Laid Back

The blade was just inches away from Mike Huckabee's jugular when he took his next question. Mitt Romney's campaign, a reporter told him, had just called his campaign antics "bizarre." What did he think? The former Arkansas governor, lying back in a barber's chair with his eyes closed and his face covered in thick shaving cream, sighed. "I don't give much thought to what the Romney campaign says about me," Huckabee replied, his voice so relaxed and quiet it sounded almost as if he were on the verge of falling asleep. He turned his head ever so slightly as the blade, navigated by an über-careful barber, slid along his right jawline.

Welcome to one of the strangest campaign stops in history. Technically it was photo-op no. 4 on Monday, New Year's Eve, three days before the Iowa caucus: a 2 p.m. haircut and shave at an old-school downtown Des Moines barbershop. But in truth it was yet another unusual moment in what could be described as the most unconventional presidential campaign in recent memory. Huckabee, who until recently was considered a long shot at best for the GOP nomination, has generated buzz and headlines for his White House bid by running an unorthodox campaign built on his image as a regular guy.

He has rocked out on his electric bass at campaign stops and brought his band, Capitol Offense, on the road. He played ping-pong with a reporter from National Public Radio for a story and campaigned with pop culture icons like Ric Flair, the former WWF wrestler. On Monday, Huckabee conducted nearly a full-fledged press conference with his head wrapped in a hot towel, as he awaited a shave. Can someone so offbeat win the White House?

Conventional wisdom was that Huckabee would become a more traditional candidate once he moved up in the polls. But that hasn't happened. If anything, Huckabee seems to have become more eccentric. Heading into the final hours before Iowans begin to caucus, Huckabee is running his campaign no differently from the days when he was nobody in the polls. While Romney has been campaigning nonstop across the state over the last few days, hitting house parties and holding town halls in a desperate bid to reap a victory out of all that money he's sowed, Huckabee has been taking a more leisurely route, spending more time giving interviews and participating in photo ops than talking to undecided Iowa voters.

On Wednesday night, the eve of the caucus, Huckabee will leave Iowa and fly to California to do a hit on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno." It's a highly risky gamble, considering how fluid the race for the GOP nomination is. While the latest Des Moines Register poll out Tuesday had Huckabee leading Romney 32 percent to 26 percent, about four percent of those polled remain undecided. In addition, almost half of Republicans polled said they might change their minds about who they'll support in the final days before the caucus.

Yet Huckabee seems more focused on getting free media than winning over the undecided. Part of it is necessity: Huckabee told reporters last Friday that his campaign had just $2 million in the bank, about a 40th of what Romney is estimated to have spent on his campaign this year. In other words, Huckabee needs all the free media he can get.