Huckabee Double Down

Mike Huckabee is going all in in the Hawkeye State.

Ex-AR Gov. Mike Huckabee will spend most of the next 65 days in Iowa and has moved the majority of his staff to the state in an effort to capitalize on a sense that he's gaining ground here.

“Well, I certainly think even the Iowa poll numbers are reflecting that we’re in play in a very strong way and continue to move up and other candidates have stalled and are beginning to decline. I think we’re in great position there [...]

“We’re hoping to do what we essentially did with the straw poll, just doing it on steroids. We know we’ve got to get physical bodies that so committed to us no matter how cold the temperature is… no matter how good the Orange Bowl is…. Among those caucus goers who have already made up their mind, we’re in first place.. what we’re doing now is to go down to the precinct level, recruiting chairman in the precincts, getting precincts townships, counties.. We’re developing our efforts where the concentration of voters is likely o be highest…

The Republican race is shaping up very interestingly in the early states. Where Huckabee is focusing on Iowa, the newly flush with cash Ron Paul is focusing on New Hampshire. You can also argue that, since Freddie has fallen back nationally, he's the "spoiler" in South Carolina. And they're all doing quite well at this stage of the game in their regional bailiwicks. For the "national" candidates, their problem could be that they never get to fully capture the narrative or any media attention. Chris Bowers says that this favors Romney, because a weakening top tier and all these wild-cards make his early-state position even stronger.

But if you look historically, a Presidential race with all these regional candidates typically ends up in a brokered convention and a compromise candidate. Obviously, the state of things in 21st-century politics would appear to preclude that, but this is a crazy year for The Right's Field.

UPDATE: Just to tweak my California friends, Huckabee is at least the third candidate I know who is openly parking in one of the early states and ignoring... California, which was supposed to be so "relevant" with its February 5 primary. Heck, Chris Dodd MOVED to Iowa and enrolled his kids in grade school there. The primary shift was NEVER about relevance, it was about getting a term limits change on the ballot in time for incumbents to stay in power.