I wonder when the national media will begin noticing the fact that Mike Huckabee is surging dramatically in Iowa, according to at least two recent polls.
Here are the American Research Group numbers from 10/26-29 versus 9/26-29:
Candidate Oct. Sep. Change
Romney 27% 22% +5%
Huckabee 19% 4% +15%
Giuliani 16% 21% -5%
McCain 14% 11% +3%
Thompson 8% 16% -8%
And here are the numbers from the University of Iowa Hawkeye polls taken 10/17-24 and 7/29-8/5:
Candidate Oct. Aug. Change
Romney 36% 28% +8%
Huckabee 13% 2% +11%
Giuliani 13% 12% +1%
Thomspon 11% 8% +3%
McCain 6% 3% +3%
Huckabee's got next to no money (he had raised a grand total of $2.3 million through the end of last quarter), so I'm not sure how he'd capitalize on a strong showing in Iowa, but especially based on the ARG poll, if this trend continues, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that he could pull off an upset win in Iowa. But the fact that he's got less money than almost any of the other Republicans, but is now in second place in Iowa according to two polls, makes his surge even more impressive. This is largely being done by volunteers and word of mouth.
Last week's edition of The Nation had an editorial (the full versio of which is unfortunately behind their subscription wall) about the fury of many grassroots religious conservatives about their leaders' refusal to support Huckabee and insistence on trying to move them toward Romney. There appears to be a growing realization among grass-roots religious conservatives that their leaders seem to be a lot more concerned with conservative economic values than with conservative social ones, even though many of the grass-roots religious conservatives may have relatively liberal economic values. (I could have told them years ago that they were being used, but better they come late to that realization than not at all.)
I've been worried all along that if Huckabee could somehow get the nomination, he'd be the Republicans' strongest candidate, because he's the Republican who seems best positioned to hold onto the socially conservative but economically liberal (or to be more accurate, less economically conservative) voters. And while I still don't see how he could get to winning the nomination from herehe's looking like less of a long shot than he was just a month or two ago.