Mike Huckabee may have finally gone too far.

After running an unconventional, surprisingly strong and sometimes strange race to the top tier of the Republican presidential campaign, the former Arkansas governor topped himself on Monday with an eyebrow-raising campaign stunt.

He called a news conference to unveil a negative ad that he had just withdrawn from Iowa television stations because, he told a room full of journalists recording the ad, he had a sudden aversion to negative politics. Quite a convenient epiphany.

“If people want to be cynical about it,” Huckabee said, “they can be cynical about it.”

If he loses Iowa’s caucuses on Thursday, New Year’s Eve will forever mark the day Huckabee blew it — the day a group of reporters stopped laughing with the witty Republican and laughed at him.

If he wins — a possibility that even Huckabee now thinks he put at risk — he sealed victory in a weird way Monday.

Here’s what happened: Huckabee came out of nowhere a few weeks ago to overtake former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in Iowa polls, despite being massively outspent and out-organised. Romney answered back with television ads criticising Huckabee’s record in Arkansas. Huckabee’s lead evaporated, which suggests the ads worked or that a series of gaffes had caught up to him.

So he did what desperate candidates do. Huckabee took himself off the campaign trail on Sunday to shoot a negative ad. He bought $30,000 in television time to air the spot and called a news conference to unveil it.

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