Moment of truth Saturday in Iowa
Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007
Near the end of a monthlong blitz through Iowa, Mike Huckabee said Thursday that he is counting on a strong showing in Saturday's Iowa straw poll. But he's giving himself some wiggle room.
During a campaign stop early in the tour, the former Arkansas governor told the Des Moines Register that if he doesn't finish at least third," I have to seriously ask, ' Do we keep going ?'"
On Thursday, he seemed less ready to ask himself that question.
"It's not so much the positioning, but a lot may depend on the separation,"Huckabee said from Clive, Iowa, during a conference call with reporters. "If there's only a few votes that separate positions two, three, four and maybe five - but let's say two, three, four - that positioning may not matter as much as that you're within that grouping."
Huckabee has hopscotched the state, from the Panera Bread Co. in Sioux City to an ice-cream social in Storm Lake to the Sumhing Chinese Restaurant in Algona. (Sticking to his diet hasn't been a problem - he keeps his campaign bus stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables, said Eric Woolson, director of Huckabee's Iowa campaign. )
"Out of nine candidates, if we don't finish somewhere in the top half of that, then it's more difficult to convince donors and supporters around the country that we're catching on,"Huckabee said.
Some of the other candidates have "put everything into Iowa,"Huckabee said.
"We still have strong organizations in South Carolina and New Hampshire that are growing and building,"he said. "It's not like we've done only Iowa and if we don't do well here, we have nothing else to build on."
Still, he acknowledged that his campaign needs a boost.
A strong showing Saturday would "give us the capacity to go to donors who have been sitting on the sidelines and saying, ' Well, we're just not sure if you're gaining momentum, '"Huckabee said. "What we plan to do after Saturday is say, ' Here's the momentum, where's the check ?'"
About 40, 000 Iowa Republicans, along with hundreds of reporters, are expected to show up at Ames for Saturday's event, an early test of a campaign's organizational strength. The Iowa Republican Party, which organizes the straw poll and collects the money raised, bills it as "the most important event on the 2007 calendar"for Republican presidential hopefuls. (There is no Democratic counterpart. )
A ticket - and the right to cast a ballot - is $ 35, and candidates who can afford to buy a lot of them will have an advantage. Campaigns will pass out the tickets to supporters in air-conditioned tents, along with free food and entertainment. Huckabee will have performances by his band, Capitol Offense, and Jeff Shanklin, an impressionist who performs on The Rush Limbaugh Show. The food will include a truckload of Hope watermelons.
PAYING FOR THEIR SPOTS The campaigns bid for spots for their tents on the Iowa State campus. The best and largest spot, positioned between the three buildings in which people will cast ballots, went to Mitt Romney for $ 25, 000.
Huckabee paid $ 15, 500 for his, which is just north of the polling places and is sandwiched between Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter.
Romney and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, who is competing with Huckabee for the support of religious conservatives, will be busing in supporters from across the state. Huckabee's campaign won't have buses but is helping supporters form car pools, Woolson said.
He acknowledged that Huckabee will face an uphill battle.
"I think a sane person would say there's something about this event that is just out of the realm of the ordinary,"Woolson said. "You play the hand that's dealt you."
For the first time, specialinterest groups will also have tents, and one of them could help Huckabee's chances. Americans for Fair Taxation, which wants to replace the tax code with a sales tax, expects to have 1, 300 supporters from Iowa at the event, said Ken Hoagland, a spokesman for the group.
While some of the other candidates also support the fair tax, Hoagland said," No one has been stronger on it than Mike Huckabee. He's going to get a pretty big boost and maybe surprise all of the nation because of the support he's going to get from fair taxers."
The poll is expected to weed out the weaker candidates. In 1999, when George W. Bush won with 31 percent of the vote, a sixth-place finish prompted Lamar Alexander to drop out, while a second-place showing helped keep Steve Forbes in the race. This year, the ballot will include the 10 established contenders, plus Fred Thompson, who has not officially entered the race. Romney is widely expected to win. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are skipping the event, but Giuliani's showing could benefit from appearances he made in Iowa earlier this week.
MIXED BAG IN POLLS Polls released earlier this week painted a mixed picture of Huckabee's support. A Washington Post-ABC News survey of likely Iowa caucus voters showed Huckabee with 8 percent of the vote, tied for fourth place with McCain. The telephone poll of 402 people, conducted July 26-31, had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
A poll released Wednesday by the University of Iowa showed Huckabee in seventh place, with just 2. 6 percent of the vote and behind Brownback, Tancredo and McCain. The telephone poll of 306 likely Republican caucus-goers had a margin of error of plus or minus 5. 6 percentage points.
David Redlawsk, an associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa, said the poll shows that Huckabee "isn't particularly registering."But it also shows that the race is "wide open"because 31 percent of voters were undecided, a greater percentage than the 27 percent who planned to vote for Romney.
Ray Hoffman, chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said he isn't sure who will take second place, but he predicted that Huckabee will be in the top three.
"He's been working pretty hard,"Hoffman said. "I notice people like him everywhere I go."
Calvin Jillson, a politicalscience professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said Huckabee could help his campaign by placing third or fourth. And if he unexpectedly finishes second," People would chew over it, analyze it and wonder whether or not it's the beginning of a movement out of the second tier and into a more visible role."
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