Was Huckabee's 'Hucka-boom' a month too soon?

in Uncategorized by Matt Pace — January 2, 2008 at 3:56 pm | 0 comments

In an amazingly short period of time Mike Huckabee has vaulted into contention for Iowa’s GOP delegates and with them a springboard into the follow-on contests in other states. After Fred Thompson failed this past fall to capitalize on the one-time excitement among conservatives for his would-be campaign, Huckabee’s populist message, evangelical appeal, and glowing early press coverage catapulted him to the ranks of the top tier candidates. Of course, with the increased attention has come significantly more media and rival (read: Mitt Romney) scrutiny of his past statements and record as Governor of Arkansas.

From an online perspective at a national level, interest in Mike Huckabee, as judged by Compete’s Attention metric (time spent on his campaign website as a share of all time spent online in the U.S.) reached its zenith on December 3rd, exactly one month ahead of tomorrow’s Iowa caucuses. Since then, online attention in the former Baptist minister has dropped significantly, reaching its lowest point in December on Christmas Day (of all days). While Huckabee has rebounded somewhat over the past week and continues to gain more attention than his GOP rivals (with the exception of Ron Paul), it’s worth asking what might have been.

Had the Huckaboom peaked closer to today, Huckabee might have come out of practically nowhere to stun Romney in Iowa. Now after leading Iowa polls for nearly a month, Huckabee is expected to win, and with relatively little organization outside of the Hawkeye State, anything other than victory in Iowa could mortally wound his candidacy. In this historic race for the White House, as in life, timing certainly is everything.

About Matt Pace: As Managing Director of Retail and Consumer Products at Compete, Matt Pace is responsible for leading a team of client services professionals who deliver digital intelligence and insights to clients in the retail and consumer packaged good industries. Before Matt joined the Compete Team he was a CPA and senior auditor with Deloitte & Touche. Follow Matt on Twitter @mattpace.