Newest Poll Puts Huckabee 17 Points Ahead In *South Carolina*

Even averaging this blowout number in with pre-Iowa polls still has him up 8.3. And nationally, he's the new front runner as well.

Isn't that lovely?

Soon -- not now, but soon -- we'll have to just write off 2008 altogether and begin rebuilding the party. The evangelicals in the party will have to recognize, hopefully, that they cannot go it alone without the rest of the GOP. Huckabee's catastrophic loss in the election will, hopefully, instruct some of them as to the need for coalition, and repudiate the sort of magical thinking I think many are sometimes prey to -- If I just dismiss notions like "electability" and the like, and just vote for whoever I like the most without any taint of practicality or consensus with my fellow party-members, I will be rewarded, because somehow the country will come around to sharing my minority viewpoint.

Liberals and the nutroots have been pushing this idea for years. It doesn't work. Yes, the Democrats won in 2006, but on the strength of moderate candidates. A president needs to both unite the base and grab a decent number of independents, and Huckabee can do neither.

I'm not sure anyone can beat the the very-electable Obamessiah anyhow, so perhaps this is the perfect year for an object lesson in the perils of nominating a candidate anathema to half the party.

More: George Will serves up some uncharacteristically bloody red meat on the topic of Huckabee.

But he's part of that GOP establishment, of course.

Like Rush Limbaugh.

posted by Ace at 08:05 PM

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