Weekly Standard publisher Terry Eastland emails his take on the Huckabee campaign:
What Mike Huckabee’s odd press conference demonstrated is that Mitt Romney has succeeded not merely in putting Huckabee on the defensive on various issues but also in making a mess of his campaign. Huckabee and his aides have become so obsessed with the negative things Romney has said about him, and what to do in response, that the candidate has been thrown badly off his game. Huckabee is now the aggrieved candidate, one who has gone so far as to ask for a personal apology from his nemesis (fat chance of that). This Huckabee may not be as attractive to Iowa Republicans as the genial, optimistic candidate they met back when, down at the town square or the Pizza Ranch or the Best Western. In two days we’ll see how Huckabee and Romney finish. But note for future reference that Huckabee, notwithstanding his declarations against running negative ads, hasn’t ruled them out. As he said at the press conference, he’s just not going to run any in Iowa. So then: if he were to run negative ads, where might that be? Not in New Hampshire, where he stands to do no better than fourth, but in a state where he would be competing again with Romney for first place-Michigan on January 15 and/or South Carolina a week later. There can be little doubt that Romney will not lay down his negative arms in those states. The question is whether Huckabee will finally fight back in kind.
