Tom’s Big Picture

Paul disappointed but is still in the game. Iowa has a poor track record of predicting the nominee.

That said, Huckabee does look unstoppable from a neutral point of view. The “flyover” part of this country is so tired of being marginalized that they’ll nominate a bad conservative from Arkansas (who at least seems to be mostly decent in his personal life and shares their Christian faith) over bad conservatives from Massachusetts. And it is with a bit of sporting regional pride that I say this, as nobody makes better politicians than the South. When the fake conservatives fight, ain’t nobody gonna out-fake a southern-fried good-old-boy like Huckabee. He was born in that there briar patch!

And I can’t help but smile at Rudy Giuliani’s butt-whooping in the Heartland. Paul has saved us from the cross-dressing criminal at a minimum.

My gut in the first debate told me Huckabee was the best political tactician: I actually cringed a few times when watching Paul in the first debate. Unfortunately for Paul, most of the populace votes with their gut, not based on researching the policy positions of the candidates. If Paul does not succeed, the most interesting question is this analogy- Goldwater:Reagan::Paul: [?] . The Paul Revolution is a once-in-a-generation phenomenon already.

I think Peggy Noonan does a good job at explaining Huckabee, similar to my analysis of his Christmas ad. Mix equal parts cultural alienation from the elites, social gospel-lite and millions of Christians with their heads full of doctrinal mush and Huckabee is what comes out:

Something new begins on the Republican side, too.

Everyone said Mike Huckabee was a big dope to leave Iowa Wednesday to fly to L.A. to be on Jay Leno, but did you see him on that thing? He got off a perfect line on why he’s doing well against Romney: “People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off.” The studio audience loved him. And you know, in Iowa they watch “The Tonight Show” too.

Mr. Huckabee likes to head-fake people into thinking he’s Gomer Pyle, but he’s more like the barefoot boy of the green room. He’s more James Carville than Jim Nabors.

What we have learned about Mr. Huckabee the past few months is that he’s an ace entertainer with a warm, witty and compelling persona. He won with no money and little formal organization, with an evangelical network, with a folksy manner, and with the best guileless pose in modern politics. From the mail I have received the past month after criticizing him in this space, I would say his great power, the thing really pushing his supporters, is that they believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad, it is our culture.

They have been bruised and offended by the rigid, almost militant secularism and multiculturalism of the public schools; they reject those schools’ squalor, in all senses of the word. They believe in God and family and America. They are populist: They don’t admire billionaire CEOs, they admire husbands with two jobs who hold the family together for the sake of the kids; they don’t need to see the triumph of supply-side thinking, they want to see that suffering woman down the street get the help she needs.

They believe that Mr. Huckabee, the minister who speaks their language, shares, down to the bone, their anxieties, concerns and beliefs. They fear that the other Republican candidates are caught up in a million smaller issues–taxing, spending, the global economy, Sunnis and Shia–and missing the central issue: again, our culture. They are populists who vote Republican, and as I have read their letters, I have felt nothing but respect.

But there are two problems. One is that while the presidency, as an office, can actually make real changes in the areas of economic and foreign policy, the federal government has a limited ability to change the culture of America. That is something conservatives used to know. Second, I’m sorry to say it is my sense that Mr. Huckabee is not so much leading a movement as riding a wave. One senses he brilliantly discerned and pursued an underserved part of the voting demographic, and went for it. Clever fellow. To me, the tipoff was “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”

Of course, I think the cultural alienation and populism are valid concerns of an increasingly marginalized majority in the country. And Huck’s social-gospel-lite does appeal to the little old ladies who vote in Republican primaries, soft-hearted folks who can’t comprehend the harmful consequences of unregulated state-funded charity. As a Baptist preacher, he’s got more experience than anybody with that demographic.