Too many candidates? GOP presidential hopefuls don’t agree

CEDAR RAPIDS - Even before a poll showed him falling behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in Iowa, Donald Trump thought the field of 2016 Republicans presidential hopefuls was too crowded.

'We really do need fewer people in this thing,” the New York businessman told a Cedar Rapids audience recently. Long-shot candidates are in the way of discussing important topics, he said.

Trump can't fire his rivals and didn't name names. But he made clear candidates polling in single digits ought to drop out because they're wasting their own and 'they're wasting a lot of airtime” as well.

'We need more time. When we're talking about terrorism, I don't want to be given 30 seconds,” he said.

Not surprisingly, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee would like more time in the debates, too.

He's polling at 2 percent in the CBS News 2016 Battleground Tracker poll that shows Cruz leading Trump in Iowa by 40 to 31 percent.

In October's CNBC debate - where he was on the main stage - Huckabee was able to respond to just three questions, he said in a Van Horne visit.

But contrary to Trump, Huckabee thinks the large field is a good thing.

'You go to Baskin-Robbins and you don't get one choice or two - you get 31,” he said. 'That's why they are successful. They give people options.”

Iowa caucusgoers have plenty of options and they are still weighing those choices, according to polling by the Huckabee campaign. His senior communications adviser, J. Hogan Gidley, said that 75 percent of likely caucusgoers haven't made up their mind and 58 percent said they don't know which way they're leaning.

Huckabee said Trump and 'the media” would like him and others at the lower end of preference polls to drop out, but that's not the way the process should work.

'Why don't we at least let the voters have a few shots at us,” he said. 'Polls aren't votes. Polls are opinions. If we're going to do that, we could spare the election.”

Besides, he added, it's too early for Trump, pollsters or anyone else to know the outcome of the caucuses.

'I also know that four years ago Rick Santorum was in single digits in sixth pace five days away from the caucuses and won,” Huckabee said.

He also knows that at this point in the 2008 caucus campaign, people supposedly in the know predicted former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would win 'because he had all the money, all the media attention.”

'But I didn't just win, I won with the largest number of votes in the history of the Iowa caucuses,” he said.

The caucuses, he added, are 'based on the idea that voters make the decision, not pollsters.”

That's why he's plugging away, making a 'full Grassley” tour of 99 counties.

'Iowa can shake this up” if caucusgoers ignore the national polling, Huckabee said. If that happens, 'Iowa matters a whole lot more this year and four years from now.”