Another way to look at these CNN numbers in South Carolina, reported on Drudge: Ron Paul is six percent away from second place.

Huckabee 24% Thompson 17% Giuliani 16% Romney 16% McCain 13% Paul 11%

This is good news for Huckabee, obviously. A co-blogger at another site thinks that Huckabee is peaking too early, that he’s now a target for the other candidates, and that a lot of the not-so-great parts of his record are going to get a lot of attention between now and early January. After that scrutiny, he’ll fall back to earth.

Maybe. But I think there’s a lot of truth in this analysis by Patrick Ruffini:

GOP primary voters feel passionately about two things: values and the war. Huckabee has cornered the market on the first. His success is not about ideology, but identity. For his voters, he’s a Christian first, and a conservative second. Attacking him on conventional conservative issues won’t undermine his core support because it has nothing to do with being a conservative.

I think that the folks shifting to Huckabee are establishing a gut-level connection, “he’s my guy. He gets my values.” And I don’t know whether Wayne Dumond, or the number of pardons, or in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, or the Cuba embargo or even increasing tax burdens — or any of the stuff in Fred’s “apology” — will break that gut-level connection.