December 19: Huckabee News Roundup

Several new polls just came out today. One from ABC News/Washington Post shows Huckabee on top in Iowa:

Huckabee 35
Romney 27
Thompson 9
Giuliani 8
Paul 8
McCain 6

A CBS News poll for South Carolina also shows Huckabee ahead of Romney by 8 points:

Huckabee 28
Romney 20
Giuliani 12
McCain 11
Thompson 10
Paul 3

And a national Battleground poll shows Huckabee in front:

Huckabee 24
Giuliani 22
Romney 16
McCain 15
Thompson 9
Paul 6

Time Magazine's political blog, Swampland, has a great post called Why Huckabee May Not Fade, commenting on Huckabee's stellar performance on the Today Show this morning:

If you watched him on the Today Show this morning, you might have a new appreciation for why Mike Huckabee is surging both in both Iowa and in national polls in the race for the Republican nomination. In an interview with Meredith Viera, Huckabee turned the hubbub over the "floating cross" in his Christmas ad into a lament about the absurdity of political correctness and the sullying of Christmas by conventional politicians. He stood by his criticism of President Bush's "arrogant" foreign policy by touting the "Powell-Schwarzkopf doctrine" of overwhelming force. Then he deftly dismissed the GOP establishment's opposition to him with a populist riff that was Edwardsian in both style and content. One money exchange:

Huckabee: The Wall Street-to-Washington axis, this corridor of power, is absolutely, frantically against me. But out there in America, the reason we're number one in the polls is because I'm the guy that doesn't have some offshore mailbox bank account in the Caymans hiding my money. I'm the guy that worked my way up through it. And there are a whole lot of people in America that believe that the president ought to be a servant of the people and ought not to be elected to the ruling class....

Viera: So why do you think they're opposed to you, Governor?

Huckabee: Because they don't control me.

Redstate.com has a post comparing Huckabee to the other GOP candidates. The conclusion? Huckabee is to the Right of All the Candidates:

The raging pens of the Huckahaters have declared that Mike Huckabee is a faux conservative; a Democrat in Republican clothing; a tax raising, free trade wrecking Christian crazy man. This is to provide some perspective to the enormous amount of vitriol directed toward Huckabee over the last few weeks.

Conclusion on Social Issues: Mike Huckabee is clearly the farthest right on social issues. Fred Thompson is a close second. Mitt Romney remains a clear third followed by John McCain, while Giuliani comes in last.

I understand there will be other opinions but I don’t think anyone in their right mind can make the claim that Huckabee is the farthest to the left.

Read their analysis...