Unfazed by his status as a second- or third-tier presidential candidate, Republican Mike Huckabee said Tuesday that he is heartened by the volatility of the 2008 White House contest.
“It’s really not frustrating to me that I’m considered second-tier or — I’m sure by some — third,” he said in response to questions by The Examiner. “That’sOK.”
“Now, if by this time in September, I’m still considered second- or third-tier, after the Iowa straw poll, then I think I’ve got a problem,” he added at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor newspaper.
The former Arkansas governor ranks far behind Republican rivals John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney in Republican preference polls. But he said he was encouraged by recent swings in polls measuring the popularity of top-tier Democratic candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.
“It wasn’t very long ago that Obama was soaring — he was just the rock star — now his numbers are 20 points below Hillary,” Huckabee marveled. “Edwards was leading in Iowa. She shows up, sucks the oxygen out of the state, now she’s in charge there.
“The fluctuation is just so amazing,” he said. “And I think that the worst thing a person in my position can do is to get spooked by looking around the landscape.”
Huckabee likened the long campaign to the marathons he routinely runs.
“What I’ve got to do is to get out there and gut it out, day after day — this is a long, long haul,” he said. “And if every time McCain or Romney or Giuliani makes a headline, I get spooked, I might as well go back to Arkansas today and get my bass boat out of storage and start going after some largemouth.”
