Huckabama

The prevailing Huckabee narrative maintains that he’s benefiting strictly from the loyalty of the religious right. ~Frank Rich

As it happens, the narrative is (so far) absolutely right.  Rich argues that this cannot account of his national polling, where he hovers around 16-20% these days.  But if Amy Sullivan’s figures are right (taken from this very early assessment of Romney’s religion predicament), evangelicals make up 30% of the GOP electorate.  Even assuming that Huckabee is rising simply as the evangelical and religious conservative candidate, that would suggest that Huckabee has not yet reached his ceiling.  Nonetheless, despite the flaws of Rich’s electoral analysis, he may have a point in seeing Huckabee as the GOP’s Obama.  Obama is a progressive who preaches a saccharine, feel-good message of hope and unity, and in a lot of ways so is Huckabee.