This is sad, so very, very sad. Yesterday, “the Huckabee campaign acknowledged that its chronic shortage of money might be catching up to it.” Huckabee himself told reporters that he won’t be running advertisements in Florida “and his only campaign stops scheduled so far this week were token events at airports.”
To deal with the financial issues, “Ed Rollins, his top consultant, and a few other staff members have agreed to work without pay, and his campaign has stopped arranging transportation for the traveling press.”
As the NYT points out, this is wonderful news for Mitt Romney:
Mr. Romney had initially planned to present himself as the social conservatives’ standard bearer, taking strong stands against abortion rights, embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex marriage. But Mr. Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister, derailed those plans by rallying evangelical Christians with a novel message of conservatism on social issues and populism on economic ones. He also capitalized on evangelical suspicions about Mr. Romney’s past statements on issues and about his Mormon faith.
This doesn’t mean that some of Huckabee’s supporters will go to Romney – I think that they’re more likely to move to Huckabee’s buddy John McCain – but it might mean that people who were open to Huckabee’s message, yet not committed yet, will now turn to Romney. Not only that: in order for McCain to win, the conservative vote has to be fractured. Now that Thompson’s out, and Huckabee basically out of the race in Florida, Romney should be better there, especially considering the fact that the last Rasmussen poll has him in the lead there.
Huckabee’s financial woes are so serious that he’s already telling reporters that “[i]f the campaign doesn’t make it all the way, we want to walk away completely in the black.” This means that he’s basically preparing people for a drop-out. He can try to run all he want, but if he doesn’t have money to spend, he won’t be able to compete anymore.
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The other side of the coin though is that all of these developments which are supposed to be good for Romney are raising the expectations for him in FL. He has the money, but will it be enough to give him a clear win, or will the field still be split after FL, with no real frontrunner going into Super Tuesday?
Christine: pundits agree that a (close) second place finish would be good enough for Romney, as long as Giuliani is the winner.
He has to beat McCain – that has to be his goal. Even if he doesn’t, though, he’ll still be the candidate with money.
Florida is going to be interesting:
1. Giuliani has to win
2. McCain has to finish before Romney, probably win because if Giuliani creates momentum they’re suddenly fighting over the same votes
3. Romney has to try to finish before McCain but not necessarily first (although that would be awesome)
Result:
- It’s Giuliani vs. McCain
- It’s Romney vs. McCain
- It’s McCain vs. Romney
- It’s McCain vs. Giuliani
It could be that Romney and Giuliani don’t go after each other toooooo aggresively, while mccain has to fight off both.
O, that horse race: fascinating.
I’m only pointing out the effects of expectations. I don’t think there’s any denying that if Romney outspends everyone by large margins and doesn’t come up with a clear win in FL, that it will look bad for him- because it becomes clearer that money isn’t the answer, that he can’t buy the voters’ support.
And on Huckabee’s side, it looks to me like they’re hoping to leverage their ‘poor status’ like they did in Iowa- they have no money, so instead of trying to pretend that’s not the case they’re hoping that by telling everyone they have no money, that this will have appeal to people who want to feel that it’s the grassroots who decide elections. Plus, counting on the opposite of the ‘high expectations’ by setting the goalpost low and then (hopefully, from their standpoint) soaring over it.
Hope he enjoyed his brief moment in the sun in Iowa. I don’t find it sad in the least; good riddance, as far as I’m concerned.
At Bain Capital, Mr. Romney used offshore corporations to avoid U.S. taxation, and he fee-milked acquired businesses before firing workers and taking them into bankruptcy ( http://snipr.com/romneyoffshore ), to amass his great $250,000,000 wealth. When you compare how Mr. Huckabee’s visionary FairTax advocacy ( http://snipr.com/nextrung ) compares to Romney’s interest in the current tax system, it’s pretty easy to see who will lose by acquiescing to the "monied candidate," – every working American man and woman, now basically tax slaves supporting an oppressive income tax system ( http://snipr.com/taxburden ) – $265 billion annual tax code compliance costs representing 5 billion wasted hours, annually.