Huckabee vs. Romney

Over at MyDD, Jerome Armstrong has a long and insightful post on the respective campaign strategies of Hillary, Obama and Edwards in Iowa, as well as relating some of the caucus work he did last year for Mark Warner’s abortive presidential campaign. Concluding his piece, he writes something that shocked me:

As for the Republicans, it’s obvious that barring some incredible meltdown or attack ads against him, Huckabee is going to win Iowa.

This is shocking because Iowa has been ground zero for the entire Romney campaign. He has visited the state 36 times since January, has blanketed the state with 5,048 ads (worth over $3 million) and was hoping for a resounding victory in order to springboard into New Hampshire and the February 5th states. For the last 6 months or so, this appeared likely as John McCain and Rudy Giuliani more or less conceded the state, Fred Thompson fizzled and Mike Huckabee failed to poll above 3% in the polls.

My, how things change. Huckabee has now polled within 5 points of Romney in Iowa. This is all the more impressive because up until today, he has not run a single ad in the state (although his first ad will appear tomorrow and feature Chuck Norris - it’s very funny). Huckabee’s rise greatly alters Mitt Romney’s path to the nomination. Even if Romney manages to hold him off and win the Caucuses by a slim margin, Romney’s win will be meaningless. This will be very reminiscent of the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic Primary when Bill Clinton was beaten by Paul Tsongas, but Bill managed to portray himself as the “Comeback Kid” and ride that momentum to the nomination. If Huckabee manages to beat Romney, it would be a huge story and almost certainly cause the Romney campaign to implode. It’s a win-win for Huckabee and a lose-lose for Romney.

This outcome will reverberate throughout the rest of the early states, but most significantly in New Hampshire. If Romney loses his Iowa springboard, his lead in NH will drop. This will provide an opening for McCain and Giuliani to make their move in the primaries (Huckabee and Thompson are non-issues in the state). It is hard to speculate beyond this though because the outcome of the NH GOP primary will depend on the outcome of the Democratic race. If Hillary wins in Iowa, she will have the nomination locked up. This outcome makes it more likely that independents in NH will crossover and vote in the GOP primary. McCain would be the main beneficiary of such a shift. Everything changes if Obama wins Iowa. He will ride his momentum into New Hampshire and will draw large numbers of independents to his side. The question then becomes, how much support do McCain and Giuliani pick up from Romney’s decline?