Hair perfect, suit crisp, tie light blue, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney assessed his chances in the Republican presidential race. He was standing inside a private arrival gate near Sea-Tac Airport on November 19, his chartered jet parked on the cold tarmac nearby. The event was a press conference with a clutch of reporters from the Seattle area. But even here in Washington State, Romney was facing questions about politics in far-off Iowa, where that state's first-in-the-nation caucuses are now less than two months away.
"I've always said I hope to do well in the early primary states," Romney told the assembled media. "But I'm certainly not going to predict a victory in any one state. I'd like to come in in the top three in Iowa... I think I'll do that."
After running strong in first place in Iowa for months, Romney appeared to be lowering expectations that he would win the state easily, perhaps a smart tactic given the recent surge in popularity for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee also happened to be in Washington recently, appearing at a dinner for King County Republicans in Bellevue on November 16.
Romney's cautious assessment of his chances was most likely in response to a November 13 CBS News/New York Times poll, which found Huckabee had shot to within 6 percentage points of Romney in Iowa, with Romney polling at 27 percent and Huckabee polling at 21 percent. It's unclear exactly what's causing Huckabee's surge, but it makes intuitive sense. Huckabee is a devoutly religious Southern Baptist, a hunting enthusiast, and an all-around good old boy with an easy sense of humor and a Bushlike comfort in his own skin. In other words, he fits the classic Republican presidential candidate mold much more closely than does Romney (a Mormon from gay-marriage-endorsing Massachusetts) or Rudy Giuliani (the crossdressing, gun-control-promoting, thrice-married former mayor of Godless New York).
Huckabee would probably joke that he owes all his new momentum to Chuck Norris. The candidate certainly bragged in Bellevue about the endorsement he's received from the action-movie star, promising reporters there that a web video featuring the two of them was coming soon. Indeed it was: On November 19, the same day Romney landed in Seattle, a web video featuring Norris and Huckabee began making the rounds of the political blogs. The video kicks off with Huckabee joking that his plan to secure the border can be summed up in two words: "Chuck Norris." For his part, Norris describes Huckabee on the video as a defender of the Second Amendment, a guy who wants to put the IRS out of business, and a candidate who is "a principled, authentic conservative."
That last line is an implicit jab (or right hook) aimed at Romney and Giuliani. Asked about the Norris endorsement at his local press conference, Romney demurred. "I've got no comment on other people's ads," he said. But, goaded into suggesting an action hero who might endorse him, he offered: "The Hulkster, maybe." He also pushed back at Huckabee (yet another sign that he's taking the candidate's surge seriously) by suggesting that people look closely at their differences, and then offering some points of contrast.
"I, for instance, disagree with his view on raising taxes," Romney said of Huckabee. "As the governor of his state, he raised taxes time and again. I held the line on taxes. He also was in favor of a tuition break for illegal aliens. I oppose a tuition break for illegal aliens. So people are going to have to take us in our entirety and decide who is best to represent our party."
One takeaway from that attack on Huckabee is that even though the Republican candidates might not be the usual cast of conservative characters this time around, the issues are very familiar: immigration, taxes, and, of course, terrorism, a topic on which Giuliani has tried to corner the market.
Will Giuliani's emphasis on his September 11 experience be enough to get him over the hump of his own atypical views on immigration and taxes? Romney seemed not to be taking any chances on that score, either, talking up the amount of time Giuliani has spent in Iowa, suggesting that Giuliani really needed to win the state in order to have any chance, and saying of the next two months: "I expect the race to get very narrow." 
