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Posted: December 5, 2007 11:58 AM
Huckabee Polling Ahead in Early-Decision Iowa
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Four weeks before the first decisions of the 2008 presidential election season are made in the Iowa caucuses, Republican presidential hopeful and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has become a central part of the political conversation. He is soaring in the polls, drawing fresh fire from rivals and sparking new debate about his long-term viability as a candidate.

On Sunday, a Des Moines Register poll of probable caucus voters for the first time put Huckabee in the lead, with 29 percent. That’s five points ahead of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has long been considered the front-runner in the state. He led Huckabee in a similar survey just two weeks ago, 26 percent to 24 percent. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani placed third on Sunday, with 13 percent. Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson took 9 percent followed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., 7 percent; Texas Congressman Ron Paul, 7 percent; and Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, 6 percent.

Two other recent polls still showed Romney leading in Iowa, but with Huckabee hard on his heels. The ARG poll had Romney 28 at percent and Huckabee at 27 percent. The Strategic Vision poll put Romney at 26 percent, Huckabee 24 percent.

And while national news outlets called Huckabee’s move up a “big surprise” and “new reason to keep the faith,” Huckabee seemed to take it in stride and denied that it was a spike. He told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week,” “I’m not peaking at all. I’m still gaining and growing. You peak when you stop. We haven’t stopped yet.”

Huckabee remarked several weeks ago that he had begun to see a new willingness on the part of his rivals to attack him, calling the attention a sign of his growing success. In recent debates Romney challenged his stance on immigration as weak and accused him of raising taxes during his tenure as governor of Arkansas. The “Club for Growth,” a right-leaning policy group in Washington, also derided Huckabee’s gubernatorial record on taxes. And this week Giuliani criticized Huckabee’s plan to replace income taxes with a national sales tax, his so-called “Fair Tax,” as harmful to American homeowners.

During a campaign stop Monday in Greensboro, N.C., Giuliani said, “I don’t know if there would ever be a good time to do this, to advocate ending the home mortgage deduction. The home mortgage deduction is considered by many critical to the ability of people to buy a home and keep their income.”

Huckabee still trails far behind his rivals in funding and political machinery. While Romney has outspent him 10-to-one in Iowa and has a network of hundreds of paid campaign workers on the ground, Huckabee has relied heavily on volunteers, especially from the conservative Christian and home-school communities.

Bob Vander Plaats, Huckabee’s Iowa state chairman, acknowledged the challenge he faced. “It will be a great case study of the Iowa caucus. You have a candidate with a great staff, a lot of paid staff … versus a candidate with a great message, limited staff and relying on a lot of volunteers to carry his water on caucus night.”

But, talking to reporters, Huckabee remained buoyant. “We’ll have enough to remain competitive,” he said. Then, perhaps as a warning to his better-funded opponents who might be contemplating negative ads against him, he added, “People in Iowa do not respond real well to the knee-capping of political candidates. [They] are not easily swayed by attack ads.”

Huckabee’s rise in Iowa has required a heavy concentration of his time and limited resources. Some analysts say this could hurt him elsewhere, even with the boost that a first- or second-place finish in the caucuses might give. His campaign has not yet aired a single TV ad or sent out a political mailing in New Hampshire, South Carolina or any of the other states that will begin to hold their own primaries in quick succession after Iowa.

With a compressed schedule — the New Hampshire primary comes just five days after the Iowa vote — there will be little time for his campaign to reposition itself in those other states to take advantage of whatever momentum is generated in Iowa. The Republican state chairman in South Carolina, Katon Dawson, said a successful effort in his state required significant funding. “George Bush spent a lot of money in South Carolina to get the [2000] nomination. I don’t think it’s possible to win without a major television buy.”

On Monday, Huckabee himself seemed to want to lower the temperature. During a day of campaign stops and radio and television interviews in Iowa, he said he was now “running second” in the state and that he needed only to finish in the top three to consider himself to have done well there.