Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Huckmentum

Wearing his “Irresponsible Speculator hat, not [his] Professional Political Scientist one,” respected professional academic political scientist Henry Farrell makes a case that Mike Huckabee can win the GOP nomination. The mind shudders.

Henry makes a point I’d like to see Hugh hewitt respond to; namely, that:

Part 2 of the case against is that Huckabee doesn’t have any sort of real organization. His decisive win in Iowa demonstrates that he doesn’t need one, at least in states that have a strong evangelical movement. He can rely on the pastors getting out the vote for him. This is one that I’m pretty convinced of – he’s demonstrated that much of the conventional wisdom on the need for organization was wrong. Think of this as the evangelical’s revenge on mainstream Republicans. Much of Karl Rove’s success in 2004 depended on using below-the-radar forms of organization in churches etc to get the vote out. This has created an infrastructure that Huckabee seems to be taking over in the absence of any other real evangelical candidate.

That strikes me as one of the most sensible comments I’ve read lately.