November 29: Huckabee News Roundup

Here's some more post-debate Huckabee buzz:

From the Des Moines Register:

Huckabee has come out of single digits to play in the big leagues of this campaign, and his good-natured performance Wednesday shows he can swing an oratorical bat with the best of them.

While other candidates fumbled around when dealing with biblical questions, Huckabee's background as a Baptist minister came in handy when he said that there are some things in the Bible no one can understand, so it's more important to follow the things that are understandable.

Huckabee also fended off an attack from Romney over Huckabee's plan to provide in-state tuition for children of undocumented workers in Arkansas.

Huckabee shot back that he worked his way through school and that the nation shouldn't punish children for what their parents did. "We're a better country than that," he said.

McCain criticized Huckabee's support for a national retail sales tax to replace the income tax, a proposal supporters call the Fair Tax. Huckabee observed later something his minister once told him: "When they are kicking you in the rear, it's just proves you are out front."

Later, when one questioner asked what Jesus would do about the death penalty, Huckabee said, "Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office, that's what Jesus would do."

Huckabee is rapidly becoming the hot story in the 2008 presidential campaign. After Wednesday night, he's likely to get a whole lot hotter.

From Real Clear Politics:

It is not about Iowa only any more. Mike Huckabee has a real shot to be the Republican nominee.

The GOP race is usually characterized as either a two-person contest (Giuliani vs. Romney) or a wide open field among the five viable candidates (Giuliani, Romney, Thompson, Huckabee and McCain). However, what we are fast approaching is a three-man race between Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani.

An important signal to watch for over the next month will be whether Huckabee overtakes Romney in the national polls leading up to Iowa. If that were to happen concurrently with Huckabee continuing to head toward a win in Iowa that would be an important tell that Republican voters are moving toward ultimately a Huckabee vs. Giuliani showdown.

Giuliani remains the favorite, but at 10-1 odds that would be a showdown that Mike Huckabee might just be able to win.

From MSNBC:

Big night for Mike Huckabee. On a night when many voters were looking at him in a different light thanks to the dramatic increase in attention the media's been giving him, he delivered big time. Unlike previous debates, he didn't open with a joke but instead sounded very presidential in his first answer; He had his share of one-liners, but he seemed to balance the funny with more presidential rhetoric.

Huckabee stepped up his game tonight. The rest of the field better be glad that the GOP debates end on Dec. 12, a full three weeks before the Iowa caucuses and that's enough time for his potentially dominant debate performances to fade from voter memories. Surprisingly, he didn't get attacked too much. Romney took a shot, but nothing too harsh (Iowa nice, right?). Most importantly for Huckabee, he'll likely be declared the winner of this debate by every member of the Amtrak Corridor media elite and that should get him some serious buzz. The question for the rest of the field: when will others begin to take him as a more serious threat.

From the Washington Post:

If candidate debates were any indicator, Mike Huckabee would be entering the month of December as the front-runner for the Republican nomination.

On stage with his rivals in St. Petersburg Wednesday night, Huckabee once again demonstrated a mastery of the moment that none of the others could match. He had the night’s most memorable lines, as has often been the case, mixing humor with a facility to think on his feet under pressure.

But more than that he appeared totally comfortable in his own conservative skin -- enough to say he does believe that every word in the Bible is the literal truth or to remind Mitt Romney that the children of illegal immigrants should not be punished for the crimes of their parents.