Thoughts on the Presidential race

- After reading the remarkable NY Times magazine interview with Mike Huckabee this weekend it reminds all of us how much his rise is a sign of the weakness of the rest of the Republican field. The man who is now perhaps the front runner in the GOP race for President, the most powerful elected office in the world, is running a very unconventional campaign. No real staff. No ads. No fundraising. Out there positions - abolish the IRS, deport the undocumenteds, vague ideas about foreign policy. Yet he leads. And amazingly this weekend Mitt Romney attacked him for not adequately embracing President Bush's foreign policy - again a sign of how unorthodox and interesting this Huckabee thing is.

But read the Times magazine piece. Huckabee may be hot, may be leading, may be unconventional but he is also not a serious thinker and is clearly not ready for national office of any kind. The rise of Huckabee and the weakness of the GOP field is another chapter in the most important story in American politics today - the end of the conservative ascendancy, the political and ideological collapse of the American center-right and the transformation of the party of Lincoln and Reagan into the party of Tancredo, Dobbs and Huckabee.

- With Hillary's endorsement by the Des Moines Register, the Democratic race got much more interesting. Until this moment it was hard to see how the Clinton campaign was going to stop its slide. Whether this is enough to turn things around we will see, but there should be little doubt that this endorsement is a big deal. The Clinton field operation will ensure that every IA caucus goer gets a copy, and in a race oh so close it could be the difference maker, particularly as it changes the internal dynamic in the Clinton world that seemed to have become less than positive. It is interesting that where Obama was perceived to be strong - IA - Clinton won the big newspaper endorsement. And where she was seen to be strong - NH - Obama won the endorsement of the influential Boston Globe.

- Is McCain in this thing? Conventional wisdom is that Huckabee's take down of Romney was giving Rudy a shot. But will it perhaps propel McCain? McCain has been slowly creeping back into contention these last few weeks, running 3rd or 4th in the national polls and often in 2nd place in NH. If he manages to finish 2nd in NH we could emerge with 4 viable GOPers heading into the next round of states. It is hard to say what the Lieberman endorsement today means. Joe didn't do particularly well in NH in 2004, but it does seem to show that there is some life and creativity left in that old McCain yet.

Update: Adam Nagourney of the Times has an interesting piece that examines whether the GOP primary fight may go past February 5th. In general I am not a big believer in the brokered convention idea, feeling that in this age of oversaturated media and lots of money folks just end up winning early. But in this case, given how weak the GOP field is and what Huckabee's likely win in Iowa means, it is possible that no GOPer is strong enough to win the whole thing early on.