Huckabee Can't Buy TV Ads or Pay His Staff

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 6:55 AM on January 23, 2008.

Two weeks ago, Rudy Giuliani's campaign was humiliated when we learned that it was so broke, senior campaign aides would not get paid for the month of January. Now, Giuliani isn't the only one suffering from serious financial difficulties.

Some of Mike Huckabee's top advisers are working without pay and some field directors have been let go entirely, the campaign said today, as money woes have taken hold.

The campaign also announced it would no longer provide transportation for reporters covering the candidate, saying it could not afford (or justify) a full bus or larger plane when many of the seats went empty. (Media pay their own way, but there aren't enough reporters with Huckabee to make the economics work.)

"Hopefully we can get the money machine going soon," said Ed Rollins, a senior adviser who is forgoing his own $25,000 monthly check. "The reality is we looked at our small staff and decided how we could make it smaller."

The campaign's media narratives and conventional wisdom have gotten plenty of angles wrong the past several months, but Huckabee's trajectory doesn't appear to be one of them. All signs suggested that the former Arkansas governor could appeal to religious right activists and score a big win in Iowa, but would lack the resources and organization to replicate that success elsewhere. Huckabee would need to see a huge boost in fundraising, immediately, in order to remain a credible challenger.

And by all appearances, the narrative on Huckabee was right. South Carolina was his last big chance to prove he could win, and demonstrate to donors that he's a serious player, and he came up short.

I don't want to say Huckabee is toast, but it's hardly an overstatement to say he'll have trouble clearing the hurdles in front of him.

The closely-watched Republican primary in Florida is coming up quickly, but Huckabee's campaign acknowledged yesterday that it won't run any TV ads in the state, because it can't afford them.

So, Huckabee won't get any paid TV time, and won't get any free TV time, either.

And they'll now get less of that which has gotten them to where they are today -- earned media -- as they can't afford to charter jets for their travelling press corps anymore.

Huck is grappling with the same challenges of his rivals, competing in a one state after another with little time in between to raise money or recalibrate strategy let alone to catch one's breath.

Asked about the major round of contests on Feb. 5, Huckabee said yesterday, "We don't have enough people to try to field staff in all of these states. So what we'll do is put a leaner team together."

Huckabee got by with spending less in Iowa, but the landscape is a lot less favorable now. Watch for him to start saying all kinds of nice things about John McCain from here on out.

Tagged as: huckabee

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.