FDL Water Cooler: Huckabee Season! Palin Season! Baseball Season!

More backstage banter between the FDL crew, this time about who might be the likely GOP nominee in2012:

Julia: Huckabee leads Palin (slightly) for '12 - because of Republican women. [Romney and Newt aren't very far behind them.

Teddy: A very entertaining field indeed. I'll take Wingnut Pandering for $300, Alex.

Phoenix Woman:

1) Huckabee is dangerous, especially if he hammers out an alliance with Romney, which would balance out the ticket nicely. Now that he's lined up the TheoCons, the big question is whether the other conservatives can forgive him his occasional apostasy on taxes.

2) Speaking of Mittens: I don't think he can be top of the ticket, but he'd be the perfect guy to reassure nervous general-election voters who might be leery of Huckabee. Whether or not he'd make it past the Republican primary voters is another matter.

3) Palin's appeal with Republican men is about her being a GILF. Her non-appeal with Republican women is about her being a GILF. However, both factors will decrease as she approaches fifty, unless she finds the world's best plastic surgeon. In any event, since the evangelicals chose Huckabee over her, she's done -- she needs a top-flight, well-organized machine to push her along, and the TheoCons were her best (if not only) shot at acquiring such. I seriously doubt she'll even be able to make it onto a ticket as a running mate, much less as the top of the ticket.

4) Hey, isn't it about time for Newt to trade Calista in for a newer model? Heavens, she may already have laugh lines by now! (Seriously, I expect Newt will try to make a go of it, and for a short while look like an actual threat. But then he'll do something so blatantly selfish, high-handed and ill-timed -- like, say, divorcing Calista -- that it reminds America of why he was sent packing in 1998.)

Ian Welsh: Huck will wrap his tax apostacy in the flag of looking after the least amongst us and they'll put up with it, especially if times are still really bad.

I rarely agree with Red State on much, but I agreed with the Republican party will be a populist party in 2012, or it will be nothing.

Huckabee's a fake populist in many respects, but he's got the moves.

Julia: I'm not all that sanguine about Palin's chances - I think she's the Giuliani of the next race, and look how that turned out - but I don't think the fact that actual evangelicals picked Huckabee necessarily means that Palin isn't going to be the choice of their kingmakers. He didn't get a lot of support from them in the last primaries. Hell, Pat Robertson went with a guy who introduced government benefits for domestic partners over covenant marriage boy.Unless he can figure out how to tap the grassroots hard from outside the establishment - and I'm guessing they're not very well-represented online - I don't think he's going to be able to find the money.

Emptywheel: I think you're generally right, Julia, but I think it also depends on how the RNC Chair fight works out. One of his guys is up for it, and frankly I think that fight might have a totally unforeseen outcome.

I also think one big question is who inspires the Paulistas. No one in the running right now will do that. So can someone come in and do like Obama did the Deaniacs: provide a credible candidate for them to support?

Watertiger: All i really care about is bringing back Janet Roberta Muldoon Huckabee. She was my favorite potential first spouse.

Eureka Springs: Mike Huckabee's latest homily rockets to No. 4 on the New York Times hardback bestseller list.