by WonkoKevin

The first working week of December, and a strong snowstorm has made its way across the country.  Iowa is a month away, and today is the start of the countdown that we have all talked about since last March.  What will it look like in December?  Well, as the Wonkosphere goes, so go the poll numbers, and things are looking bright today for the candidate darlings, Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama, the most “likeable” candidates.  They surged into first place in conservative and liberal buzz share yesterday, representing Huckabee’s first first-place finish in a 24-hour period and Obama’s first in months.  Behind Huckabee (30%) were McCain (22%, his highest in a month), Romney (18%), Giuliani (17%), and Paul (15%).  Fred Thompson is now down in the Tom Tancredo region at 2%.  Obama’s 45% buzz share amongst liberal bloggers is a bit of a shocker too, beating Clinton by a lot (33%).  Edwards remained steady at around 12%, demonstrating Obama and Clinton are swapping blogger attention.

I am waiting for a migration of sentiment away from Fred Thompson, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, and Chris Dodd.  On the Rep side, Wonko data seems to indicate that Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee benefit most when attention to Thompson wanes.  On the Dem side, I really don’t have a good sense of who this benefits.  I keep waiting for Edward’s Iowa support to swing to Obama, but it isn’t happening.

Andrew Sullivan has typical wise-words about the Huckabee/Obama drama:

The key is that the old red-blue, right-left boomer paradigm is fading; Obama offers exhausted Republicans a way out: a Democrat they can vote for. Many do not actually like the party they have become, and want to move forward into a less nasty, cramped and vicious direction. That’s why Huckabee is rising too.

What do they have in common? Huckabee is a conservative whose character appeals to liberals; Obama is a liberal whose temperament appeals to conservatives. Both represent a deep desire to get past the hideous, nasty polarization of the last few years. Obama doesn’t despise conservatives the way Clinton does. Huckabee doesn’t repell Democrats the way Giuliani and Romney do.

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 8:45 am and is filed under Horse race, Huckabee, Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.