Presidential snippets: Stopping Huckabee before it's too late

Mitt Romney got some good news today -- and I am not talking about The Speech, since I am still unclear about how it will play out. Fred Thompson is sending out to Iowa households one of the toughest mailers that have been seen as of yet in either party. And it is aimed at Mike Huckabee, comparing his record on taxes to that of Bill Clinton:

Why attack Huckabee? Fred Thompson needs to have a decent showing in Iowa. At this point, he has no (little?) hope for the win; but he would love to get a third place in front of Giuliani, which could at least give him some traction going into South Carolina. The problem for him is that Thompson is taking the "conservative dissatisfied with the rest of the field" niche right now, the voters that could otherwise go for Thompson. On the other hand, Giuliani is very happy to see Huckabee contest Romney in Iowa: That would open the door of New Hampshire and of later states wide open for the former mayor.

Mitt Romney needs to get Huckabee down before his momentum becomes too overwhelming. He will surely go somewhat negative himself against him, but going negative often backfires. So Romney must love that Thompson is doing some of the dirty job for him at this point. This is deflecting some attention away from him, as Huckabee becomes the man to take down... and Romney has to hope that anti-Huckabee attacks intensify in the coming weeks.

• Dead a second time

The LA Times reports that the initiative to divide California's electoral votes is dead, as its organizers acknowledge they do not have enough money at this point to push for the proposal to continue running it strong. It looks like the deadline to submit signatures to be on the June ballot has passed at this point, but the group's officials are saying they will push hard to try to get it on the November ballot, but that is not really what the GOP wants: (1) It is very unclear whether it could then apply to the 2008 election, and (2) the Democratic turnout will be more reliable/larger in November, making it more likely that the measure would be defeated than in an unpredictable June primary ballot.

We should remember that the measure was already thought to be dead in September, before the organizers got some money again and tried to continue. At this point, however, time is getting to compressed for them to get the initiative on in June.