Double Team
The Boston Globe posted an article today suggesting that Mike Huckabee and John McCain have formed some sort of alliance (or at least a truce) in order to disrupt some of Romney’s plans.
McCain and Huckabee have put aside whatever differences each might have in the interests of blocking Romney, said Dante J. Scala, a University of New Hampshire political scientist. At presidential debates, and whenever they cross paths on the campaign trail, McCain and Huckabee swap compliments. Their campaigns have resisted circulating the sort of “opposition research” and negative news articles on each other that they routinely send out on Romney.
“It’s the opponent of my opponent is my friend, at least for the time being,” Scala said yesterday. “Both of them have an interest in derailing Romney early – Huckabee in Iowa and McCain in New Hampshire – and each one stands to benefit from the other’s success.”
Scala said the partnership may well rupture in a month, if McCain and Huckabee succeed in knocking Romney off his game plan of winning both Iowa and New Hampshire. But for now, they have no reason to attack each other. Huckabee is busy courting socially conservative evangelical voters in Iowa, while McCain is focused on locking up socially moderate, fiscal conservative voters in New Hampshire. Neither is competing aggressively on the other’s turf.
“Down the road, if Huckabee and McCain win the first two contests, then they may well turn on each other because they may be the only two left standing,” Scala said. “But for right now, I think their goal of supplanting Romney is bigger than any disagreement with each other.”
