Iowa Looms As Last Chance For Some Candidates
The Iowa caucuses could spell the end of the line for several presidential candidates.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum are the likeliest to pack up if the former Iowa caucus winners have a disappointing finish on Monday.
Iowa could also deal Ben Carson, Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina a crucial blow if they fail to outperform their spot at the polls. But most experts believe they’ll hang on with enough financial resources to pray for a backup plan.
For Huckabee and Santorum, it’s a matter of money and poor polling.
Both candidates pegged their entire campaign strategy on Iowa, holding the top two spots for number of campaign events there, according to the Des Moines Register. But Huckabee hasn’t hit more than 4 percent in an Iowa poll since November, while Santorum hasn’t done so since July.
The Iowa results could be detrimental to their already lagging fundraising, hastening the need for a departure.
But some Republican strategists say that all of the candidates will wait it out regardless of their Iowa finishes and will continue at least until the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary, or even through the so-called SEC primary on March 1 to see if their messages resonate in the swing of Southern states.
“I think just about everyone will stay in through New Hampshire because everyone wants to knows how you play with evangelicals in Iowa and how you play with more moderate, mainstream voters in New Hampshire,” Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist who worked on John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee Relegated To Undercard At Next Republican Debate
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee have been demoted to the undercard for next week’s prime time Republican presidential debate, while Sen. Lindsey Graham and former New York Gov. George E. Pataki learned that they did not get an invite — stoking speculation as to whether their sputtering campaigns can survive the damaging blow.
Fox Business Network announced Thursday that businessman Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson will take center stage at the two-hour event in Milwaukee. The debate, scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. EST, is the fourth of the nomination race and also will feature Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, who have picked up momentum.
Ford O’Connell, a Republican Party strategist, said the candidacies of Mr. Christie and Mr. Huckabee could be doomed “because of the stigma attached to being on the undercard, and we are roughly 80-plus days to the first nominating contest.”
“There just is not enough time to recover,” Mr. O’Connell said. “Politics is all about perception, and if you are not in the prime-time portion of the debates, it is going to be very hard for voters to get excited about you given the size and scope of the current field.
“Put it another way, how does getting demoted to Pawtucket help you make a MLB all-star game?” he said, alluding to the Boston Red Sox AAA baseball affiliate in Rhode Island.
Mike Huckabee’s Latest Strategy Aims To Turn Trolling Into Better Polling
With the Iowa caucuses a little over three months away, Huckabee has yet to have his moment. His poll numbers are bad (though not bad enough to bump him from the mainstage at next week’s CNBC debate.) And he’s way behind in the GOP money race, having raised just $1.24 million – the lowest out of all the 10 candidates who’ve made a top-tier debate this year.
Given those challenges, it’s understandable then to see Huckabee now dabbling with a bit of political theater, to say the least. A former Baptist pastor, Fox News pundit, and author of several books, Huckabee knows how to speak in soundbites to get a good headline – particularly when it comes to social issues. Most recently, he’s picked a fight with Rainbow Doritos, criticized President Obama’s treatment of the pope as “classless,” and staged a highly dramatic scene outside a Kentucky jail for the release of anti-gay marriage Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis. Like Donald Trump, Huckabee has also been a consistent source of entertainment on Twitter, although he hasn’t proven to be quite as politically adept at it as the real estate mogul.
Yet with the summer “silly season” long gone and the presidential field beginning to winnow, this latest Benghazi rant begs a serious question: Is Mike Huckabee still making a genuine play for the White House, or just trolling the candidates who are?
The Huckabee camp, for its part, insists it’s the former.
Some are skeptical of Team Huckabee’s optimism, however, and view his inflammatory tweeting as a clear act of desperation, if not outright trolling.
“People aren’t taking him that seriously,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell, who worked with Arizona Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008. “I don’t know if he’s solely just a troll. But he’s definitely a candidate who’s down on his luck, grasping at straws.”
“[Huckabee’s] strong point has always been social conservatives, and right now they’re gravitating toward Carson and Cruz,” said O’Connell. “He’s a man without a slice of the party right now.”
Huckabee Finances Challenge His Future
Mike Huckabee faces the greatest challenge of the top 10 GOP presidential candidates in continuing his campaign, according to the latest fundraising reports released on Thursday.
While the former Arkansas governor is in no real danger of missing the cut for the third debate in two weeks based on poll numbers, his financial picture is a different matter.
Huckabee raised just $1.24 million, the lowest of any candidate who has made a top-tier debate this year and half as much as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, whose poll numbers have dropped over the past few months.
Candidates posting poor figures “should be extremely worried,” said Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist who worked with Sen. John McCain’s (Ariz.) presidential campaign in 2008.
“Donors want to back the winner and it’s becoming completely clear who the winners are likely to be.”
“It’s horrible for Huckabee…if he doesn’t win Iowa he is dead in the water,” O’Connell said.
“Sixty percent of the Iowa Republican caucus base is evangelical, you have to make a straight religious, social values play,” he added, something the former pastor is built to do even as religious voters find homes under the wings of other candidates.
An Important Announcement, About a Coming Announcement
For long-shot presidential contenders, the art of the campaign announcement has started to have a familiar ring: drip, drip, drip.
The latest example came on Monday, when Senator Lindsey Graham teed up an “important announcement” to be made on CBS. After expounding on foreign policy, Mr. Graham unveiled plans to — wait for it — make another announcement.
The Republican from South Carolina will say officially he’s running on June 1.
The strategy echoes the one used by former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, whose wife last week invited supporters to an announcement event in Dallas where the Perry family members could discuss the role they could play in America’s future.
Last month, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas followed a similar playbook, announcing his announcement plans for May 5.
Strategists say that with the appetite for political news growing more voracious earlier in the election cycle, candidates who are likely to struggle with fund-raising get more exposure and rewards by keeping their names in the lights as long as possible.
“It’s the soft opening before the official opening,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who served on Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008. “It helps drive home more name identification for these folks.”
Mr. O’Connell noted that the growing prominence of “super PACs” has been another reason for campaigns to drag out there rollouts, as it allows more time for candidates to court donors for outside groups.
Is Rick Santorum's Support Fading?
If former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., runs for president — he is set to announce his intentions May 27 in Pittsburgh — he will face a tougher task than in 2012 when he won the Iowa caucuses.
Some Republicans think if Santorum enters the race he will only manage to divide social conservative voters. Ford O'Connell, a GOP strategist who worked for the McCain-Palin campaign in 2008, said Santorum's entrance will be good news for "establishment folks" like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is courting more moderate Republicans.
"He's [Santorum] got to understand that this isn't 2012 and he isn't competing against the B-team," O'Connell said. "He's really a poor man's Mike Huckabee, in the sense that he does very well with social conservatives and he does very well with the white working class who make under 65K. The problem is there are a lot of people competing in that arena."
Mike Huckabee Makes 2nd Run For US Presidency
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee jumped into the Republican presidential race Tuesday, launching his second bid for the White House. Huckabee kicked off his campaign with an elaborate event in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas. If that town sounds familiar it's because former President Bill Clinton also grew up in Hope and famously ended his 1992 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in New York with, “I still believe in a place called Hope.”
Huckabee launched his second White House campaign with an indictment of the Obama administration and a pitch to working class Americans worried about their jobs and social conservatives who share his opposition to abortion and gay marriage. “America’s leadership in the world is completely evaporated and the country is more polarized than ever in my lifetime. We were promised hope but it was just talk. And now we need the kind of change that really could get America from hope to higher ground!”
But analysts said that like other Republican contenders he will talk a lot about foreign policy and national security issues. “I think when all is said and done and we get to the general election in 2016, you going to have three issues: economic mobility, jobs and national security. And while they do overlap the ability for Republicans to distinguish themselves with the Republican primary on national security is going to be very, very important,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.
An Unusual Field Crowds The Republican Pool
It’s spring, and the water must be fine, because everybody’s jumping in. Carly Fiorina leaped in Monday with Ben Carson, and Mike Huckabee will follow Tuesday. Republicans have never had such diversity.
There’s two Cuban-Americans who speak fluent Spanish, a Baptist preacher who speaks fluent old-time values, a black man and a white woman, and “a big mule” from the Republican establishment with more than his big toe in the water. There’s more to come, including an Indian-American governor. They all appear to be comfortable in their “gender,” and if Bruce Jenner, a newly discovered transgender conservative, Republican and Christian can be persuaded to run the party would have left no stone unturned. It’s a year like no other just ahead.
Once upon a time a presidential candidate with no experience would have been relegated to the cheap seats, told he could watch if he kept quiet. Presidential candidates were expected to get their experience as a governor, or marinated in the U.S. Senate, and only then to present themselves as worthy to be considered a likely candidate for president. The presidency had never been a position for on-the-job training.
But nobody is laughing at Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina. They’re the longest of long shots, but they expect to be taken seriously. Only yesterday the idea of a black president was the stuff of pipe dreams, and now there’s a credible black candidate setting out to succeed a black president. Is this a great country, or what?
“In terms of style and rhetoric,” says Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist, tells Fox News, “[Huckabee]’s at his best talking to white working-class voters who feel left behind by Washington and shut out by the economy.” These are just the voters once locked up by the Democrats. The world is turned upside down.
Republicans To Increase Their Boots On The Trail
Their poll numbers often barely register, and they are not exactly household names. But the three Republicans announcing presidential bids this week could have an important effect on the party’s political discussion.
Monday brought a big announcement from Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, and Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and Tea Party favorite, entered the race on Sunday evening. On Tuesday, Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, will jump back into the fray at an event in the state.
“Their importance is bringing diversity to the Republican conversation,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who served on John McCain‘s campaign in 2008. Ms. Fiorina, who has said she could help negate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s appeal to women, could prompt Republicans to adjust their tone and speech in ways that may be helpful in the general election.
Mr. Carson, who has been a fierce critic of the Affordable Care Act, will bring firsthand knowledge of America’s health system and an outsider’s perspective. He is also the only African-American in the race so far.
Mr. Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, and his support among evangelical Christians and social conservatives could make him a potential kingmaker for a more mainstream Republican who is struggling to consolidate voters.
2016 GOP Field Gets New Blood
The Republican presidential field will get an infusion of new blood this week as three new candidates enter the race for the GOP nomination.
On Monday morning, Dr. Ben Carson and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina have near-simultaneous announcements planned -- the black neurosurgeon will launch from his hometown of Detroit, while Fiorina plans a lower-key start with a press call and an online townhall later that afternoon.
The next day, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is expected to launch his second bid for president from his storied hometown of Hope, Ark.
Republican observers are especially enthused by the entrance of Carson, the only African-American in the field, and Fiorina, who’s likely to be the only female GOP candidate, to bring added diversity to a field that already includes two Cuban Americans in Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Texas).
But Carson and Fiorina have almost no political experience between them, leading many Republicans to view Huckabee as the most formidable of the new trio.
ndeed, one of Huckabee’s strengths is his appeal to the blue collar and working class voters that have become a key constituency for Republicans in recent elections.
“In terms of style and rhetoric, he’s at his best talking to white working class voters who feel left behind by Washington and shut out of the economy,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.
The former Hewlett-Packard CEO barely registers in national polls, taking just 1 percent support, according to the RealClearPolitics average.
“The other candidates will be watching and learning from her tone and rhetoric as she goes after Hillary,” said O’Connell. “The media won’t be able to immediately pull the woman card on her.”
