According to a recently released Rasmussen poll, Gov. Huckabee has reached double digits in national polling for the first time. Huckabee receives 10% of national support for the Republican nomination. This may look like a small number, but the indication is that Huckabee is trending upward on a consistent basis.
Consider, for example, an important fact: there are at least some conservatives who, having previously written Huckabee off, are beginning to give him a second look. There is a growing swell of frustration with the pragmatic attitudes being adopted by conservative "leaders." The tide seems to be turning a bit as person after person abandons the pragmatic deception, and turns back to principled thinking. If that happens more, the other candidates will begin to lose some of their support as some of their less than happy supporters warm to Gov. Huckabee's princpled conservative campaign.
One example of conservatives who are beginning to warm to Huckabee is the tripartite endorsement from Christian bloggers Justin Taylor, Joe Carter, and Matthew Anderson. Having previously bought into the pragmatic notion of electability, these three have now come out in support of Mike Huckabee. They write:
For several months we have admired the scrappy campaign of Gov. Huckabee but believed it would be a wasted effort to support him with our time, energy, and finances. We bought into the notion that he could never get the GOP nomination since conservative voters would not support him. And the reason we were told conservative voters would never support him is because he could not get the nomination. To quote John Piper (from a different context), "It’s like the army being defeated because there aren’t enough troops, and the troops won’t sign up because the army’s being defeated."
We can no longer sit idly by and allow the campaign of a worthy candidate and an honorable man to flounder for lack of support.
So far, Huckabee has been able to avoid the negative attack politics that permeates the process. As he gains steam, however, I would not be surprised to see the other candidates and their supports begin to take attack shots at him. That would be a true indicator that Hucakbee is not only a threat, but a major threat.
