the air-war over Iowa: Rush Limbaugh savages Gov. Huckabee; Romney gets eviscerated by Iowa’s Jan Mickelson

December 22, 2007 in 2008, analysis, argument, campaign management, conservatism, election 2008, GOP, Iowa, media, mitt romney, republicans, romney, triumph of unreason
Tags: Bain Capital, caucus cooler, clear channel communications, gov. mike huckabee, Jan Mickelson, jim geraghty, Rush Limbaugh, shameless-sniveling romney sycophant jim geraghty

“After today, Rush Limbaugh is in reruns until January 3, the day of the Iowa caucuses,” writes sniveling, belly-crawling Romney sycophant Jim Geraghty for the formerly conservative NRO and proud Blog for Mitt in a Campaign Spot post titled The Rush Fallout for Huckabee: Fatal, or Missing the Target?

… Can a guy who’s been slammed as hard as Mike Huckabee has by Rush Limbaugh, the most popular conservative radio talk show host in the country, go on to win the Iowa caucuses? Anybody think Rush will have dropped this issue by the third of January?

My instinct is to say, “no way, a thumbs down from Rush is fatal,” but a guy on another campaign cautions me. “An Iowa pastor who has been talking up Huckabee isn’t going to change his mind because Rush Limbaugh doesn’t like him.” He points out that a pastors and religous leaders deal with people who fall short of their ideals all the time; hearing that Mike Huckabee was too merciful in dealing with Wayne Dumond is not going to be a dealbreaker for them. They’ll probably go, no pun intended, “there but for the grace of God go I” …

I hate to burst Boy Geraghty’s troubled bubble but Rush Limbaugh—a voice carried by Clear Channel, recently acquired by Romney’s own Bain Capital—is not the only voice on their airwaves of Iowa.

… “We’ve been holding this post for a couple days while we got our thoughts in order on it,” writes CC in a Caucus Cooler post titled WHO vs. Mitt Romney—What it means

One of the biggest buzz items around Iowa the past few days has been Jan Mickelson absolutely eviscerating Mitt Romney on the radio for the past 2 days. We’ve received more emails about this than every other issue combined. On top of that, Steve Deace has made obliterating Romney (and Rudy and McCain) his personal mission for the past umpteen weeks. In this post we’ll discuss what does this mean as it relates to the Iowa caucuses? In the next one, we’ll look at whether or not it is fair.

The fact is this hurts Mitt in a major way. Jan Mickelson has the biggest microphone in the state. His show can be heard in most of Iowa’s 99 counties and the listeners in large part are the same people who attend the caucuses. So 2 weeks from caucus night for him to use that platform to take on Romney has major implications. Unlike Deace (who is a Huckabeeite), Mickelson hasn’t endorsed a Romney opponent. At times he’s been critical of all the major contenders for the nomination. That is about the only positive spin Camp Romney can put on this situation. Looking back at 2006, you can see the damage Steve Deace did in splintering the GOP base, with his attacks on Jim Nussle. Mickelsons audience is exponentially larger than Deace’s, so you cannot understate the impact it will have on the Romney campaign … etc.

Our prediction—base on no other data than our reading of trends in the various reportage—Romney loses both Iowa and New Hampshire.

The market correction that we predicted is hot upon us. Besides: Romney, as we predicted, has been forced to go heatedly negative in 2 states on 2 fronts. Romney’s icy-cold personality and ultra-high negatives will not support a single negative message campaign, let alone 2. Note how both Sen. McCain and Gov. Huckabee delight in Romney’s baleful attentions and laugh off his every angry shriek and misleading screed.

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

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