Mike Huckabee in Iowa: Spoiler Alert?

DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 3, 2007 — -- Day one as No. 1: it's what presidential contenders dream of. And today former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had his first real taste of it, in Iowa.

The elevators that couldn't move because so many people wanted to jam in next to him. … The lunchtime appearance at a Des Moines insurance firm where there were not enough of seats. … The hour of talk radio where the questions being asked were no longer variations of: "Seems nice, but is he electable."

"How will winning Iowa make Mike Huckabee a spoiler?" asked one caller.

"People are really starting to pay attention," said Huckabee. "That's what we hoped for all along. Like a marathon, don't give up in those early miles when you see people passing you. Because it's about finishing not starting. That's what it takes to do this."

Something seemed to click here for Huckabee, even in the past few days. There was his performance in the last debate, and new polls suggesting he could win. Something certainly clicked for one Mitt Romney supporter … make that former supporter.

"I was on the Mitt Romney bandwagon," said Cynthia Kammeier, who said she's "absolutely" switched sides. "I've switched in the last two weeks."

The ultimate compliment might be the "welcome-to-the-big-league" attacks Huckabee's ideas are now drawing — finally — from the other contenders in the race who had previously mostly ignored him.

For example, Rudy Giuliani had this to say about Huckabee's plan to scrap the Internal Revenue Service in favor of a sales tax on everything:

"Why waste our time trying to do this if we can't actually accomplish it?" Giuliani said at a campaign event today in Greensboro, N.C. "I try to put my time into things that we can actually accomplish."

Romney joined in on the tax attack, criticizing Huckabee's spending to a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

"Gov. Huckabee was governor and talks about his desire to rein in spending, but as governor he took spending from just over $6 billion to $16 billion," Romney said. "And he financed that by raising taxes time and again."