To me, Huckabee seems a little like McCain near the end in 2000, when he got absolutely obsessed with process and the ads and phone calls that were being run and made against him. In the end, most voters don’t care. Maybe people in Iowa are obsessed enough with “positive” campaigning that all this will work for Huckabee, but at the very least it’s gotten him off message.
Here is First Read’s take:
Has Huckabee waited too long to respond? He appears to have let Romney get under his skin and he seems to be complaining very publicly about the attacks in a much less humorous way than he has in the past. Example: He tells the Politico that Romney owes him an apology. Will this style change cost him? Will voters look at the complaints at face value, or see him as weak for taking too long to respond? It’s a major presidential leadership test for him. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7630.html