Over on the homepage, you can find my longer report on Mike Huckabee’s roundtable with reporters in Washington yesterday. Short version: A very impressive guy, truly skilled campaigner, but his populist rhetoric is probably going to make economic conservatives tear their hair out. And he’s already made enemies out of the Club for Growth.

Having said that, I couldn’t help but think, er, write aloud:

Hearing Huckabee refer to the Club for Growth as “The Club for Greed” is enough to make most free marketers take an angry spit-take. But opinion polls have shown for quite some time considerable national anxiety about the economy, despite a booming stock market and steady growth in the GDP. Huckabee’s rhetoric may match the times, and with a Fortune magazine cover declaring “Business Loves Hillary!” and detailing how Wall Street has filled her coffers, one may wonder how many times a Republican presidential candidate must come running to the rhetorical aid of corporate executives.

UPDATE:

Philip Klein, who was also at the Huckabee meeting, says it’s premature to call Huck a top-tier candidate. Well, if high polls nationally are necessary to clear that bar, Mitt Romney’s not a top-tier candidate.

In just about every cycle, there’s somebody who comes out of seemingly nowhere to make a surprisingly strong showing. In 2004, despite his later problems, I’d give that title to Howard Dean, or perhaps John Edwards. In 2000, much less well-known John McCain started the race trailing Bush in Arizona, if I recall correctly, and emerged as Bush’s most serious challenger. In 1996, you had Buchanan winning New Hampshire. And in 1992, very few folks had heard of Bill Clinton.

Huckabee looks like he’s going to be the breakout candidate on the Republican side; it’s hard to see any of the other Ames participants breaking out of the pack. So when the debate stage starts getting smaller, when it gets down to five, you’re going to have Rudy, Mitt, Fred, McCain, and Huckabee.

Klein’s colleague Jen Rubin says there’s no way Huckabee wins the nomination. Eh. The other four all have, to one extent or another, flaws that make the religious conservatives hesitate. If that faction of the party unites behind Huckabee, he’s got a heck of a lot of resources heading into the final matchup.