Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has shot to the top of a new poll in South Carolina, leading Republican presidential candidates in the key Southern state.
Huckabee garnered 24 percent in the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, conducted by phone between Sunday and Wednesday.
By way of comparison, the patrician George W. Bush’s greatest deception (except lying about Saddam’s WMD’s) was convincing the evangelical mob that he was a jus’ a reg’lar ole boy like one of them.
He’s actually a fairly good actor– this Yale and Harvard educated preppie’s accent has changed noticeably in the direction of a West Texas drawl since the early ’90’s.
The Democrats underestimated Bush’s political skills and his and Karl Rove’s zeal for dirty tricks.
Unlike Bush, Huckabee is the real deal– a genuine Southerner (Bush was born in Connecticut, and spent most of his formative years in New England– either at school or ’summering’ at the family compound in Kennebunkport).
Huckabee could easily lock the Southern evangelical vote, but if he should secure the Republican nomination, he can be little more than a tool of the Republican National Committee since he lacks membership in the hereditary old boys’ club.
All the captains of industry and the old money network want is to get back to the serious business of looting the national treasury, preferably with a newly installed Republican administration to enable their depredations on the public commons.