I still like the Huckabee Christmas ad. We know we’re going to get some scathing negative ads in these final days, so I like any ad that looks like a Perry Como Christmas special.

But reactions like that of Michael Graham — “I knew he was going to use the phrase ‘the birth of Christ’–a phrase that would be a sign of political courage from most candidates, but rings of opportunism coming from Rev. Huck” – suggest that Huckabee’s series of controversial religous comments have eviscerated the benefit of the doubt a lot of sympathetic folks might have once given him.

The “War on Christmas” always seems to be said with an incredulous snort by our friends on the left, and perhaps the phrase is hyperbolic, and Bill O’Reilly’s table-pounding makes it look like this discussion is dominated by faux outrage. But when Hannukah and Christmas are fairly far apart like this year, a national emphasis of “happy holidays” feels like an underhanded effort to avoid acknowledging that it is a Christian holiday. Apparently we’re supposed to use the generic phrase to avoid offending someone who doesn’t celebrate Christmas, but I’ve gotta say, if someone wishing you a happy holiday that you don’t celebrate is the worst thing that happens to you in a day, you’ve had a pretty good day.

So I’d normally appreciate a candidate who said, “Merry Christmas.” (It would also be nice for them to have uttered a “Happy Hannukah” back on December 4.) But it’s worth noting that too much talk about Jesus in a political context can make folks look skeptically even on utterly innocuous uses of His name.