The Unseen Huck-a-bust

Unseen, because there is no and will be no reliable polling from the end of last week through the Iowa Caucus. Dean Barnett of The Weekly Standard has written an article drawing a parallel between Huck and Pat Buchanan in 1996. The parallel is that he Pat was running as charismatic, but one dimensional candidate who became crazier as the campaign wore on. Barnett sees the almost-daily Huck scandal as similar to what Pat went through as he took an early win in New Hampshire and self-destructed to Dole.

Barnett, who is really a Mitt supporter, writes:

I COME NOT TO bury Mike Huckabee. Mike Huckabee has buried himself. Over the next week, the Republican party in Iowa and elsewhere will decide that Huckabee may be a swell fellow, but he's not of presidential timbre. I predict this decision will be made en masse. Huckabee's support will likely crater in Iowa.

But here's the fun part--no one will see it coming. Because of the holidays, there will be scant polling between now and the caucuses, and what polling there is will be of dubious reliability. (Paging ARG!) If Huckabee is going to lose a point or so a day between the end of last week and January 3, we won't know it until the results from the caucuses are in. If Huckabee declines to a distant second or perhaps even third place as I am now fearlessly predicting he will, it will catch the voting public by surprise. When they tuned this race out before the long Christmas weekend, the media told them Huckabee was a sure thing in Iowa.

Huckabee's support will have to go somewhere. The logical recipients are Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. While Iowans may not love Romney, they do respect him. Unlike Huckabee, he has impressed them as being of presidential timbre. And Thompson, at last, is running well in Iowa. He's surging.