Romney's Strategy in Peril

I guess it comes as no surprise to anyone that Mitt Romney's blueprint for winning the Republican nomination is in trouble.

A few months ago, polls showed him coasting along in Iowa and New Hampshire, and his strategy of winning the early states and building momentum seemed to be succeeding.

But polls in Iowa show that Romney's lead there has eroded as Mike Huckabee has gained support from social conservatives, many of whom are uneasy with Romney's Mormonism, even after his speech on religion (which included a reference -- now being challenged -- to his father joining in a civil rights march with Martin Luther King in the 1960s).

And polls have been showing a rise in support for John McCain in New Hampshire. Eight years ago, McCain beat front-runner George W. Bush in New Hampshire, paving the way for a bitter campaign in the South Carolina primary. It's worth noting that, in the last two presidential campaigns in which the Republican nomination was seriously contested (1996 and 2000), New Hampshire's voters rejected the eventual nominees. They may be poised to do so again.

The Washington Post says Romney and his staff are working on a strategy to beat back Huckabee in Iowa. The Post points out Romney's campaign devised the "early state" strategy in December 2006 -- a year later, Romney's advisers find themselves improvising in the hope of halting Huckabee's momentum in Iowa.

"Are there moments of quiet and sometimes not-so-quiet desperation? Of course. But . . . this is the strategy we have. We don't have the option of doing anything else," the Post quotes one of Romney's advisers as saying.

When Romney and his staff began planning their strategy for the campaign, the Post reports, it was always assumed that Romney would have to face a challenge from within the party that would cast doubt on his conservative credentials. But the thinking was that his main rival would be Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani or McCain, not Huckabee.

Nevertheless, Huckabee it is, which appears to be causing some scrambling from within the ranks in the Romney campaign. Huckabee wasn't a factor a year ago, but the former Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor has emerged as Romney's nemesis in Iowa. A win there could make him a factor in New Hampshire five days later as well.

The good news for Romney, the Post suggests, is that Huckabee's rise has changed the expectations for Romney. At one time, anything less than a resounding win in Iowa would have been considered a defeat. Now that polls have shown Romney falling behind Huckabee, the Post says, "Huckabee's meteoric rise has reset expectations for Romney, who will be credited with a meaningful win in Iowa should he pull it off."

The Post also reports that Romney has changed his approach in campaign speeches in Iowa lately. He seldom mentions Giuliani, McCain or Fred Thompson these days. Instead his message has focused on Huckabee.

But with McCain's rise in New Hampshire, Romney suddenly finds himself in the position of a general who must wage a two-front war.

And, as the Nazis found out in World War II when they were fighting Britain and the United States to the west and Russia to the east, winning a two-front war is extremely difficult.

Huckabee is not without his own problems. Elsewhere in the Post, Peter Wehner writes that, as a conservative and evangelical Christian, he is "queasy" about some of the things Huckabee has said. It leads Wehner to this question: "Is Mike Huckabee, a man of extremely impressive political gifts and shrewdness, playing the Jesus card in a way that is unlike anything we have quite seen before?"

And Jonathan Martin observes, in The Politico, that Huckabee resembles the last three insurgent Republican candidates -- Pat Robertson in 1988, Pat Buchanan in 1996 and John McCain in 2000 -- as he assumes the role of rebel.

Bear in mind that rebels seldom win nominations. When they do, they seldom win the general election. George McGovern can tell you all about that. So could Barry Goldwater. They both won the nomination, only to get buried in a landslide loss in November.

Even so, it's hard to argue with a Huckabee observation that an insurgent victory will mean that no candidate can take Iowa for granted in future campaigns.

So Huckabee faces his own questions about politics, insurgency and religion. And an insurgent from the past, McCain, has to deal with the issue of his age (71).

My question is: Can the Romney campaign overcome the challenge from Huckabee in Iowa and McCain in New Hampshire -- and win its two-front war?