infusion of funds to compete in January’s fast-paced back-to-back primaries (not to mention in the 19 that take place on February 5’s “Super Tuesday...
Vol. 13 • January 2008 • No. 17
