You know how you can tell just how upset Mitt Romney is by Mike Huckabee's surge in Iowa? By how hard he is pretending not to be upset about it at all.
An unnamed "strategist" for the Romney campaign tells Bob Novak that Team Romney is just delighted by the fact that Huckabee has taken the lead in Iowa. Why? Because now, when Huckabee wins on January 3, it won't be a surprise.
A Huckabee victory in Iowa would kill Romney's plans to win the first two 2008 tests in Iowa and New Hampshire, followed by sweeping the board in all other primary states. Instead, the contest for the nomination could extend through the Feb. 5 primaries, with Rudy Giuliani given a chance in the high-population state primaries that day.Um... whatever.
The consolation for Romney strategists is that a Huckabee win in Iowa would no longer be a shock that could stampede the process.
I'm not sure what "stampede the process" means, but there is no way that a Huckabee win in Iowa will be interpreted as anything but a repudiation of Romney by social conservatives, an important segment of the Republican Party base.
An additional aggravating factor is the amount of money that Romney will have spent to come in second, compared to the pittance that Huckabee has spent.
The New York Times has an illuminating anecdote with respect to the money.
When a reporter asked Mr. Romney on Friday a pointed question about what he would say as a management consultant if one enterprise “spent about $7 million and one spent about $300,000 and they got the exact same results in market share.”
He was alluding to the approximate amounts Mr. Romney and Mr. Huckabee have spent respectively campaigning in the state so far.
Mr. Romney bristled and said, “Sorry, I don’t have a particular comment on that.”
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