Huckabee Cluster Hucks Taking Romney To Task

By all accounts Mike Huckabee made a mess of things at a news conference to announce he was talking Mitt Romney to task over Romney's "contrast ads." Carl Cameron on Huckabee's "Enough Is Enough" news conference:



So after calling Romney, "desperate" and "dishonest," Huckabee calls a press conference to announce he is retaliating against Romney with a negative ad campaign. At the presser, Huckabee says he is going to maintain a positive and won't air the negative commercial and proceeds to play it for the large media crowd.

According to John Dickerson, reporters saw this Huck up as a ruse:

Reporters saw the spectacle as a transparent charade to get them to run Huckabee's ad for him while allowing him to maintain the high road. The ad was a standard attack ad with pictures of Romney and claims about his record on taxes, the death penalty, and the deficit he left in Massachusetts after his term as governor. Despite Huckabee's switcheroo, the room was also filled with easels displaying Romney distortions, which Huckabee and aides said couldn't be pulled down because the candidate had made his decision so recently.

Maybe, despite al the bravado, Huckabee doesn't have the cash to run the ad. Whatever was behind Huckabee's fiasco, it sure didn't present the image of a decisive leader. I'm sure Carl Cameron's report will have al Qaeda shaking in their caves.