Jan 4, 2008 5:45 pm US/Central
Huckabee Campaign Running On A Shoestring In Ill.
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Republican presidential hopeful former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (File)
Eric Thayer/Getty Images
Republican Mike Huckabee apparently beat the odds with his decisive victory in Iowa. He managed to trounce Mitt Romney with only a fraction of Romney's war chest.
As CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, Huckabee's campaign in Illinois is also running on a shoestring.
"It doesn't end here," Huckabee said to a crowd of supporters Thursday night in Iowa. "It goes all the way through the other states and it ends at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."
Small, mostly rural Iowa is one thing. The big industrial states, California, New York and Illinois -- states that vote on February 5 -- are something else.
In Illinois, the other major Republicans have been raising big money for months and have been enlisting the help of big name politicians like former Governor Jim Edgar backing Rudy Giuliani.
Look for Huckabee's organization only on a few Web sites at the moment, sites mostly devoted to linking a few grassroots supporters to one another.
Mike Zezulak is one of them. He's a suburban businessman who's trying to enlist Huckabee supporters by tossing coffee klatches and passing out bumper stickers.
"Not having the type of financing that some of the other candidates have, I think that this type of grassroots support will propel him into receiving the nomination," Zezulak said.
"In order to compete, you need not only the organization, which takes months to put together, but you need tens of millions of dollars. He has neither," said University of Chicago political scientist Professor Gerald Rosenberg.
Not so fast, says Andy McKenna, the chairman of the Illinois GOP.
"Money's not everything," McKenna said. "You gotta relate to people and he has a real genuine way about himself."
Maybe he has something there. In the months leading up to the Iowa caucuses Mitt Romney outspent Mike Huckabee 14-to-1. Maybe the former Arkansas governor can win in Illinois and other states without spending and spending and spending.
Huckabee has done pretty well so far with a campaign built on those kinds of maybes.
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