and other Republicans spent little time discussing, having accepted as canon the political infallibility of free markets.
“It was evident that certain industries would be substantially affected and harmed on a disproportionate basis—the auto industry, mining, metals—[and] the argument was, well, in the long run this is all good for the country, and as a nation we’ll do better,” Romney says. “I think the evidence is that as a nation we did do better. But if you’re working in an auto factory in Detroit you’re not doing better, and if you’re working in Ohio or Indiana for a car factory or a steel factory, you’re not doing better. Your life has been devastated. You had a home, a community. Suddenly the community becomes almost a ghost town. You can’t sell your home because who wants to buy a home in Lordstown, Ohio, when GM pulls out and there’s just no one else moving in? These people are very angry, and the elites, Republicans and Democrats in power, didn’t do anything about it, and didn’t really think about what the implications would be for those disproportionately affected. So, people were very angry—and continue to be angry.”
Convinced that immigration was the galvanic issue of the race, Romney didn’t limit his attacks to McCain. He savaged Huckabee as well, hoping to undermine the preacher’s down-home populism. The former Arkansas governor had fought for illegal minors in the state to qualify for college scholarships, inspired by the story of a local high school valedictorian who was brought to the United States when he was four years old. “If a cop pulls over a car for speeding, he gives the ticket to the dad, not to the kid in the backseat,” Huckabee says. “I wanted this kid to go to college and become a doctor and pay taxes, rather than just have him pick tomatoes while the government subsidizes him for the rest of his life.”
Things got especially testy in Iowa. With McCain skipping the evangelical-laden caucuses to train his efforts on New Hampshire, where he had legendarily revived his 2000 primary bid, Romney and Huckabee escalated their attacks on one another down the home stretch, each man sensing that a victory in the Hawkeye State was their only springboard to capture the party’s nomination. Romney’s operation was cutthroat: Several former staffers recall handing out flyers in Iowa with a picture of the Mexican consulate in Little Rock, Arkansas, asking why Governor Huckabee had permitted so many Mexicans to work illegally in poultry factories.
“There were a lot of things Romney’s people should have apologized for. We were constantly putting out fires that his people were starting,” Huckabee says. “I had never seen a more disingenuous campaign in trying to portray somebody who was anything but conservative as more conservative than everyone else on the stage. It was truly laughable.”
While losing ground thanks to Romney’s sustained assault, Huckabee reached into his own bag of tricks. Speaking with a reporter from the New York Times Magazine in December, Huckabee asked, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”3
This was the last election in which social media would not play a dominant role—and yet even still, Huckabee’s quote went viral, dumping kerosene on the fire already burning in Iowa. He quickly apologized to Romney; ten years later, Huckabee still insists the comment was born out of ignorance rather than animus. Either way, it played into a whisper campaign that sought to cast his rival’s Mormon faith in a suspicious light. And in the closing days of the Iowa race, Huckabee ran a now-famous television ad in which he spoke directly to the camera in front of a Christmas tree, framed by the corner of a white bookshelf that gave the unambiguous appearance of a cross.4 This, paired with his remark to the Times, struck no one as coincidental, given the outsize influence Christian voters held over the outcome of the Iowa caucuses.
Ultimately, the sequence played out perfectly for McCain: Huckabee won Iowa, weakening Romney, whose loss of momentum allowed McCain to win New Hampshire and South Carolina. With Romney starved of an early-state victory, Huckabee strapped for cash, Giuliani exiting after a poor performance in Florida, and the other fringe candidates a nonfactor, it was McCain’s nomination to lose.
But Romney would not quit. Pouring millions of his own fortune into the campaign, he hung around, amassing enough delegates to remain mathematically alive and stirring an eleventh-hour optimism on the right that McCain could be defeated. Romney’s speech