A Commanding Lead for Huckabee in Iowa

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has opened up a huge lead over Mitt Romney in Iowa, according to the latest Newsweek poll.

Newsweek found that 39% of Republicans in Iowa favor Huckabee, while 17% favor Romney. Fred Thompson's support level stands at 10%. The rest of the Republican presidential hopefuls drew less than 10% support apiece in the poll, which was released today.

The timing of the poll is interesting, primarily because a large number of Iowa's Republican caucus participants are social conservatives -- the very same group Romney has been trying to appeal to. It's clearly the group he was appealing to in yesterday's speech. (David Kusnet of the New Republic found the speech to be "divinely uninspired.")

Yet Huckabee, who hasn't spent nearly as much money on his Iowa campaign as Romney has, appears to be running away with the apparent victory there. The caucus is to be held January 3, which is less than four weeks away. CNN's John King says he has been told by a senior Romney adviser that Huckabee's lead is "not a surprise" and there is "not a lot of time to turn them around."

The comment about Huckabee's lead not being a surprise reminded me of Election Night 1980 in Arkansas. I was a young University of Arkansas journalism student who was working at the county courthouse as part of a class assignment to help with the county vote tabulation.

History buffs will recall that was the election that put Ronald Reagan in the White House. It was also the night that Gov. Bill Clinton lost his only statewide campaign in Arkansas. He lost a close vote to Frank White, a defeat Clinton would avenge two years later.

I recall many of us gathered around a TV late that night to watch Clinton concede the election. He told his listeners that White's victory was "not a surprise" to his campaign staff, who had been monitoring tracking polls -- but the vote clearly shocked most of us in the courthouse that night.

It will be worth watching Iowa to see what kind of efforts the Romney campaign will make to lure Huckabee supporters to its side in the next four weeks.

Or will Romney's staff be in the role of Clinton's staff in 1980, insisting that the defeat -- much like the deficit in the latest poll -- was not unanticipated?