Understanding Huckabee’s Rise
Nathan Greene
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Many people and especially the pundits didn’t see Huckabee coming. Most people credit the Huckabee’s surprising second place finish at the Iowa Straw Poll as the place where he turned his campaign around. And while I mostly agree with that, he didn’t really emerge as a contender till November, months after the Straw Poll. So what’s the real reason for the Huck-a-boom?
After Fred Thompson’s entrance to the race, the field became set. The Thompson brain trust believed that that they were filling the void the national media kept talking about. Their only problem was they didn’t think they had to actually work to or earn that support. So while Thompson was busy begging for applause, the voters decided to go with a different candidate. The one candidate who benefited the most from this was Huckabee.
While not everybody is supporting Huckabee, almost everyone I talk to likes the guy. The same can’t be said of Romney or Giuliani. As mentioned above people had great hopes for Thompson; but instead found great disappointment.
Most insiders aligned with other campaigns believe that Huckabee will be damaged by all of these relentless attacks, I don’t. The attacks would be devastating to Huckabee if they were being made by a viable Fred Thompson, but being attacked by Romney lessens their impact because there is still a majority of people who question Romney on many core Republican issues.
Another thing that many of the talking heads like to talk about is the highly touted Romney Iowa organization. While there is no question that he has assembled the best staff of any Republican candidate in Iowa, they are only as good as their candidate. If you don’t believe me, ask John McCain who assembled an incredible Iowa Staff before having to part ways with most of them.
While Huckabee might not have the experienced staff that Romney has, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss his organizational efforts. With his surge in the polls, the Huckabee campaign has been flooded by people who want to help his campaign. So while Romney went out and found people who supported him, Huckabee had people find him. On caucus day it doesn’t matter how a person was recruited, it only matters that they show up. I think Huckabee’s people are going to show up.
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