Mitt/Huck Fight Helps Rudy
by Patrick Ruffini :: December 7th, 2007 1:40 amSoren Dayton says that Mike Huckabee’s rise is facilitated by Rudy Giuliani’s slide in national polls. Social conservatives have less need to compromise and swallow Mitt if they believe Giuliani will fade on his own.
But appearances and reality can sometimes be quite different. Rudy may appear weaker in national polling, but he is actually strengthened by the dynamics of the Romney/Huckabee fight.
A few weeks ago, Romney rolling in both Iowa and New Hampshire was the nightmare scenario for all Republican candidates not named Romney. Romney could only go from 10% in national polls to the nomination with a Kerry-like burst of publicity arising from a 1-2 punch out of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Now, Mike Huckabee, armed with little more than a sling-shot, is casting serious doubt on that strategy.
That gives Rudy some breathing room. He is not where he needs to be in the early states, but short of one outright win in the first two contests, his February 5th strategy will rely on a split decision from the Hawkeye and Granite States. Mike Huckabee provides the best hope for that, by far.
Let’s go back in time to 1996. Bob Dole was a weak frontrunner who couldn’t break 27% in the first few contests. He had about as bad a run in the early primaries as you can have without losing the nomination. He eeked out a win in neighboring Iowa. He was then humiliated in New Hampshire by Pat Buchanan. He lost Delaware. He lost Arizona. As a Steve Forbes supporter at the time, I relished the talk of a brokered convention. Bill Safire ended a column with, “Richard G. Lugar of Indiana on the 10th ballot, anyone?”
Now, no one — least of all Rudy — wants to be compared with Bob Dole. But here’s what Dole had going for him: the opposition was fragmented. Pat Buchanan won in Louisiana and Iowa. Forbes won in Delaware and Arizona. Lamar! had a Huck-like burst of momentum out of Iowa. Conservatives couldn’t settle on a single anti-Dole candidate. Had such a candidate swept the non-Iowa races up to South Carolina, they probably would have won. But the field was split.
If Huckabee wins Iowa, his momentum is not actionable in New Hampshire because of the demographics, but he probably wounds Romney, making that a closer race than it would have been with Rudy (or McCain?) With Fred (probably) out of the race, Huckabee then wins in South Carolina. A poll released at the YouTube debate already had Huckabee at 17% in Florida. Mitt’s only obvious opportunity in this early state jumble is Michigan, but will he have the momentum needed to move up after underperforming early on (unless Rudy/McCain/Fred somehow all self-destruct)?
This early muddle is exactly the kind of scenario Rudy’s 2/5 strategy was made for. As people try to sort out the Mitt/Huck mess, Rudy bides his time and rolls with big delegate wins in Florida, California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois.
It’s risky, to be sure. I’ve never been a fan of this approach, and Rudy’s people do seem to be walking it back a bit. But it is exactly this kind of late strike by Huckabee that may validate Rudy’s initial strategy in the end.
Tagged: mike huckabee 
mitt romney rudy giuliani
Comments (5) 
Trackbacks (6) 
del.icio.us 
digg it 
subscribe
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Rudy won’t be able to hold his lead in Florida if Huckabee wins Iowa and South Carolina. Florida is a southern, mostly baptist state. Fertile ground for Huckabee. Romney will still win New Hampshire, Nevada and probably Michigan. This notion that Romney will disappear if he loses Iowa is nonsense. He’ll still beat Rudy and McCain there. And they are his main competition in NH and Michigan.
Rudy was better off having Romney winning all the early states and then stopping him in Florida. He won’t be able to stop Huckabee in the South.
If Huckabee somehow ends up winning this thing, we fiscal cons/libert-Repubs may have to look to the Libertarian Party. I’d support just about any Republican save Huckabee. If it’s Huck, I’m voting LP.
Thankfully, the LP has recruited Las Vegas Sports Gaming guru Wayne Root to run. Finally, they have a well-funded credible candidate.
The Religious Conservatives have got to know that they’d be driving libertarians like me straight out of the Party with Huckabee.
Romney, Fred Thompson, fine compromise candidates. Huckabee? Never!
I’m actually starting to see how McCain could be the one to win this thing. If McCain wins NH he will get a huge burst of publicity and head to South Carolina, in a quasi-replay of the 2000 Bush/McCain contest. Only this time, the southern favorite son vote will be split (Thompson will be a factor, albiet a fading one). Under such a scenario, Romney would likely pull out of SC and focus on Michegin and Nevada. Rudy would probably be tempted to make a push in South Carolina, but would probably prefer to marshall his resources to finish the better funded Romney off rather than competing in a state he would be unlikely to carry anyway. A McCain win in SC would wound Huckabee and might give Rudy room to win Florida, but would ultimately create a Rudy/ McCain showdown on Feb 5 (which I honestly never thought was possible before now). Said showdown would also favor McCain a lot more than it looked like 2 years ago. Oh well, something to consider.
The key thing to watch, in my opinion, is how much time passes before the Huckaboom goes Huckabust. If he keeps up the momentum, I’m not sure how Huck could be stopped.
On the other hand, it’s probably more logical to compare the Huckasurge to Fred Thompson entering the race…people like him, but they haven’t really studied his policies or heard a lot of negative press.
Eventually, the Huckabubble is going to Huckapop, and the real question is how close to Iowa we are when that happens. If it happens too early (within a week), we will witness a Huckacrash and Romney is back in the game. If it happens too late (a week or less before Jan. 3), there could be a Huckabounce coming out of Iowa and any lost momentum could be regained. Rudy needs a scenario where the man from Hope hangs on by a hair in Iowa, but implodes before he can do any more damage. I say that happens if Huckabee levels off between Dec. 15th and Christmas.
I think Republicans are in denial. I work at a polling firm here in DC. The main message of the polls up until this point has been that everyday Republican primary voters hate all of the “major” candidates, or at the very least are not excited by them. McCain-old news, Giuliani-too liberal, Romney-a phoney, Thompson-a bust. Huckabee is finally connecting with voters and they’re excited. And I can say with all honesty, I think the guy is your best bet for the general too.
Not sure if you noticed, but Huckabee is already leading nationally in some polls, and significantly ahead in SC. Iowans are going ga-ga for him too, 39-17% in the Newsweek poll tonight.
He may not win in New Hampshire, but I bet he wins SC, FL and then Feb. 5th he wipes the floor with Rudy (sitting just above 20% all year when you have 100% name ID is not what I call a lead).
Huckabee is your nominee.
[…] Last Man Standing: [Patrick Ruffini, Patrick Ruffini]” “Rudy may appear weaker in national polling, but he is actually strengthened by the dynamics of the Romney/Huckabee fight.” […]
[…] Patrick Ruffini makes a reasonable case that a divided field may help Giuliani in the end, but I still think it won’t. The divided field right now is giving Giuliani the illusion of hope, just as his high national poll numbers have created an illusion that he is dominating the race when he clearly isn’t. What is telling about all of this is that, absent Huckabee’s mostly unexpected and unpredicted rise in Iowa, Giuliani’s “strategy” for the primaries was fairly crazy. It remains so, even though Huckabee may have made the crazy strategy slightly more workable. It should have been a warning to the Giuliani camp that their cunning plan was essentially identical to Fred Thompson’s goal of winning South Carolina and then going on to win in many February 5 states. It should have been clear early on that a campaign strategy that bore strong resemblance to Fred Thompson’s was not going to work. At least Thompson had the excuses that he entered the race late and didn’t really seem interested in campaigning. Giuliani’s predicament in several of the early states is that he already knew voters there wouldn’t go for him, so there wasn’t much point in investing a lot of time and effort in wooing them. […]
[…] Patrick Ruffini is of the opinion that the newest Mitt/Huck fight helps Rudy Giuliani. He has a new article out, to that effect. I think this premise is fatally flawed. Ruffini writes: A few weeks ago, Romney rolling in both Iowa and New Hampshire was the nightmare scenario for all Republican candidates not named Romney. Romney could only go from 10% in national polls to the nomination with a Kerry-like burst of publicity arising from a 1-2 punch out of Iowa and New Hampshire. […]
[…] Mitt/Huck Fight Helps Rudy by Patrick Ruffini […]
[…] Update, 12.8: Patrick Ruffini also agrees with us. See Mitt/Hick fight helps Rudy. […]
Payday Advance Loans…
Librarians accept Payday-Loan-Place.com when they urgently require payday loans in a difficult circumstance, or only want excess cash in their wallets !…