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Huckabee Flip Flops on Going Negative
The Huckabee campaign has taken a bizarre turn this afternoon.
| Realize they peaked last week, do they? |
The former Arkansas governor announced a press conference in Des Moines, Iowa Monday afternoon to launch a negative attack ad on his rival former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., and go after what he thinks are Romney's flip-flops. But then, Huckabee said, he changed his mind. He didn't want to launch the ad.
| "Pull the ad, Bob! I've decided not to go negative!" |
Huckabee now says he will run a positive campaign, even though he's been calling Romney a low-down miserable cur who should be traded in on a dog and the dog shot "dishonest" since Friday, spoke to the press surrounded by placards slamming Romney, and has a passage on his website comparing Romney to the Marquis de Sade Seinfeld's lying friend George Costanza. "It's never too late to do the right thing," Huckabee told reporters.
| "That's why I waited until after I'd peaked." |
Huckabee took the unusual step of showing the media the anti-Romney TV ad, the one he said he told TV stations to pull from the airwaves.
| "See? I wuz gonna say all this, but now I'm not. You'll never see negative ads like this come outta my campaign, no matter how many come out of my Godless opponents. I'll never accuse him of holding up liquor stores in his youth!" |
The ad began like this: HUCKABEE: I'm Mike Huckabee and I approved this spot because Iowans need to lock up their wimmin and children when that hound Romney's around have the right to know the truth about Mitt Romney's dishonest attacks on me and even an American hero, John McCain.
NARRATOR: Romney's record? Over 700 illegitimate children million in new taxes. Left office with the gubernatorial silverware a deficit. A 3-card monte artist. No executions. Supported gun control. And Romney's government-mandate health plan provided for mandatory a $50 co-pay for abortion.
HUCKABEE: If a man's made his living sharping cards and selling gold bricks dishonest to obtain a job, he'll be dishonest on the job. Iowans deserve me better. Huckabee said he knows some will view the decision to show the media the ad with skepticism -- a way to get TV play for the ad, regardless -- but he says he wanted to show the media there was indeed an ad, which campaign adviser Ed Rollins said cost the campaign $30,000. "The tone of the campaign has gotten out of control," Huckabee said.
| "And it's all that cur, Romney's fault!" |
Huckabee acknowledged that Romney's steady barrage of negative ads against him has hurt him in Iowa. But, he says, "the decision had to be made" to change the tone of the campaign.
Posted by: Fred 2008-01-01 |
