More Huckamania

Noam Scheiber notes that the ONE Campaign's Iowa Poll "shows Huckabee tied with Fred Thompson at 11, with the two of them only a point behind Giuliani." They're still all way behind Mitt Romney, but his campaign is getting some traction. Meanwhile, Reihan Salam emailed to point out that Huckabee's quite young, and could very plausibly run again in 2012 if the Republicans lose in '08, building on the base of support he's putting together in Iowa this cycle. He himself had an extended discussion of Huckabee the other day, presumably because he seems like the candidate in the race most amenable to the Sam's Club conservatism approach.

I think my view is that for this to have a shot, not only would Republicans need to lose, but the basic post-1980 strategy of conservative governance would need to fail. During the Clinton years, the Republicans were effectively able to first block efforts at structural change, and then basically govern secure in the knowledge that the administration wouldn't attempt any such efforts. So we got eight years of good government, plus the painstaking restoration of budgetary balance, all in time for Bush to give away the store to big business in an even more intense way that Reagan ever did. Mere defeat in 2008 wouldn't necessary invalidate this strategy.