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With unwanted 'robo-call' help, Huckabee reaches for S.C. finish line. Saturday, Jan 19, 2008 By Aaron Sadler Stephens Washington Bureau COLUMBIA, S.C. - Volunteers by the dozens filtered into Mike Huckabee's nondescript campaign office on a rundown stretch of Main Street here Friday. They placed hundreds of phone calls on behalf of the Arkansan seeking the Republican presidential nomination. "The real kind of phone calls, not robo-calls, just personal phone calls," said Susan McCain Hinger, Huckabee's sister-in-law. "I make sure they know I'm a real person." Huckabee has taken flak ahead of today's South Carolina GOP primary for negative automated telephone messages left for Republican voters statewide. The calls are funded by a nonprofit group that supports Huckabee. The "robo-calls" that target Huckabee's opponents were paid for by Common Sense Issues, the same organization that waged a similar campaign on Huckabee's behalf in Iowa. The group is also making calls in Nevada, site of Republican caucuses today. Huckabee has publicly denounced the tactics. However, his donors have helped to bankroll the organization. A glance at Common Sense Issues' campaign finance reports show Dallas real estate developer Joe C. Thompson Jr. and his wife, Dottie, have given $45,000 to the group in the last month. The Thompsons were listed with others as hosts last month of a "Max Out for Mike" reception for Huckabee donors who had given the maximum $2,300-per-person donation to his campaign. Joe Thompson did not return calls seeking comment Friday. Thompson's father was founder of the 7-11 convenience store chain. Patrick Davis of Common Sense Issues did not return telephone and e-mail messages. Huckabee's tack throughout the campaign has been to avoid negative attacks, though lately he has stepped up veiled criticism of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. In stump speeches, Huckabee jabs at McCain and former Sen. Fred Thompson with rebukes of "Washington insiders" who have done little to change the country. McCain has a slight lead over Huckabee in polls of Palmetto State Republicans. Whoever wins today is positioned to take some momentum into the Jan. 29 primary in Florida, where Rudy Giuliani awaits. The former New York mayor has invested time and money in Florida and many of the 21 states holding nominating contests on Feb. 5. Huckabee said he was confident about today's voting during an interview on CNN on Friday. "We're going to win and then we go on with a lot of wind to our backs as we go to Florida," he said. No Republican since 1980 has won the GOP nomination without winning South Carolina's first-in-the-South primary. Tucker Eskew, a South Carolinian and Republican political analyst, said Huckabee needs a strong finish to show for his investment in the state. "If you're from a small southern state with strong roots among values voters and with a populist sentiment, you need to win in a small southern state with lots of evangelicals and populist grassroots," said Eskew, who is not affiliated with any candidate. The calls generated from inside Huckabee's office were less pointed, all following a script that encouraged Republicans to vote today. The campaign made 20,000 calls Friday. The office in Columbia reeked of mothballs as about 30 volunteers worked the phones Friday morning. The building is near several vacant storefronts and is a couple blocks away from a homeless shelter. The office space and duties of the people inside Huckabee's campaign illustrate the bare-bones structure of a campaign that is thriving despite limited resources. Hinger, Janet Huckabee's sister, said she's answered phones, helped organize a media event and cleaned campaign headquarters kitchen, all as a volunteer. The University of Arkansas law school graduate now works as a wealth adviser in San Antonio. She took a week off to volunteer for her brother-in-law. Huckabee catupulted from also-ran to contender with his Iowa victory, yet he finished third in New Hampshire and Michigan. McCain won New Hampshire. Mitt Romney took Michigan's GOP delegates. Huckabee needs to win over more than just evangelicals to have a shot at the GOP nomination, said Neal Thigpen, a Republican analyst and political science professor at Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C. A patchwork of volunteers like evangelical Christians, home schoolers and tax reform advocates provided the organization Huckabee needed to win in Iowa. Likeminded voters are pivotal to Huckabee's success in South Carolina. Thigpen said he expected fewer than 400,000 people to cast ballots, compared to 570,000 that voted in the GOP primary eight years ago. Weather may affect turnout in South Carolina's upstate region. The forecast is for a 90 percent chance of snow around Greenville, an evangelical stronghold. Thigpen predicted a low turnout may actually help Huckabee, since evangelical voters are more likely to vote no matter the weather conditions. McCain was the target of many of the million pro-Huckabee automated calls generated by Common Sense Issues. They pick apart McCain's voting record on stem cell research and taxes and criticize his 1980 divorce from his first wife. Thigpen said he received two automated calls in a 24-hour span. He chalked it up to a mindset that victors in South Carolina must engage in mudslinging. McCain's bid in 2000 was hurt in the state over rumors that he had fathered an illegitimate black child. Huckabee's senior adviser, Ed Rollins, was overheard in an Iowa diner two weeks ago as he discussed "going negative" in the state, according to reports on conservative Web sites that Rollins has acnkowledged. "Unfortunately, the focus on South Carolina is that this is a dirtball state in terms of campaigning," Thigpen said. Eskew blasted the idea that it takes dirty politics to win in South Carolina. "I don't believe the national media hype that says we're the dirtiest place to do politics," Eskew said. "I think there are numbskulls everywhere that do dirty politics or vote based on dirty politics. It's been a pretty polite campaign, in relative terms, in South Carolina." |
