Huck's Christmas Message Will Trump Romney's Scrooge

Fascinating. A few weeks ago we noted that this will be the first Holiday campaign, with candidates falling all over themselves to get voters' attention in Iowa and New Hampshire in the midst of the busy, festive holiday season.

Now, in Iowa, we see two very different strategies in play. Which will work?

On the one hand, we have the big, heavily financed, professionally run Romney campaign. If you somehow thought Romney was going to bring the least bit of anything new to American politics, think again--he's W Bush incarnate. It's the classic corporate campaign. (Hillary, too.)

And what is the Mittster doing? He's gone completely negative, with harsh campaign ads attacking Huckabee on immigration, crime and taxes. It's standard fare from the hardened professionals who run campaigns these days. Panicked by Huckabee's rise in past Romney in the polls, they go to the typical measure of the desperate: tear the other guy down. (Romney's hardly unique in this regard--we're just saying he sure isn't different.)

[Down in South Carolina, the usual litany of campaign dirty tricks is in full swing on the GOP side, and you can bet that no campaign is doing it more than Romney's, which early on signed up the state's hardest core political trench fighters to do it's bidding.]

Will Romney's negative campaigning work? Perhaps--it will move a few folks off Huckabee, but not toward Romney. Iowans typically don't like negativity, but you can bet they really don't like it during the Holiday season.

Now, what about Huckabee, he of the scrappy, underfinanced, ad hoc campaign? Huckabee came up with the idea of doing a Christmas commercial. Sitting in a living room in front of a fire, wearing a red sweater, the Huckster starts off with "Are you about worn out of all the television commercials you’re seeing? Mostly about politics. I don’t blame you.”

He then goes on to discuss "what really matters" this time of year, which, to him--and a huge chunk of GOP caucus goers in Iowa--is "the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and our friends."

Here's the ad, if you're interested (or go to YouTube here):



Despite it's obviousness as a Holiday season political ad, it's quite brilliant. Why didn't anybody else think of it? Because, of course, hardened political consultants are all grinches at heart, all Scrooges whose only interest in true religion is as a demographic target. It's just not in their playbook.

Personally, we don't really like his ad at all--what about those who aren't Christians? But we're going to bet that it will be a huge hit among the voters that matter in Iowa for a Republican candidate, and that it will make Romney look like a total schmuck for running his bitter, negative advertising.

In about two weeks, we'll know which strategy worked.