The campaign's strategy called for winning the initial two contests – January 3, 2008, Iowa Republican caucuses and the adjacent-to-his-home-state January 8 New Hampshire primary – and propelling Romney nationally. However, he took second place in both, losing Iowa to a vastly outspent Huckabee who received more than twice the evangelical Christian votes, and losing New Hampshire to the resurgent McCain. Huckabee and McCain criticized Romney's image as a flip flopper and this label would stick to Romney through the campaign (one that Romney rejected as unfair and inaccurate, except for his acknowledged change of mind on abortion). Romney seemed to approach the campaign as a management consulting exercise, and showed a lack of personal warmth and political feel; journalist Evan Thomas wrote that Romney "came off as a phony, even when he was perfectly sincere." The fervor with which Romney adopted his new stances and attitudes contributed to the perception of inauthenticity that hampered the campaign. Romney's staff would conclude that competing as a candidate of social conservatism and ideological purity rather than of pragmatic competence had been a mistake.