Is Huckabee the Republican Howard Dean or Jimmy Carter?
A month or so ago, a number of people were suggesting that Ron Paul was the Republican equivalent of Howard Dean. I thought that analogy was inapt.
But Mike Huckabee's recent meteoric rise does remind me a lot of Howard Dean. Like Dean in 2004, Huckabee is an obscure governor from a small state who, with the support of a key segment of his party's base, has shot past his more well-known rivals in the polls. Like Dean, he has risen from second-tier status to a point where he appears poised to win the Iowa caucuses.
Given what happened to Dean, the Huckabee campaign would likely prefer a different analogy. So how about this one. In 1976, an obscure Southern governor named Jimmy Carter scored a surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses and used that win to propel himself past a number of better known rivals all the way to the nomination and eventually the presidency.
So is the Huckabee campaign more likely to flame out like Dean's or go the distance like Carter's? It's tough to tell. Like Dean in 2004, Huckabee has risen to the top in Iowa with less than a month to go. And like Dean in 2004, the party establishment is clearly concerned about the prospect of him winning the nomination. They're worried not only about his electability, but also by his outsider status (the party establishment always finds outsiders threatening). The Drudge Report headline today provides a window into this concern.
So like Dean in 2004--Huckabee is likely to be attacked on a number of fronts in the coming month. Many influential people within the Republican party--not to mention a number of well-funded rivals--do not want Huckabee to win and will do what they can to tear him down. But Huckabee does have one thing going for him that Dean did not have. In 2004, all of the major Democratic candidates except Wesley Clark were competing heavily in Iowa (and Clark's main opponent in New Hampshire was Dean). So all of Dean's rivals had an interest in tearing Dean down prior to the Iowa vote. And that's what they did.
The same is not true of Huckabee. This time around, both Rudy Giuliani and John McCain are gambling that a Huckabee victory in Iowa will help them in New Hampshire and later states (by damaging Mitt Romney), so they are holding their fire for now (McCain has actually attacked Romney for attacking Huckabee). This unusual dynamic will help shield Huckabee to some extent until after the Iowa vote, making a pre-Iowa collapse a little less likely.
On the other hand, Dean did have several advantages that Huckabee does not. One, he had a lot more money, which allowed him to defend himself on the airwaves. Two, he had some key establishment support (remember, he was endorsed by Al Gore and a number of other big name Democrats prior to the caucuses). Three, Dean was far and away the candidate of choice among Democratic bloggers and activists; they advocated for him and helped him fend off attacks.
Huckabee has virtually no establishment support. And based on my somewhat haphazard survey of right-leaning publications and blogs, I don't see very much support for him there either. Conservative journalists, bloggers, and activists seem mostly to prefer other candidates and are generally happy to call attention to negative stories about Huckabee. Unless Huckabee can change this dynamic and win over some establishment/media types, locking up the nomination will difficult. But I don't think such a reconciliation is out of the question. If Huckabee wins some early states and looks poised to win the nomination, establishment support will grudgingly follow (as was starting to happen when Dean looked like the prohibitive favorite in December 2003). If Huckabee says the right things and checks the right interest group boxes, I think many of the activists can be won over as well.
I'm not sure how to rate Huckabee's chances at this point. My hunch is that if he can survive long enough to win Iowa decisively, the ensuing anti-Huckabee surge may not be enough to topple him (would Dean have lost had he managed to win Iowa?). The most interesting scenario would be if Huckabee survives long enough to significantly damage Romney and Giuliani, but a majority of Republicans still harbor major doubts about his electability. Under the right circumstances, I can see Republican voters turning to John McCain in much the same way Democratic voters turned to John Kerry in 2004. McCain has a pretty solidly conservative record, has way more experience than his rivals, is a decorated veteran, and polls the best in hypothetical general election matchups. He would seem to be the natural default alternative if the party gets skittish about Huckabee's prospects in the general election.
Anyway, that's enough inane horserace analysis for one post. I'll stop.
But Mike Huckabee's recent meteoric rise does remind me a lot of Howard Dean. Like Dean in 2004, Huckabee is an obscure governor from a small state who, with the support of a key segment of his party's base, has shot past his more well-known rivals in the polls. Like Dean, he has risen from second-tier status to a point where he appears poised to win the Iowa caucuses.
Given what happened to Dean, the Huckabee campaign would likely prefer a different analogy. So how about this one. In 1976, an obscure Southern governor named Jimmy Carter scored a surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses and used that win to propel himself past a number of better known rivals all the way to the nomination and eventually the presidency.
So is the Huckabee campaign more likely to flame out like Dean's or go the distance like Carter's? It's tough to tell. Like Dean in 2004, Huckabee has risen to the top in Iowa with less than a month to go. And like Dean in 2004, the party establishment is clearly concerned about the prospect of him winning the nomination. They're worried not only about his electability, but also by his outsider status (the party establishment always finds outsiders threatening). The Drudge Report headline today provides a window into this concern.
So like Dean in 2004--Huckabee is likely to be attacked on a number of fronts in the coming month. Many influential people within the Republican party--not to mention a number of well-funded rivals--do not want Huckabee to win and will do what they can to tear him down. But Huckabee does have one thing going for him that Dean did not have. In 2004, all of the major Democratic candidates except Wesley Clark were competing heavily in Iowa (and Clark's main opponent in New Hampshire was Dean). So all of Dean's rivals had an interest in tearing Dean down prior to the Iowa vote. And that's what they did.
The same is not true of Huckabee. This time around, both Rudy Giuliani and John McCain are gambling that a Huckabee victory in Iowa will help them in New Hampshire and later states (by damaging Mitt Romney), so they are holding their fire for now (McCain has actually attacked Romney for attacking Huckabee). This unusual dynamic will help shield Huckabee to some extent until after the Iowa vote, making a pre-Iowa collapse a little less likely.
On the other hand, Dean did have several advantages that Huckabee does not. One, he had a lot more money, which allowed him to defend himself on the airwaves. Two, he had some key establishment support (remember, he was endorsed by Al Gore and a number of other big name Democrats prior to the caucuses). Three, Dean was far and away the candidate of choice among Democratic bloggers and activists; they advocated for him and helped him fend off attacks.
Huckabee has virtually no establishment support. And based on my somewhat haphazard survey of right-leaning publications and blogs, I don't see very much support for him there either. Conservative journalists, bloggers, and activists seem mostly to prefer other candidates and are generally happy to call attention to negative stories about Huckabee. Unless Huckabee can change this dynamic and win over some establishment/media types, locking up the nomination will difficult. But I don't think such a reconciliation is out of the question. If Huckabee wins some early states and looks poised to win the nomination, establishment support will grudgingly follow (as was starting to happen when Dean looked like the prohibitive favorite in December 2003). If Huckabee says the right things and checks the right interest group boxes, I think many of the activists can be won over as well.
I'm not sure how to rate Huckabee's chances at this point. My hunch is that if he can survive long enough to win Iowa decisively, the ensuing anti-Huckabee surge may not be enough to topple him (would Dean have lost had he managed to win Iowa?). The most interesting scenario would be if Huckabee survives long enough to significantly damage Romney and Giuliani, but a majority of Republicans still harbor major doubts about his electability. Under the right circumstances, I can see Republican voters turning to John McCain in much the same way Democratic voters turned to John Kerry in 2004. McCain has a pretty solidly conservative record, has way more experience than his rivals, is a decorated veteran, and polls the best in hypothetical general election matchups. He would seem to be the natural default alternative if the party gets skittish about Huckabee's prospects in the general election.
Anyway, that's enough inane horserace analysis for one post. I'll stop.
posted by A.L. at 3:49 PM
6 Comments:
I don't understand why the money boys and the wingnut welfare bunch are going after him so much. He looks willing to be the empty suit Bush was as long as could get his social conservatism on.
Hell he already endorsed the stupid fair tax, what more do they want?
In my opinion, the greatest peril faced by America is the trend towards authoritarian executive power. For the past six years the political elite in both paties have shown themselves unwilling to counter this trend in any meaningful way, so now torture and egregious violations of the privacy rights of Americans in ingoring FISA restrictions are the new normal.
America could do far worse at this juncture than to elect a Baptist pastor traditionalist conservative with the political instincts of Edmund Burke and John Locke. As a Republican he could be as well placed to roll back the neocon agenda as Nixon was to seek better relations with China.
And so once more I say, help us Obi-wan Huckabee, you are our only hope.
Neither. He's their Jimmy Dean.
All I'm interested in at this point is the anti-meteoric meltdown of the Vile Harridan. She is now at 60.1 on Tradesports, and the flopsweat is exquisitely delightful to see.
Who thinks her husband's presence helps her? Who wants four additional years of parsing, double-talking, and outright lying? Aparently even the Dems are wising up.
I simply can't imagine anything more fun than this.
Neither. More like a really perverted Elmer Gantry.
I’ve been a lifelong democrat all my life, I’ve never been very religious and I would vote for Huckabee over Clinton in a heartbeat. And I’m not the only democrat who feels that way.
Huckabee will walk away with the presidency easily.
Don’t believe me? Watch this clip…
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=80701&title=gov.-mike-huckabee
That clip shows the reason why I, a life long democrat, a huge fan of the daily show, would happily cast my vote for Huckabee over any of the democrats except possibly John Edwards.
He’s real. He’s honest. And he cares about people.
When was the last time a republican actually cared about the plight of the middle class. Doing so is commiting suicide in the primary race, or so people though. Huckabee went against the traditional wisdom and that’s why middle class americans, from both parties will vote for him in droves.
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