Huckabee, Obama Won Iowa Votes By Presenting Themselves As Real People

I said it about a month ago, which I will reprint below just for the record: Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama are strong candidates because they strike voters as fresh, and authentic.

In other words, not programmed or superficial, like Mitt Romney, or - - fair or not - - too much a reminder of an earlier Presidency, even one popular with Democrats, as was Bill Clinton's.

Huckabee and Obama can correctly claim more independent status within their own parties than their rivals, and if change is in the air, you want to be able to claim separation from the past or the status quo.

It remains to be seen if first impressions from Iowa get validated in the other states.

Voters are fickle. Things change. Huckabee laid off McCain in Iowa to focus on their common enemy - - Romney - - and the Clinton machine is still formidable, as is Hillary's Clinton's experience and appeal.

And powerful establishment forces in both parties will do their best to push the newer, less controllable front-runners to the sidelines.

Here's what I wrote about these matters earlier, with the focus on Huckabee having being slapped around by AM radio 620 WTMJ's Charlie Sykes, a GOP traditionalist:

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Righty Talkers Miss The Point When Sniping at Huckabee

Some of our local talkers are lining up against former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the blended pro-life, sorta populist Republican who has sinned against GOP doctrine by raising some taxes.

The talkers are slamming Huckabee's rise in some Iowa polls, and believe that when real Republicans find out Huckabee isn't a real Republican, they'll turn to a real Republican - - Romney, perhaps, or Guiliani, neither of whom, to the talkers secret dismay, are really real Republicans.

Like George W. Bush, or Ronald Reagan.

Here's what our talkers don't understand, because they spend too much time in locked studios, away from real people.

Huckabee strikes people as authentic. He's not a stiff. He doesn't appear scripted. He seems likable.He's being read as genuine, relative to other candidates, so his numbers are up.

It's similar to Barack Obama's popularity. Even Ron Paul's.

People like fresh faces. It's more than being, as one of the talkers said, "the flavor of the week."

Not every voter is obsessed as are some of the talkers with the microscopic details of tax policy, or their version of Conservative Truth, or the other deadly vagaries of Republican doctrine.

Thank goodness.

Posted by James Rowen at 12:32 AM