But Edwards doesn't have one of those. The rulers will have to dig around for something on him..or they'll just have to stick with the tired old big new house and the haircut. Edwards is the one. He can win it..but our owners will put up a big fight.

When Krugman wrote his recent piece about Obama & Edwards a funny thing happened. We began to see a whole slew of articles magically appear telling us how populism doesn't work in campaigns. Not only do these articles basically say the same thing they all link to each others pieces. I find that very interesting.

I first heard about Huckabee about two years back and thought he'd make a great candidate for the GOP -- a former preacher who decided to run after losing 100+ pounds. As a former fattie, he's got Oprah appeal -- a rarity for a Republican. When the race actually got underway, I was puzzled about why he wasn't doing well. The Religious Wrong was even talking about establishing a third party or begrudgingly endorsing the New York mob boss (I mean prosecutor). Why not pick Huckabee, I wondered. He's a natural choice for them, no? Then, I began to realize why he wasn't climbing to the top of the top of the GOP heap. He's too genuine for them. He's not part of the club. He seems to care about something more than the almighty dollar, like the actual Almighty. A guy who takes that Bible shit seriously must terrify the GOP party elite. Jesus had lots of nice things to say about the Losers, after all, and not much love for the Establishment. I'm not a big fan of religious government, but I suppose I'm pulling for the man from Hope. I want the Democrats to win it, but if they lose, I hope they lose to this guy. Somehow, I think he's grounded and sensible and knows what a real live working American looks like. I could be totally off, but I think a man who's truly haunted by Jesus' ghost is going to run a government that's pretty humane. Who was the last real Christain we had in office? Carter?

Eric Woolson, Huckabee's Iowa campaign manager, said, "[...] Very few people from Iowa have a very privileged background."

For the record, I would just like to say that I'm one of those "privileged Iowans," as the son of a small-town attorney.

And yes, I held a job scooping hog shit.

No wonder Romney, Guiliani, and Hillary Clinton, for that matter, are fading as Huckabee, Edwards, and Obama surge.

Are you people high? HE IS A THEOCRAT!!! Look at some of the things he's said. He is a Bush who will actually make religious decisions while in office (as opposed to giving in to whoever Cheney tells him to and saying it was God). The reason why he can say he won't pander to the special interests is because so far, none have offered him anything. That makes it kind of easy to claim.

For years we've been trying to get working people to see past the culture war and think practically about their real needs and now this guy comes along and tells them they can have it both ways. In case you haven't noticed, that is bad for us. We'll have to promise to round up all gays and ship them off to the "re-education centers" to even get our feet in the door if this guy really takes off.

If you really think he is such a "nice guy", go back and look at his record. NEWSWEEK did an excellent article on him that should be required reading for all Iowans and everyone else in the nation.

This is still a three-way race on the Dem's side, no matter how the media (Salon included) tries to paint this as a Clinton/Obama matchup.

Salon, please. You've given more inches to noise-candidate Kucinich than Edwards this cycle, and probably twice as much coverage to christo-fascist Huckabee. Why can't you give the man the coverage he deserves before you have to act all surprised at his performance in the early primaries? Voters deserve to be informed. And of the three candidates on the map, Edwards is the one who has clear policies, is more progressive than Obama and much more so than Clinton, and is overall the best candidate to turn this country around after eight years of Bush.

The reason for Mike Huckabee's surge? Chuck Norris. Hell, despite his, at least to my mind, abhorrent policy positions and all-around unacceptability, I considered voting for the guy after the Chuck Norris endorsement ad.

to John Edwards, to compare him to a lying corrupt fraud like Huckabee.

Isn't there a job opening up at the Washington Post or Newsweek?

Have you might be happier there.

And, yeah, I think the guy is a little nuts, and it would suck to have him as president, but even with his gaping flaws, he's still a better choice than any of the other republicans running.

I'm hoping that he at least dashes Mitt Romney's presidential aspirations, anybody but Romney.

What is the secret to Huck's success? You've got to be kidding. It can be summed up in two words: Hill and Bill. In voting for Huck the Clinton-haters get to vote, one, against Hillary Clinton (who is bound to be the Democratic candidate, no matter what some people might think), and two, against Bill Clinton, whom they never tire of castigating. Huck is the anti-Clinton. He hails from Hope and was once governor of Arkansas, but he is no Rhodes Scholar. In fact, he is no kind of scholar at all. The we-hate-Bill brigade sees a vote for Huck as a repudiation of everything that Bill, and by extension Hillary, stands for. They don't know Huck, and they don't care (they should, but they don't). In this regard, they are myopic. A Clinton is running for office. The red flag has been raised. The haters charge--blindly. Oh, yes, it's really that simple.