Ivory Dome

Following the surprisingly strong win of Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucuses, pundits have begun to speculate whether this victory is a one-time shot, or perhaps something more.

On the one-shot wonder side, Ronald Kessler at newsmax.com opined that the Huck-a-boom “may be a fluke attributable largely to the fact that 60 percent of Republicans who voted in the caucuses described themselves as evangelical Christians.”

To be sure, the former Arkansas governor has tapped into a cohort of the electorate that has been largely underestimated by political pundits and taken for granted by the Republican Party.  Back in February, Jim Wallis at Time Magazine proclaimed that  The Religious Right’s Era Is Over. If the “Religious Right” is a top-down political movement within the Republican Party, which Wallis seems to imply, perhaps he is right. Traditional leaders of this movement (such as Pat Robertson), in an apparent effort to retain their seat at the political table, have compromised their core values by endorsing social liberals like Rudy Giuliani.

But the Evangelical Christians who came out for Huckabee in Iowa were not part of an organized movement. This was largely a bottom-up phenomenon, generated by word of mouth, guest sermons by Huckabee at local churches, and the Internet. Far from a fluke, Huckabee is replicating this winning strategy in other states, such as South Carolina, Florida, Texas and even Michigan.  In New Hampshire, a much more secular state than Iowa, Huckabee could exceed expectations by taking third place away from Giuliani.  Beyond New Hampshire, he has a much better chance of success.

But is Huckabee only the candidate of the “Religious Right”?  Not so, says Michael Medved, who points out that Huckabee beat Romney in Iowa among voters aged 17 to 29 (40% to 22%), 30 to 44 (39% to 23%) and over 65 (30% to 28%). He even beat Romney among female voters by a whopping 40% to 24%. If Huckabee can pull those kind of numbers among younger voters, as well as female voters, he’ll be a much more competitive going head-to-head against Obama, should he get the Democrat nomination. Huckabee also brings in voters on non-social issues, such as Second Amendment rights and the Fair Tax.

The Republican Convention this summer is still a long ways off, and there are likely to be a number of surprises along the way. But I don’t anticipate Mike Huckabee being eliminated from the race any time soon.