Ed Kilgore takes a first pass at looking at the potential impact of another Mike Huckabee run at the presidency. One thing to remember about Iowa, however, is that the caucuses there are really two contests. In the first, the candidates all compete to win the allegiance of the politically engaged people who actually brave the cold weather and turn out to the schools and community centers that hold the caucuses. They aim to exceed media expectations, if not to win a strong plurality of the “vote,” and it’s really as much about winning a public relations war than anything else.
The second battle is for the actual assignment of delegates to the Republican National Convention, and this takes place in lightly attended county conventions that take place later in the year. The results of these conventions have no actual direct relationship to the results of the caucus outcomes. This is why Ron Paul wound up winning the most delegates to the convention in 2012 despite coming in third place on Caucus Day behind Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney.
Making things even murkier, Rick Santorum never got much-needed credit for his upset victory in Iowa because it was erroneously reported that Mitt Romney had prevailed, and by the time the record was corrected Romney had actually won New Hampshire and claimed to have swept the first two contests.
So we had the bizarre result that Santorum got the most “votes,” but got no credit for it; Romney came in second but got the bump, and Ron Paul came away with the most delegates and was the actual winner.
This reality about how the caucuses work makes a mockery not only of the democratic pretenses of the Iowa caucuses but also of virtually all analysis of that process.
In the end, the thing that matters most is definitely who is perceived to have won, and therefore we can say accurately that Mitt Romney won the Iowa caucuses. That perception was more valuable than the few extra delegates that Ron Paul gained by having a superior post-caucus organization, and it was certainly more valuable than Santorum’s belatedly recognized victory.
So, looking forward to 2016, it is of course interesting to speculate about how the Christian Conservative vote will respond to a roster of candidates that is vying for their allegiance. And Mike Huckabee is well-placed to get a good chuck of that support, probably at the expense of other cultural crusaders like Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, and Bobby Jindal. If they split the vote enough ways, Rand Paul could walk away with the most “votes” and the most delegates.
But one thing should be clear. Winning on Caucus Day isn’t the end of the story. Huckabee will have to run on a shoestring budget and even if he crushes in Iowa, he won’t have the resources to make sure his gets his fair share of delegates to the convention. He’ll be trying to find a way to pay for a few radio ads in South Carolina.
Yet, if the name of the game is winning the perception war, at least Huckabee is better liked by the media than Little Ricky Santorum, and less likely to have his victory disappeared by a hostile and lazy press.