Confusion in the Huckabee Camp

Mike Huckabee's campaign pulled a slick little move today in Iowa:

DES MOINES — Talk about political jujitsu!

Mike Huckabee is holding a press conference right now in which he was supposed to unveil a new negative ad against arch rival Mitt Romney.

But Mr. Huckabee came to the press conference and announced he’d had a change of heart and would not be broadcasting the ad after all.

But wait! It gets better.

He then broadcast it for a room crammed with reporters, photographers and television cameras.

The assembled media found the display hilarious and at several points laughed out loud.

The part excerpted above sounds like a well-planned media event, but this account from another reporter sheds doubt on that:

Charmaine Yoest, a top aide to the former governor, said after the press conference that she didn't know about Huckabee's decision to not air the ads until shortly before the event and that there hadn't been time to take down the signs.

But, surrounded by reporters in a hallway outside the conference room, she wouldn't say exactly when she found out about the decision.

"This is an evolving strategy," Yoest admitted before leaving.

UPDATE: Yoest, who set up the staging of the press conference, just came back out to the hallway and said she was told about five minutes before the event started that he would not air the ad. By then, she said, it was too late to remove the signs.

Asked if Huckabee's pledge to run a positive campaign meant that he and and his staff would not criticize Romney in any fashion, Yoest offered an extended pause before confessing, "I don't know."

I met Charmaine Yoest back in 2005 when she attended the first GodBlogCon at Biola University. Another Huckabee staffer, Joe Carter, was also there. Both were involved in other things at the time, and neither seems the type to me who would be happy being involved in a campaign stunt like this (I don't think Joe is traveling with Huckabee - he's manning the office in Little Rock).

I can't help but think that after a meteoric rise in the polls the wheels are now coming off Huckabee's campaign.

UPDATE: Laura points me to an article I missed that says that Joe Carter has left the campaign:

Joe Carter, who took a leave from the Family Research Council to move down to the former Arkansas governor’s campaign headquarters in Little Rock, has returned to Washington, leaving a key position unfilled in the crucial final days before the caucuses.

With Carter gone — his last e-mail to reporters was Dec. 17 — Huckabee has been largely responding to every new story or attack that emerges himself, at times compounding the problem.

That tells me the Huckabee campaign is in big trouble.