Thrifty Huckabee milks free media

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, lagging far behind his opponents for the GOP presidential nomination in fundraising, has been very successful in maximizing free media exposure and unconventional campaign tactics to get out his message and jump to the top of the polls.

{mosads}To illustrate the frequency of Huckabee’s appearances, MSNBC talk show host and former Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.) on Monday jokingly referred to the former governor as his “co-host for the month of January and February,” and closed the segment with a reference to Huckabee returning to the show on Tuesday.

The quips show how the onetime long shot has used free media appearances to come from behind to win the Iowa caucuses and become one of the front-runners for the Republican nomination.

“Govenor Huckabee has message momentum,” said Kirsten Fedewa, a campaign spokeswoman who handles a majority of his television bookings. “He has a terrific message that resonated with voters — not only in the early-primary states, but throughout the country. Our challenge has been to create opportunities, particularly on TV, that allow him to take his message directly to the people.”

Through the end of September, Huckabee had raised a dismal $2.3 million, a figure that pales in comparison to the other front-runners.

But instead of paying for ads, Huckabee, a quick-witted, fast-talking ordained minister, has not only worked the political talk show circuit, but the former governor has also taken his one-liners and Iowa fame to the late-night talk shows.

B. Jay Cooper, deputy managing director of the Washington office of APCO, a global communication consultancy, said he is not aware of any national candidate who had successfully run by relying mostly on free media, or “earned media” as it is known in the industry. However, Cooper noted that it is “a different media world.”

“You have so many cable news channels now and the Internet, so there are many ways to communicate with voters,” said Cooper, who served as deputy White House press secretary and deputy assistant to the president under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

He also noted that Huckabee’s “folksy” personality is helping with non-scripted media appearances.

“He has a good sense of humor,” said Cooper, adding that this helps candidates like Huckabee and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) connect with voters.

While Cooper said that it is difficult to predict the outcome of the GOP primary in a year in which “everything is up in the air,” he noted that “money will make a difference when you get to the bigger states.”

In addition to the free media initiative, Huckabee’s campaign is also exploring other cost-efficient methods of getting the word out.

Huckabee sent an e-mail to supporters early Monday morning asking them to put on their “thinking caps” to come up with grassroots methods to help him in Michigan. Unlike similar solicitations from other campaigns, Huckabee was not necessarily asking for campaign cash but rather for support at the polls.

That effort, however, failed to spark his campaign in Michigan’s primary, as Huckabee finished a distant third with 16 percent of the vote.

Huckabee has also used his affiliation with pop culture icon Chuck Norris to attract attention. A YouTube video featuring the actor and the candidate has been viewed 1.5 million times already.

Another one of Huckabee’s ads, in which a bookshelf in the background looks like a cross, has been endlessly replayed on cable news networks, giving Huckabee more exposure.