By Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 20, 2008

COLUMBIA, S.C., Jan. 19 -- Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee's support in South Carolina came from the same Christian evangelicals that powered his victory a little more than two weeks ago in Iowa -- only this time he didn't get enough of their votes to win.

When he carried Iowa, where 60 percent of Republican voters were Christian evangelicals, Huckabee dominated the group, winning by 2 to 1. But in South Carolina, where a nearly identical number of voters were evangelicals, Huckabee bested Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) by 40 percent to 27 percent, according to preliminary network exit polls.

Huckabee's inability to extend his popularity among evangelicals and broaden his base beyond them -- he trailed well behind McCain, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) among nonevangelicals here -- proved decisive in a contest that could have swung the other way with a change of a few thousand votes. Huckabee must now face his better-known and better-funded opponents in a host of states where evangelicals don't figure as prominently.

"Huckabee was not a lock for evangelicals here because there are so many evangelicals here," said Oran Smith, a conservative activist who runs the Palmetto Family Council and remained neutral in the race. "The more members of a group, the more diverse. Some voted for McCain because he was a straight shooter, others liked experience and electability . . . just like everyone else."

After winning in Iowa, Huckabee and his aides had to decide whether to compete everywhere to try to broaden their base or whether to be tactical, like many of his rivals, and focus on states where they expected to do well. His campaign chose to do a little of both without fully achieving either, despite a rise in national polls.

Following Iowa, most of Huckabee's shoestring staff went straight to South Carolina, but, for the most part, Huckabee didn't join them. Instead, he went to New Hampshire, where the little-known candidate enjoyed a rush of national media exposure, campaigning across the state with his bass guitar in hand and actor Chuck Norris at his side. He finished third.

Aides at first wrote off the next contest on the calendar, in Michigan on Jan. 15, reasoning it would cost too much to run ads there and that there was little chance of winning in a state where Romney grew up and McCain won in 2000.

But campaign chairman Ed Rollins argued that Huckabee could finish ahead of Romney in Michigan and effectively knock him out of the race. He and other aides also thought there was power in competing everywhere, both in establishing Huckabee as a front-runner and in raising much-needed money. So Huckabee spent days darting between South Carolina and Michigan, where he spent all of Monday even after polls indicated that he had little chance of finishing ahead of Romney or McCain.

He also spent time fundraising, trying to raise $10 million by Feb. 5, more than the campaign totaled in all of 2007. So far, the campaign has raised $2 million.

"You can always second-guess yourself; you make the best judgments you can," Rollins said before the results were announced. "We think we continued our national media exposure."

His South Carolina backers were not pleased. "I would rather have had him in South Carolina," said David Beasley, the former governor of South Carolina who was one of Huckabee's big boosters here. "My argument is, here I'm less concerned with national media than with local media."

Huckabee arrived here on Tuesday and campaigned almost nonstop, flying across the state on a 12-event, multi-city tour Thursday and Friday.

But there was little time for anything else. In Iowa, on the eve of the caucuses, Huckabee went on a pheasant-hunting trip, a move that garnered a lot of press coverage and allowed him to appeal to male voters. Huckabee said he would have liked to go on another outdoors adventure Wednesday when he collected an endorsement from Ray Scott, the well-known founder of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, but his schedule was too packed.

His organizers were also fighting the clock. When Sarah Huckabee, the candidate's 25-year-old daughter and national field director, arrived in South Carolina on Jan. 10, she found an operation that was essentially in "a one-room closet." She quickly had to find more space and take care of basics, such as setting up Internet service and installing phone lines, that had been done months ago by many of Huckabee's opponents.

"I would like to have had a month, or maybe even two weeks," Sarah Huckabee said.

The campaign tried to develop the same coalition of home-school families, pastors and other Christian conservatives that lifted them in Iowa, but with much less time and less coordination. Brenda Brown, a home-school mother who volunteered for the campaign in Rock Hill, organized a rally for Huckabee last month and had friends make calls on Huckabee's behalf. But aside from getting a list of people to call only in the past few weeks, she had almost no contact with Huckabee's formal staff in South Carolina.

On Monday, Huckabee attempted to highlight a five-point plan to stimulate the economy. But on a day when Romney collected major headlines for laying out his economic plan, Huckabee aides not only didn't pitch the speech to reporters traveling with the candidate, but they also sent out a news release detailing their economic vision only a few minutes before midnight, guaranteeing it would not make the evening news or appear in most of the next day's newspapers.

Much of the campaign team will now head to Florida, looking to finish in the top three there on Jan. 29. Huckabee will appear today at a fundraiser at the home of Chuck Norris, and people who donate to the campaign will be able to watch the event and go on a virtual tour of Norris's ranch in Navasota, Tex.

Huckabee aides think that despite the loss in South Carolina, they remain strong in the South. "I think we will do well in Florida and on Feb. 5, particularly in the Southern states," Sarah Huckabee said.