Huckabee leads in Iowa

Mike Huckabee continues to enjoy the "Arboretum bump", rising to first in the latest Iowa GOP polling. Since I made my famous predictions, Huckabee has been rising like a rocket on the 4th of July. The Huckster leads Mitt Romney by a statistically significant 5 percentage points, and has more than doubled up on Rudy Giuliani (29% vs. 13%). Now, I'm not saying Huckabee's rise is due solely to my bringing attention to him. My observation is that of all the candidates, he's the one with the fewest flaws, the best "story", and the most in common with the broad coalition of interests that remains the GOP base.

In other words, I wasn't endorsing the man, just predicting that the GOP would find him and embrace him. Let me say a few words about him, though: While I disagree with him on creationism and half a dozen other key topics, I do think he's a really smart guy. And my first impression of him is that he's "real" -- what you see is what he really is. As the Des Moines Register reports, "Huckabee outscores Romney and the rest of the Republican field as the candidate seen as the most socially conservative, the most civil in tone and the most principled." And should he become the candidate, Huckabee will be tougher to beat than many people think. But I do think he'd lose to Obama or Hillary by maybe 4 percentage points.

Romney might be okay, but he's trying way too hard to pretend to be a red-meat conservative, which doesn't jibe with his record. He's an investment banker trying to play the pork-rind circuit, and it shows. He's a fake -- the perfect encapsulement of a post-modern USA presidential candidate. Meanwhile, the word on the street is that Fred Thompson is still considering whether or not to enter the GOP presidential contest. And Giuliani, well... I don't give him much of a chance. The people who vote in GOP primaries don't vote for liberal New Yorkers.

The GOP nomination will quickly become a two-horse race between Romney and Huckabee, I think, as Rudy practices immolation by in the oils of his NYC history. This includes his longtime man-love for felon Bernard Kerik and the emerging stories that he provided NYPD "protection" for his mistress while his wife was home in Gracie Mansion. Oh yes, and he hid travel funds for his booty calls in the budgets of various and sundry NYC departments. Now, there are lot of things the GOP will forgive -- Negroponte's assassination squads in Nicaragua come to mind -- but hidden money, misappropriation of funds and public girlfriend-shagging are not sins likely to be forgiven for a pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage candidate in a anti-choice anti-gay-marriage party.

As the wise man said, "So ends the reign of Denethor, son of Ecthelion."

Yeah, Giuliani's toast.