Will on Huck

George Will is down on Mike Huckabee. In his latest column, he criticizes Huckabee and Gingrich for their recent statements, zeroing in on Huckabee's mistaken assertion that President Obama grew up in Kenya. He goes on to state that there are five serious candidates for the GOP nomination: Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour, Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney, and Tim Pawlenty. I like Will, but who is he to declare who is a plausible candidate? One small gaffe that will be forgotten in a week does not disqualify Huckabee. I'm not a Huckabee supporter but you have to be impressed by his showing in 2008 when he was the only minor candidate to vault himself into the top tier and ended up with the second highest delegate total. He's on TV constantly and he has a very polished image. If he decides to run, he will be a formidable candidate. He certainly starts from a stronger position than someone like Huntsman whom no one had ever heard of until he recently resigned as ambassador to China. I like Daniels and Pawlenty but they don't have high name recognition with the general public either. Barbour is likely to have a lot of trouble due to some of his recent civil rights statements. Romney has to explain how his health care bill was different than Obama's. Everyone has problems. I think Huckabee's are smaller than the others.