Huckabee keeps rising, as attacks against him intensify

It seems there are new reasons every day to be amazed at Huckabee's surge. Until now, only Rasmussen had released national primary polls with Huckabee either tied for first or in the lead. But tonight, we got two back-to-back so-called "reputable" polls (though I trust Rasmussen as much as any other firm considering their impeccable 2006 record). And notice how consistent the two polls are:

• The CBS/NYT poll has Giuliani at 22% and Huckabee at 21%, with Romney at 16% and McCain and Thompson both at 7%.
• CNN has Giuliani at 24% and Huckabee at 22%, with Romney at 16%, McCain at 10% and Thompson at 10%.

As if these polls were not enough, SUSA released a poll from South Carolina that has some dramatic results:

• Huckabee comes in first with 30%, followed by Romney at 19% and Thompson at 18%. Giuliani is at 13% and McCain at 10%.

A month ago, Huckabee was fifth in SUSA's SC poll. Clearly, he is an ideal position to seize the nomination by winning the two early states with large evangelical blogs -- Iowa and South Carolina. And he then would be probably confronted to the winner of New Hampshire, whether Giuliani or Romney (or, possibly, McCain).

As striking as Huckabee's surge is Thompson's utter collapse. He had been very weak in the early states since he got in; but he usually came in a strong second in national polls, suggesting he still had some kind of audience somewhere. Now, two back-to-back polls have him dropping down to fifth. Huckabee has taken his voters, and Republicans who were looking for a conserative option and thinking about Thompson for lack of a better option have now massively migrated to Huckabee.

As is expected in such circumstances, Huckabee is attracting attacks from everyone. For one, Huckabee's past has not been very much explored so there is a lot that is coming out extremely fast right now. Huckabee's rivals know they only have a few weeks to stop the crazyness that is going on right now, and they are digging up as many things as they can. The latest: Thompson's camp unearthed a letter Huckabee wrote to Bush in 2002 calling for the trade embargo with Cuba to be lifted. Of course, Huckabee said very different things at the Univision debate just yesterday.

But the most surprising is that Mitt Romney has now gone on the attack with a negative ad in Iowa, which I believe is the first candidate-sponsored negative ad to air this year! The ad attacks Huckabee for supporting tuition help and scholarships for illegal immigrants, and compares this to Romney's supposedly much stronger record of fighting breaks for immigrants. This follows a long set-up in which the ad explains that both Huckabee and Romney are "pro-life" and "family men." The message is clear: Evangelicals, Romney is just as socially conservative as Huckabee. And he is even better on immigration.

This tells you the urgency of the situation for the Romney campaign, which must be panicking to see that its seemingly solid Iowa lead has completely evaporated! This also means that Romney does not trust that the media and his rivals will do a good enough job undermining Hucakbee: He probably realizes that Giuliani is very content to let Huck win Iowa, and that Thompson cannot by himself halt such momentum.

• Quick notes on the Democratic race

The polls mentioned earlier had Democratic numbers as well, so here is a quick overview:

• The New York Times has Clinton up with 44%, versus Obama's 27% and Edwards's 11%.
• But the CNN poll has some worrisome numbers for Clinton: She is up 40% to 30%, but it is the first poll since July in which Obama is within 10%...


• SUSA did not release a Democratic vote from SC, but Insider Advantage did: It shows Obama ahead 28% to Clinton's 22%. The reason for this reversal of fortune in a state that Clinton usually led in: Obama has now taken a comfortable lead among black voters, a demographic among which he did not have any advantage at all until this month. We always knew this was a key test for him, and this might be too much for Clinton to overcome in the state.

Check my analysis from this afternoon of how bad things are getting for Hillary and just what kind of trouble this kind of polls spell for her campaign. Obama is clearly rising -- though Hillary is managing to stay afloat and the nomination is still very much within her reach.

But the most striking lesson of the NYT poll might very well be in the difference of intensity between the two parties: Democratic voters are very satisfied with their candidates. 68% of Democrats have a favorable opinion of Clinton and 54% say the same about Obama.

On the other hand, only 41% of Republican voters have a favorable impression of Giuliani, 37% for McCain and 36% for Romney. The GOP will have to wage some major effort to rally its base come next fall.