A communications guy for a Republican candidate who’s not really in the thick of it in Iowa offered his assessment of the rumored Romney internal numbers and the Huckabee-Romney fight.

“I liked the Huckabee’s guy’s response,” said the Comm Guy, who said he wouldn’t put too much stock into the idea that Romney would be happy with a ‘big comeback’ story if he finished second. “They’ve spent six months with a clear, direct strategy –win Iowa, win New Hampshire, momentum from that takes him all the way. They’ve been saying all year long, ‘the national numbers don’t matter.’ It’s problematic to have to change that strategy this late in the game, and to suddenly get big boost of momentum that doesn’t require winning Iowa.”

He also noted that the shifting dynamics of the race have complicated Romney’s task, as he has, the Comm Guy suggested, been defining himself in contrast to the other candidates.

“You go back to 2006, he was going to battle with George Allen to be most conservative guy in the race. He’s been defining himself as one click to the right of whoever the top rival is — all spring it was McCain, then Giuliani, then Thompson, and now Huckabee. You get down at the end, Huckabee is the spike, and now Romney is trying to demonstrate he’s one notch to the right of Huckabee. For any campaign, this gets down to, ‘what’s truly our core theme, our main focus?’ I think they’re struggling for one, and there are already the authenticity issues out there. Shifting messages and constantly trying to get to the right of any of the other candidates doesn’t help counter those issues.”

This Comm Guy also figured that poll reports of Romney’s collapse in Iowa are probably exaggerated. “He’s got a good organization, and that will keep the bottom from falling out. It’s probably good for five or six percentage points, and that probably saves him from any wild fluctuations in the polls in the last couple of days.”

Another thought came up in our conversation: I figured Romney had turned into the candidate with the biggest bulls-eye on his back, in that he had become the candidate that each of the other Big Four wanted knocked out first. Thompson and Huckabee see him as the only real competition as the conservative candidate, Giuliani sees him as the only one who can win a resource race, and both McCain and Giuliani think they can win New Hampshire and Michigan if Romney’s wounded early.

But maybe, with his sudden surge in all kinds of polls – Iowa, national, New Hampshire, Michigan – maybe Huckabee’s now the guy who everybody wants to deal with early. You figure with Huckabee being a longshot for much of the year, nobody had spent much time thinking about, ‘how do we beat Huckabee if it come down to him and us?’ Maybe starting this week, Huckabee starts getting hit from all directions. We’ve seen Fred Thompson calling him a pro-life liberal, and the tough YouTube ad from Thompson at the debate. You can see any of the other candidates hitting him on Dumond, or “I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express” or whether he’s really an economic conservative.