Is a Vote for Huckabee a Vote for Guiliani?

I have seen increasing signs that Mike Huckabee is creeping towards an alliance with Rudy Guiliani. It would make perfect sense. The only guy who really has the money and reach to challenge Guiliani nation-wide is Romney. Romney has stacked most of his chips on an "early-states" strategy. Guiliani has stacked his chips on a "big states, nation wide campaign" strategy. But to do that, Guiliani has sacrificed the early states. His biggest threat is that Romney would ride the momentum of several early wins into national contention and make the race mano-e-mano between the two.

What Guiliani wants at this stage of the game is for the first five states to have several winners, which would deny overwhelming momentum to any single rival. Then on Mega-Tuesday he can assert his dominance over a field of relative midgets.

Huckabee can be of great help to Guiliani. Whereas Romney has an "early-states" strategy, Huckabee has only an "early-state" (singular) strategy. For Huckabee it is all about winning Iowa. He has no significant organization in any other state (except here perhaps), nor funding to build one. The odds of parlaying an Iowa victory into an outright nomination under these conditions are remote. He can hope the field stays fragmented and he gets enough delegates to win at a brokered convention. More likely is a shot at VP, on a Guiliani ticket.

It has been often commented that adding Huckabee to a Guiliani ticket would (in the minds of insiders) mollify the Christian right into supporting Guiliani. They complement one another by appealing to different parts of the GOP coalition. While Guiliani and Romney trade body blows, Huckabee goes out of his way to avoid being critical of Guiliani, and campaigns right where it hurts Romney the most- Iowa.

Huckabee would not even say a critical word about the brewing scandal of Guiliani using taxpayer money on his mistress- money that was hidden by someone in obscure NY city accounts. Instead, Huckabee seemed to take up for Rudy, saying that the executive can't track every detail and it could happen to anyone. Huckabee has also been known for being light on policy and heavy on guffaws- perfect for a VP candidate.

We should watch in coming days to see if the two are willing to go after each other on policy like they go after other candidates. I fear a dark coalition is in the works. An effort to rope the Christian Right into supporting Huckabee, and then once Huckabee has them he leads them right into the arms of Guiliani. Huckabee may be what the secular GOP is counting on to get the Christian Right to do the one thing that many promised they would never do- support a GOP Presidential ticket with Rudy at the head.