Huckabee Press Conference: No Stunt

On Monday Huckabee held a press conference to announce he had suddenly reversed his decision to start running negative ads against Romney in Iowa hours before they were scheduled to run.

The press has been fairly cynical about the event, calling it a "stunt." He is being criticized for trying to "release the ad without really releasing it." Such a claim is unreasonable if you understand what was really involved with the decision that had to be made.

The first clear evidence for such a case is that Politico.com is reporting that the last minute decision may have cost the Huckabee campaign up to $150,000. That is big sacrifice for a campaign that has been strapped for cash.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7665.html

The media has displayed some awkwardness handling this story. They want to report that Huckabee is a fool for not running negative campaign ads, but that forces them to imply that he must have been sincere (something they hate to admit even more). So the reaction of the press has been very interesting.

You must realize that negative ads work. During a barrage of attacks, it is simply impossible for the mind not to be eventually influenced by it. So in one sense you could say that Huckabee had nothing to lose by running the ad. But he did. He would have lost his character.

Huckabee has Character

It is not all peaches and cream though. There are several other factors that demonstrate this decision would have been impossible if "doing anything to win" was the motive behind this decision. The campaign not only lost money, but precious time to prepare the ad.

If you're only pulling a stunt, none of this makes sense:

» Losing almost $150,000 in campaign funds.
» Canceling your ad buys only hours beforehand.
» Refusing to give a copy of the ad to the media.
» Admitting you were about to do something wrong.
» Taking a huge political risk when you're ahead.
» Knowing that the press is going to figure out your stunt.