A couple months ago I was talking to one a major political reporter who said their predicted Republican candidate – as crazy as it may sound – was still Mike Huckabee. This is a person with a very good track record.
What is clear coming out of the Ames straw poll is that Huckabee is rising.
I’m becoming less and less surprised. Huckabee may be the one Republican candidate who has the ability to create a new coalition of Christian backers holding traditional Christian conservatives who care most about abortion and gay marriage while bringing in the new breed of evangelical who is increasingly concerned about social justice issues.
Christians increasingly see him as a “real” Christian – not just one made to sound like one for the political season. And Christians are all about hopping on board stories that seem unlikely or hopeless because they understand that appearances can be deceiving. After all, the Friday execution of Jesus turned out to be “Good”.