What New Hampshire voters are looking for in a candidate
Is Mike Huckabee, the newest candidate to enter the Republican primary field, "stale," "graceful" or "too quiet"?
That's how some voters described the former Arkansas governor in a New Hampshire focus group comprised of Republicans and independents. CBS News contributor and GOP strategist Frank Luntz asked the group what they thought of Huckabee, who announced his second bid for the White House on Tuesday.
"When I hear him, he doesn't inspire me. He doesn't energize me to kind of want to go off and vote for him. I just-- it's just stale," one man said.
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"Yeah, I'm expecting a mover and a shaker," another man added. "That's just not Mike Huckabee."
"He reminds me of vegetables," said another man. "They're good for you, but doesn't mean you want to eat 'em."
One voter said she would give him a chance, but needs to know where he wants to take the country.
"If he wants to come back - it's been eight years (since his last presidential run)- let's see where he's at, what he wants to offer for a vision," she said. "Does he have a vision? What [are] his policies? Where would he like to go? If he doesn't have any of that, then he's not going to go anywhere."
Huckabee was also described as "the antithesis of Chris Christie," who is "bombastic and argumentative."
Luntz predicted Huckabee would perform strongly in Iowa, where he won the 2008 Republican caucus "against every expectation."
"You can't count him out. He is the best debater in the bunch and he did an incredible job in 2008, surprising people," Luntz said. "But he's not a frontrunner at this point because he tends to do so much better among the social aspects of the GOP rather than the economic conservative aspects."
Which is why he likely won't do as well in New Hampshire, Luntz said.
"New Hampshire, it's much more about economics. So what you heard there with New Hampshire voters is the desire to make a change, is the desire to ensure that a Republican is next the next president. Iowa doesn't react that way," Luntz said.
For some voters, the biggest priority is to beat Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee.
"For ideals, I vote in the primaries, and for the general election, I'm going to vote for whoever's going to beat the person I like the least," one focus group participant said.
"When push comes to shove, in New Hampshire they're going to choose the person who can defeat Hillary Clinton. In Iowa, I think they're going to choose someone who they agree with the most and that's the untold story," Luntz said.
So who would be able to beat Clinton?
"I wish I could tell," Luntz said. "Six weeks ago, eight weeks ago on your show I talked about Scott Walker being a very effective candidate. I'm going to launch a new one for you right now, and that's Marco Rubio."
In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in April, 74 percent of Republican voters said they would support Rubio in his 2016 run, while 15 percent said they would not. National polls are not necessarily indicative of what's happening in individual states, Luntz said.
"I only care about Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Over last four weeks, it's been Marco Rubio that's been gaining," Luntz said.
He advised that people should pay attention to whoever is the second choice among candidates.
"You can't be a first choice until you become a second and Marco Rubio has surged in that. And second is the ratio of positive to negative, and both Rubio and Walker have the highest ratio at somewhere between 6 to 1 or 7 to 1. No other candidate has that kind of popularity, which means that kind of potential over the coming weeks and months," Luntz said.