Huckabee Decides Not To Air Those Nasty Ads...And Then Airs A Nasty Ad

The Romney campaign is already calling this a "meltdown." Whatever it is, it's a little bizarre.

So Mike Huckabee schedules a news conference to talk about the negative ads he's decided to run against Mitt Romney. The campaign staff dutifully prints up large placards highlighting points from the ad. A few minutes before the press conference is set to begin, Huckabee apparently changes his mind and asks his staff to pull the ads -- they'd already been sent to television stations.

But -- what the heck -- Huckabee decides to play the ad he won't broadcast for the media at the press conference, presumably hoping that gullible news executives will run the ad that Huckabee is too much of a saint for not airing -- for free.

CBS's Joy Lin transcribed Huck's quote:

“We prepared it, sent it to the stations, supposed to start running at noon today. This morning, I ordered my staff to pull the ad; I told them I do not want it to be run. If it was run at all, it would be until the stations pulled it off their schedules. And we are now committed, from now through the rest of the caucuses, that we will run only the ads that talk about why I should be president, and not why Mitt Romney should not. I know that some of are up saying, well did you really have an ad? Well, I’m going to show you the ad. You’ll get the chance to find out.”

The Dallas Morning News seems to buy the Huckabee spin:

In a news conference Monday designed to launch an all out assault against Mr. Romney, Mr. Huckabee said he would instead remain positive. "At some point we have to decide can we change politics and the level of discourse?" he said.

Most reporters did not.

They started to laugh.

Comments

Why would anyone running for President hire Ed Rollins?

I mean, he's the only guy actually stupider than Mark Penn.

Posted by Petey | December 31, 2007 2:47 PM

Everyone's sniping at Romney this season.

Posted by Quietus | December 31, 2007 2:52 PM

what a joke give me a break

Posted by adam | December 31, 2007 2:57 PM

mistake.

my guess is that the huckster has a built for himself a solid enough identity in iowa that a huck negative ad won't really seem like a typical negative ad. in a mirror of the dem side (where hillary seems poised to take iowa), mitt seems to be most of the way caught up to huck.

my guess is that huck ends up losing by a whisker and folks around him take a decidedly more negative approach in subsequent contests (but does even he have the money to stay in if he loses iowa?).

Posted by david m. | December 31, 2007 3:06 PM

This is laughable. Huckabee is either being dishonest or he's an idiot. Either way, the entire fiasco is foolishness. He's losing Iowans by the minute.

Posted by Mother of Four | December 31, 2007 3:28 PM

Learn the truth from the Master!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVtKLmoNNsw

Posted by stan | December 31, 2007 3:44 PM

Ed Rollins is the one person who republicans should hate... he is the reason Bill Clitnon won... he pushed Ross Perot on the public, and gave Bill Clinton the vote over George H. Bush.

Posted by Mike | December 31, 2007 5:26 PM

What's with all the Rollins hate? Someone like a brother to something that backs up all this Ed Rollins is a talentless jerk talk...

Posted by willie | December 31, 2007 6:32 PM

Huckabee is a guy who can't bear to have someone inspect his record, or discuss the issues that matter to people. Instead he relies on one-liners to illicit an emotional reaction, with no supporting evidence.

Huckabee's message is, "My opponent insists on discussing important issues, but he is a dishonest man and I refuse to say anything negative, so I will not discuss issues." Clever, but it's hypocritical and most people see through the smokescreen.

When it comes to ethical conduct, all I need to know is the number of times each candidate was fined for ethical violations:

Mitt Romney: Zero.

Mike Huckabee: Six.

Posted by Jon | December 31, 2007 6:38 PM

"link" a brother

Posted by willie | December 31, 2007 6:44 PM

So Huck is going to spend $30K to make an ad, send it to all the Iowa media...and then say he's not going to air it. I hope the media is looking right through this crap. Apparently the ad criticizes Romney for having no executions in Massachusetts...oh..yeah...never mind that they don't have the death penalty in Massachusetts. Also...Huck's claim that he made the decision to pull the ad 10 minutes before the press conference (at noon) apparently is BS as well per an Iowa newspaper....

"An official at KCRG-TV9 TV9 in Cedar Rapids confirmed that the station received the 30-second spot from the Huckabee campaign shortly after 6 a.m. today but was told at 10:01 a.m. not to air the commercial and the station did not show the paid advertisement."

http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071231/IOWACAUCUS/775183485/1011/IOWACAUCUS

Posted by MJ | December 31, 2007 6:59 PM

We don't need the words. Gov. Romney's record speaks for itself, HE IS the best, most experienced and most able candidate. He has my vote. Huckabee's record also speaks for itself, he will drive the nation to financial chaos, bad immigration and disastrous foreign policy. He will not have my vote. Both records are honest records and they show who will stand out. Go Mitt!!

Posted by Manasah | December 31, 2007 7:07 PM

Huckabee was for the ad before he was against the ad.

Does John Kerry work for Huckabee nw?

Posted by Carolina | December 31, 2007 7:22 PM

Huckabee is a far superior option to Romney. He represents sanity on immigration, taxes, and his interview with Russert yesterday was the best interview by any candidate this winter. Romney is paying bloggers to post on sites like this one and their talking points are all the same negative pack of lies that Romney is using in his advertising. Huckabee is a good leader and should be the next president. I respect his decision not to run the negative ads.

Posted by Brett | December 31, 2007 8:05 PM

Mike Huckabee's team lied at this press conference.

Does he have a compulsion to lie everyday?

They said they made the decision 5 minutes before the presser to cancel the ad yet the TV station in Iowa confirms they got the order at 10:01 am.

Character is not about what you say, Mike, it is about what you do.

Also, for all you Hucksters out there. If Huckabee is ABOVE negative ads, why did he waste an entire day of only 4 left to shoot this ad?

Huckabee is the worst kind of snake oil salesman and he think the voters in Iowa are stupid.

Posted by Carolina | December 31, 2007 8:10 PM

Brett: You are an idiot! No wonder you support Rev. Huckabee. From what reliable source do you get this FACT (Huckabee, the "I don't know anything about Mormons" perhaps?) of Romney paying bloggers? If you will provide the URL I will go there and if I find out you are correct I will apololgize. If you can't supply the source then you'll apologize?

Posted by VSTEVEN | December 31, 2007 8:51 PM

Wish Huckabee showed the ad on TV in Iowa. Romney deserves to be attacked, he really has been totally off in his ads about Huckabee. I found this post that takes apart the Romney ad about Huckabee:
http://massachusettsforhuckabee.blogspot.com/2007/12/mitt-romney-attacks-mike-huckabee-again.html

As you can see Romney did not tell the full truth with in his ad about Huckabee and thats just dirty rotten politic's

Posted by harold | December 31, 2007 9:08 PM

Pastor Huckabee has smote his enemies wherever he goes. He dazzled Tim Russert and left him tongue-tied and throwing softball questions. He has the full support of Evangelicals the world over. He was anointed by the Leadership to take on Goliath. He will smite the Goliath Romney on election day. He will smite the wayward nations who refuse to listen to his powerful word. With his mighty arm he will crush the countries who refuse to yield and bring them to their knees. He will be one of the greatest Christian presidents - perhaps as great as Jimmy Carter. Onward soldiers and lead the way to bring Pastor Huckabee a great victory today! Let him smite his enemies with a mighty blow! Oh, how happy everyone will be when President Huckabee puts Christ back into Christmas!

Posted by Ward Ciac | December 31, 2007 9:46 PM

Hi, Ward! I don't know much about Mike Huckabee. Is he Jim Jones' brother?

*Note to Iowans: Don't drink the Koolaid!

Posted by Connie | December 31, 2007 10:52 PM

Brett's been drinkin' too much Kool-aid for sure.... yeah Brett!!! We're all PAID bloggers!!!! Uh huh.... oh, and we might be Satan's brother, too.... And Ward..... I don't think Tim Russert was dazzled... I think he was completely stupefied, as were the rest of us. Pull your head out guys - get with the program!!

Posted by kermit | January 1, 2008 1:29 AM

POSTED: December 30, 2007 Save | Print | Email | Read comments | Post a comment
Email: "Romney has proven record of leadership, plan for change"
*To: *From:

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But we think after Republicans finally dissect each of the candidates to determine who they should ultimately vote for, they will determine as we did and Mitt Romney will be their clear choice in the Iowa Caucuses on Jan. 3.

Romney is the most conservative candidate who is running.

Romney’s views for a strong military, limited government, lower taxes, free market principles, immigration reform, family values and high ethical standards are what make him appealing to conservative voters and to this newspaper.

Romney has presented intriguing and worthwhile proposals for all of the key issues on health care, social security reform, immigration reform and defense similar to many of the candidates. But what distinguishes Romney from the rest of the pack in our eyes is his past performance in successfully running large enterprises.

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We think Romney has all the skills it takes to be an effective leader and a good president who will be able to follow through on his vision for America.

Posted by Wendy73 | January 1, 2008 1:50 AM

Watching the Huckster bungle his way through the primaries, trying to "pull the wool" on the media and the public, it makes you wonder what kinds hat tricks he'd be trying to get us to believe as president.

Posted by dan | January 1, 2008 3:07 AM

"Romney is the most conservative candidate who is running."

That is highly debatable, Wendy. As a matter of fact, it is actually completely false. You can do better than posting some email from the Romney campaign, can't you?

Posted by Connie | January 1, 2008 3:22 AM

HA! What kind of idiot does this guy think we are? If he made this decision 1 hour before the press conference, how in the world did he get the backdrop "enough is enough" designed and printed that soon. This was a set up from the beginning and he thinks we (the American people) are so stupid that we should believe him. If he lies about something as trivial as this, why should we believe he will not lie about everything else? If he doesn't have the backbone to just standup and run a negative ad, how in the world would he have the backbone to standup to polls or terrorist nations? The guy thinks we are buffoons and truly believes that he has fooled us.

Note: I have read some of the posts around this and other news sites and I stand corrected. Some people do actually believe he did this out of the kindness of his heart. Captivating!

Posted by Chris from Iraq | January 1, 2008 5:21 AM

Wow how strange to watch a person say he isn't going to go negative while actually saying and displaying negativity at the same time. Bizarre!

You have to really torture the english language to be able to define anything as positive from Mike Huckabee in that press conference.

Huckabee was the very definition of negative in that press room; in word, in deed, in video, in signage!! Good grief.

Posted by sheryl | January 1, 2008 5:49 AM

Does it strike anyone as odd that the "Enough is Enough" theme was backdropped on the press conference? I may be tainted with cynicism by watching the Huckabee campaign in Iowa, but it seems it would take several hours to get that backdrop ready to reinforce "I-won't-be-negative-Iowans-deserve-better" theme. It appears this press conference fiasco was orchestrated much, much earlier than the day of.

Posted by Randy, Xenia, Ohio | January 1, 2008 9:06 AM

Very unprofessional on Huck's part. Most will see it for what it was. VERY unprofessional. I always believe that the official story is not the real story. I think he was hoping that his last gasp effort at publicity would spin it in his favor. But the fact that the reporters laughed say's it all.

Posted by james FF | January 1, 2008 4:41 PM