Huckabee Cluster Hucks Taking Romney To Task

By all accounts Mike Huckabee made a mess of things at a news conference to announce he was talking Mitt Romney to task over Romney's "contrast ads." Carl Cameron on Huckabee's "Enough Is Enough" news conference:

So after calling Romney, "desperate" and "dishonest," Huckabee calls a press conference to announce he is retaliating against Romney with a negative ad campaign. At the presser, Huckabee says he is going to maintain a positive and won't air the negative commercial and proceeds to play it for the large media crowd.

According to John Dickerson, reporters saw this Huck up as a ruse:

Reporters saw the spectacle as a transparent charade to get them to run Huckabee's ad for him while allowing him to maintain the high road. The ad was a standard attack ad with pictures of Romney and claims about his record on taxes, the death penalty, and the deficit he left in Massachusetts after his term as governor. Despite Huckabee's switcheroo, the room was also filled with easels displaying Romney distortions, which Huckabee and aides said couldn't be pulled down because the candidate had made his decision so recently.

Maybe, despite al the bravado, Huckabee doesn't have the cash to run the ad. Whatever was behind Huckabee's fiasco, it sure didn't present the image of a decisive leader. I'm sure Carl Cameron's report will have al Qaeda shaking in their caves.

Comments

[fouse, gary c]

The more I see Mike Huckabee in action, the farther he falls in my list of possible Republican nominees. In a previous post, I listed some of the positions and past actions of the former Arkansas governor that I had a problem with. This week's news conference held by the governor regarding the attack ad against Mitt Romney really has me wondering about this guy.

Of course, the backdrop to all this is the Iowa primary that, if you trust in polls, seems to be between Huckabee and Romney. Thus, the two have been taking pot shots at each other in Iowa. Huckabee's camp, led by the ever-feisty Ed Rollins, had produced an ad attacking Romney that was all set to be aired in Iowa this week. Then (apparently), Huckabee decided in the last hours that he didn't want it to run. It seems to me that the natural thing to do would be to just can it and forget about it. Huckabee, however, decided to go through with a news conference scheduled to launch the ad, but announce its cancellation instead. As if that wasn't weird enough, Huckabee (with Rollins present)left standing posters with anti-Romney tidbits-then proceeded to show the assembled reporters the ad-all the while explaining that he (Huckabee) wanted to remain above the fray! So why show the ad to the reporters (insuring that it gets publicity)? Huckabee's explanation is that he felt he had to prove to the press that the ad had actually been made. And those posters in the background? Oh yeah! The decision to cancel the ad was made so late in the game that there wasn't time to take the posters down. If that isn't enough, we have Rollins telling reporters that he would like to punch Romney's teeth in.

What?

Note to Ed: Your services are not needed. Huckabee already has Chuck Norris on board. You know, the guy Huckabee says pushes the ground down when he does pushups?

This guy Huckabee is starting to remind me (a little) of Ross Perot, especially the news conference he called to tell the world about the guys in black ski masks who ran across his front lawn one night (while he was in the garage checking under the hood). Again, few can match Perot for weirdness, but Huckabee now stands, in my view, about one notch above Ron Paul.

To voters who would like to see some civility, at least in the party we plan to vote for, these attacks among Republicans are getting tiresome. Can't you just tell us who you are, what you have done in your lives, what you want to do as president and tell us what policy disagreements you have with the others without trying to paint them as Dudley Nightshade? I know. You say I am naive and know nothing about the real workings of our political system. You are probably correct, but this is a big reason why we get such mediocrity in our elected leaders.

gary fouse
fousesquawk

[Rockyspoon]

Rather than have Huck as the leader of the free world, let's work on freeing the world of Huck as a leader. I was NOT impressed with the man over this incident.