LOOK AT THAT BLACK LINE!

Huckabee is for Real (excerpt)
by John McIntyre
(bold and italics McIntyre's)

"...[A]t roughly 10-1 to win the Republican nomination (he is trading in 3rd place at 11.7 at Intrade) I like [Huckabee's] odds to be the GOP nominee.

The GOP race is usually characterized as either a two-person contest (Giuliani vs. Romney) or a wide open field among the five viable candidates (Giuliani, Romney, Thompson, Huckabee and McCain). However, what we are fast approaching is a three-man race between Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani.

In general this is very bad news for Mitt Romney. A strongly viable Huckabee will steal voters Romney has to have to be able to beat Giuliani as the primary calendar moves into the post-New Hampshire contests...

What we have developing is Huckabee stepping in and filling the void in the GOP field that was available to Thompson in the summer - a void that his inept campaign has been unable to fill. So perhaps instead of the Tennessean sinking the Romney campaign it could very well be the Arkansan.

For the Romney campaign the silver lining in Huckabee's move into the first tier -- and it is not an unimportant silver lining -- is that Huckabee has totally shaken up the expectations for Iowa on the GOP side. Because of this resetting of expectations in December, if Romney is able to hold off Huckabee in Iowa it will be a huge win for his campaign...

However, what has to make the Romney campaign very nervous is this chart in Iowa.

Intrade now has Huckabee at 55.1 and Romney at 38.0. Those markets are correctly pricing the race. Romney is now the underdog in Iowa.

An important signal to watch for over the next month will be whether Huckabee overtakes Romney in the national polls leading up to Iowa. If that were to happen concurrently with Huckabee continuing to head toward a win in Iowa that would be an important tell that Republican voters are moving toward ultimately a Huckabee vs. Giuliani showdown.

Giuliani remains the favorite, but at 10-1 odds that would be a showdown that Mike Huckabee might just be able to win.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20071129/cm_rcp/huckabee_is_for_real