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Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Huckabee's Iowa Meltdown [Mark Hemingway]

So in calling around to figure out what exactly is going on in Iowa, I'm hearing that Huck's stunt yesterday — where he showed an anti-Romney ad at a press conference and then said he wasn't going to show it — was genuine. I hear that broader coordinated efforts to support the anti-Romney ad were also called off at the last minute, after materials were prepared.

But this shows the Huck camp's basic problem. They are a shoestring organization that has struggled to put together a cohesive strategy. Further, Huck's flighty campaign style — as evidenced by the stunt yesterday — does not lend itself to a disciplined campaign. For weeks, I've been hearing that if Iowa was at all close, Romney would probably pull out the victory because his ground organization their was so good.

Other Iowa operatives claim that Huckabee's internal polling weaknesses meant he didn't see his downtrend there until after other campaigns did. So now a few days before the election, Huck's panicked and doesn't know what he's doing — hence yesterday's press conference.

So a Huck victory in Iowa is not impossible, but now I wouldn't be surprised if Huck not only loses, but loses by a surprising margin. How this affects the victory narrative I don't know. The story out of Iowa will most likely be Romney's comeback, but if Huck's meltdown proves especially bad and either Thompson or McCain has a surprising third place showing that could also be significant.
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