Huckabee!
by Patrick Ruffini :: August 11th, 2007 10:23 pm Ames results are as follows:
Mitt Romney 4516 votes (31.0%)
Mike Huckabee 2587 votes (18.1%)
Sam Brownback 2192 votes (15.3%)
Tom Tancredo 1961 votes (13.7%).
Ron Paul with 1305 votes (9.1%)
Tommy Thompson 1,009 votes (7.3%)
Fred Thompson 231 votes (1.6%)
Rudy Giuliani 183 votes (1.3%)
Duncan Hunter 174 votes (1.2%)
John McCain 101 votes (0.7%)
John Cox 41 votes (0.3%)
Mitt Romney wins, but by just a shade more than George W. Bush did in 1999 when facing Steve Forbes, who threw millions at the straw poll, and against a far more formidable Ames field overall.
The surprise here has to be Huckabee, who reportedly did not bus many people in, and did not have the amenities of Romney or Brownback (air conditioned tent!!). Brownback’s turnout at the speeches was by all accounts very impressive, and they have to be steamed at being out-hustled by a sleeper candidate. Does Huckabee now steal the religious right mantle from Brownback?
Did Huckabee just do better retail politicking, converting solid Romney or Brownback votes, or was there something else going on?
Rumor: Sen. John McCain’s Iowa field staff is quietly helping Sen. Sam Brownback recruit supporters for the Ames straw poll. The goal is to drive down Mitt Romney’s margin of victory. Similarly, Rudy Giuliani’s campaign is quietly helping Mike Huckabee — for exactly the same reason.
Truth: Untrue, although free lance operators may have arrived at the same strategic insight. There’s no official help flowing from either McCain’s campaign or Giuliani’s campaign.
I’ve worked in politics long enough to know that things are rarely as interesting as the rumors. But just as it’s not a stretch to imagine some low-level collusion between the Brownback and McCain camps (it’s been happening in Michigan for months), it’s easy to see why other campaigns would want to depress Mitt Romney’s margin. If “free lance operators” for Rudy Giuliani were indeed helping Mike Huckabee, helping him leapfrog the better organized Brownback, that would speak well to the former Mayor’s organization in the Hawkeye State. And the same could be said for whoever else may have been covertly helping the man from Hope.
Maybe 10 or 15 percent of the crowd (about 2,000 people) at Iowa State was there organically, if you extrapolate Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain’s showing with their poll numbers. About 85% wouldn’t have shown up without a campaign paying their way.
Also, Ron Paul finished fifth. His camp expected to finish in the top three. Here was his communications director:
“We expect to be in the top three,” Benton said. “We’ve got four staffers organizing and we’ve got a lot of web site RSVPs from volunteers.”
That’s disappointing. No rEVOLution.
Tagged: 2008 
iowa mike huckabee mitt romney ron paul sam brownback
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“That’s disappointing. No rEVOLution.”
You wouldn’t know a revolution if it bit you in the ass. That link you have up to the RedState FredHead RV is plain embarrassing. Better hurry up and bomb Pakistan so you’re 2.0 Movement can get jumpstarted.
^ you’re = your
You can’t do it on grassroots alone. The Ron Paul campaign in Iowa was mystifying to me. He says he spent $200 per vote. That means he spent about $260,000. He had ten times that much! That’s just about half of what Huckabee and Brownback had on hand. He was in a position to outspend Huckabee and Brownback by a considerable amount in the stretch run and needed desperately to do that because he had a lot of catching up to do. And yet he spent no more than they probably did and quite possibly less in that final period.
He didn’t show up to campaign personally until the final week. Perhaps that’s because Congress was in session. (Although Brownback and Tancredo managed to). But, more important, he spent nothing on advertising until the final week when he knew at least a month ahead of time that he had a big advantage in cash on hand over the other 2nd tier candidates.
Finally, and this much is still relevant, he never honed his message. His overall theme is strict constitutionalism, but his speeches tend to spell out his position on a whole range of issues: gun control, the drug war, Iraq, the income tax, the federal reserve, the gold standard, a national ID card, border security, amnesty, birthright marriage, etc.
Ronald Reagan honed in three major issues in his first campaign: tax cuts, increased defense spending, and de-regulation. Ron Paul needs to focus on a few key issues. I’d suggest 1. opposition to the Irag War, 2. border security, and 3. abolish the income tax.
Ron Paul supporters understand how all of his issues connect to his view of the constitution, but the casual listener or casual reader does not. Fify-six percent of Iowa Republicans oppose the Iraq War but Ron Paul got only 1300 votes. And independents and Democrats could vote as well. Given the low turn-out, Ron Paul should have been able to win on that issue alone. But people didn’t know his stand the issue. He just kept preaching to the choir.
Despite Ron Paul’s poor showing in Iowa, it probably won’t be the end of his campaign as it surely is for Tommy Thompson and might be for Sam Brownback. For one thing, he still has a lot of money he should have spent but didn’t. And he can probably still expect to raise more money on the internet. In fact, Ron Paul’s showing wasn’t too bad for the amount of effort he put in.
But that’s just the problem. Here was a big opportunity that he lost by not putting in the necessary effort. No similar opportunity will come along. He could have broken out the second tier, but instead, Huckabee gets that honor.
I think their campaign put too much faith in a grass roots effort that wasn’t all that large in Iowa to begin with. Had it been based within the Republican Party it might have had a lot more effect, but it was mostly outsiders including a lot of out-of-staters.
His best bet now is the New Hampshire primary, but even if he does well there, there won’t be sufficient time by then to build a national campaign.
You had to know I would show up.
“You heard it here first”…..”Ron Paul will place second in the Ames poll”
Now…. who said that? hmmm…. Oh yeah - YOU! Hahaha, No hard feelings.
This was very encouraging. I was right about Huckabee. He’s been focusing on grassroots - new bus, new site, reformed message.
And you thought Ron Paul was serious….. We shouldn’t place our New Media “WAKE UP” on Ron Paul’s eCampaign. Let’s do it the hard way: one leader at a time.