Mike Huckabee announced this afternoon that he will not be airing negative ads on Mitt Romney in the closing days of the Republican battle in Iowa. Then, he showed one of those ads to reporters and explained his decision not to air it. (As he spoke, Huckabee was surrounded by placards highlighting his attacks on Romney. See Jonathan Martin’s characteristically smart take, here.) According to Martin, Huckabee made the decision not to air the ads shortly before the press conference and by then it was too late to cancel the event. Hmmmm. It’s an old campaign ploy–to share attacks on your opponent with journalists in the hope that they include them in their reporting. The politics of paralipsis again: Here are the negative charges I’m not going to air. The Huckabee camp is probably hoping not only to give life to his attacks on Romney, sort of a political bank shot, but to get credit for staying positive. But let’s assume Huckabee is telling the truth. Why was he even considering running these ads? He promised nearly two weeks ago that he would not run negative ads against Romney and, indeed, said he was betting his campaign on it. In an email to supporters on December 20, Huckabee wrote:
