What's Next:
Huckabee can relax--nothing that happens tonight can hurt him. In fact,
he only stands to gain. Expectations are so low for the former Arkansas
governor up here in the Granite State--it's been clear for months that
the deeply religious Huckabee, who's never been an anti-tax,
anti-government crusader, holds little appeal for salty, secular "Live
Free or Die" Granite State Republicans--that even a small surge in the
polls to, say, 15 percent would propel him out of the state with
positive headlines. Otherwise, it'll be like New Hampshire never
happened.
Not
that Huckabee needs us to tell him to chill--over the past five day,
he's largely skipped New Hampshire's famous retail politicking to focus
on transforming his Iowa win into national momentum. On Sunday, he took
the afternoon off to prepare for a marathon. He has yet to hold a town
hall or take questions from locals. Available to the media several
times a day in Iowa, he's held a single news conference since arriving
in Manchester last Friday. Instead, Huckabee has aimed for a broader
audience, granting several national television interviews a day and
doing anything (trotting out Chuck Norris, playing his bass) that will
attract free media attention. So far, it's working: he now leads
nationally and in South Carolina, and he's within two points in
Michigan and Florida.
Huckabee's
wimpy war chest and skeletal organization will be a problem now that he
has to compete nationwide. But his campaign is frantically working to
raise money and sign up seasoned staffers. If--and that's a big
if--they succeed over the next few weeks, Huck may have the most plausible
(or least implausible) path to the nomination of any Republican. Polls
predict a close second in Michigan followed by a big win in South
Carolina, at which point he would head into Florida with three strong
finishes to Rudy Giuliani's zero. An upset there will likely mean a big
boost on Tsunami Tuesday one week later--with the other candidates so bruised and battered that they'll have trouble competing.
Then again, it's hard to imagine Huckabee rocking Minnesota, New York, California, New Jersey or Illinois.
God only knows.
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