The Next Huckabee Surprise

The Next Huckabee Surprise?

By David S. Broder
Sunday, August 19, 2007; Page B07


Buoyed by his surprise second-place finish in the Iowa Republican straw poll, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is plotting an even bigger coup against Mitt Romney in the first presidential primary, in New Hampshire.

His inspiration for the audacious plot comes from two unlikely people: Pat Buchanan and Bill Clinton

Clinton, the original man from Hope, Ark., Huckabee's home town, was no better known to New Hampshire voters in the autumn of 1991 than Huckabee is today, while Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, leads the Granite State field. But, despite the Gennifer Flowers and draft-dodging scandals that plagued his campaign there, Clinton won enough friends to finish second in New Hampshire to 1992's neighboring candidate, former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas.

Thanks to New Hampshire, Clinton proclaimed himself the "comeback kid" and went on to thrash Tsongas in the follow-up contests in Florida, Georgia and the rest of the South.

Huckabee figures that if he can just get past Romney in New Hampshire, he can do the same thing to him when the 2008 battle shifts south to Florida and South Carolina in January.

Read the complete story here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081701687.html?hpid=opinionsbox2