Of course the Mike Huckabee campaign is troubled and of course that helps explain Alice Stewart’s recent departure as chief spokeswoman for the campaign.

Politico reports that the campaign has cut senior staff salaries. And some are talking about the Stewart departuree.

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The abrupt departure of Alice Stewart, Huckabee’s communications director, was partly due to disagreements within the communications shop about the direction of the campaign and partly because of the salary cuts, several Republicans inside and outside the campaign said.

“The campaign is being run by the family and it’s going nowhere. It’s a dead campaign,” said Republican strategist Ed Rollins, who ran Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign in 2012. “And my sense is Alice is at a place in her life where she doesn’t want to work for the fees that she got eight years ago.”

Huckabee had suggested Stewart was exhausted. 

But Stewart, a marathon runner, shot back in response to questions from POLITICO that she is “far from exhausted.”

Huckabee is running on fumes. But he’s hoping for an Iowa miracle as his daughter Sarah Huckabee Sanders made clear. 

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“Obviously, if we go to Iowa and lose — well frankly we probably won’t keep going,” Huckabee Sanders said. “If we end up at 2 percent in Iowa then, no, because nobody’s getting paid. But if we go and pull out a win in Iowa then I would assume probably it’s increase salaries.”

In a sense, anything COULD happen in this roiling Republican field. But others have stepped into the place that once propelled Huckabee, particularly the movement of evangelicals who once supported Huckabee to Ted Cruz. Some people would just as soon not have James Dobson and his hate group behind them. Huckabee can’t seem to understand why Dobson deserted him.I think Donald Trump has the one-word explanation. Starts with “l.”

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