Hair perfect, suit crisp, tie light blue, former Massachusetts
governor Mitt Romney assessed his chances in the
Republican
presidential race. He was standing inside a private arrival gate near
Sea-Tac Airport on November 19, his chartered jet parked on the cold
tarmac nearby. The event was a press conference with a clutch of
reporters from the Seattle area. But even here in Washington State,
Romney was facing questions about politics in far-off Iowa, where that
state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses are now less than two months
away.
“I’ve always said I hope to do well in the early primary states,”
Romney told the assembled media. “But I’m certainly not going to
predict a victory in any one state. I’d like to come in in the top
three in Iowa… I think I’ll do that.”
After running strong in first place in Iowa for months, Romney
appeared to be lowering expectations that he would win the state
easily, perhaps a smart tactic given the recent surge in popularity for
former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee also happened to be in
Washington recently, appearing at a dinner for King County Republicans
in Bellevue on November 16.
Romney’s cautious assessment of his chances was most likely in
response to a November 13 CBS News/New York Times poll, which
found Huckabee had shot to within 6 percentage points of Romney in
Iowa, with Romney polling at 27 percent and Huckabee polling at 21
percent. It’s unclear exactly what’s causing Huckabee’s surge, but it
makes intuitive sense. Huckabee is a devoutly religious Southern
Baptist, a hunting enthusiast, and an all-around good old boy with an
easy sense of humor and a Bushlike comfort in his own skin. In other
words, he fits the classic Republican presidential candidate mold much
more closely than does Romney (a Mormon from gay-marriage-endorsing
Massachusetts) or Rudy Giuliani (the crossdressing,
gun-control-promoting, thrice-married former mayor of Godless New
York).
Huckabee would probably joke that he owes all his new momentum to
Chuck Norris. The candidate certainly bragged in Bellevue about the
endorsement he’s received from the action-movie star, promising
reporters there that a web video featuring the two of them was coming
soon. Indeed it was: On November 19, the same day Romney landed in
Seattle, a web video featuring Norris and Huckabee began making the
rounds of the political blogs. The video kicks off with Huckabee joking
that his plan to secure the border can be summed up in two words:
“Chuck Norris.” For his part, Norris describes Huckabee on the video as
a defender of the Second Amendment, a guy who wants to put the IRS out
of business, and a candidate who is “a principled, authentic
conservative.”
That last line is an implicit jab (or right hook) aimed at Romney
and Giuliani. Asked about the Norris endorsement at his local press
conference, Romney demurred. “I’ve got no comment on other people’s
ads,” he said. But, goaded into suggesting an action hero who might
endorse him, he offered: “The Hulkster, maybe.” He also pushed back at
Huckabee (yet another sign that he’s taking the candidate’s surge
seriously) by suggesting that people look closely at their differences,
and then offering some points of contrast.
“I, for instance, disagree with his view on raising taxes,” Romney
said of Huckabee. “As the governor of his state, he raised taxes time
and again. I held the line on taxes. He also was in favor of a tuition
break for illegal aliens. I oppose a tuition break for illegal aliens.
So people are going to have to take us in our entirety and decide who
is best to represent our party.”
One takeaway from that attack on Huckabee is that even though the
Republican candidates might not be the usual cast of conservative
characters this time around, the issues are very familiar: immigration,
taxes, and, of course, terrorism, a topic on which Giuliani has tried
to corner the market.
Will Giuliani’s emphasis on his September 11 experience be enough to
get him over the hump of his own atypical views on immigration and
taxes? Romney seemed not to be taking any chances on that score,
either, talking up the amount of time Giuliani has spent in Iowa,
suggesting that Giuliani really needed to win the state in order to
have any chance, and saying of the next two months: “I expect the race
to get very narrow.” 
