I'll echo Sam Boyd on one point: Ron Paul more viable than Mike Huckabee? Unless the internets get a vote, I think not. Huckabee has a serious shot at winning Iowa. He's also proving powerfully appealing to one of the GOP's most important constituencies -- the Christian Right -- and one of the longshot candidates' most important allies -- the media. If the Huck's current upward trend continues and he squeaks out a win in Iowa, then the Christian Right's fears as to his electability would be allayed, and they'd come out in full force to support him. Add in the media hype, his folksy, telegenic charisma, and I think he'd likely win the thing. One interesting element to Huckabee is that the GOP's corporate class hates him. The Club for Growth has a website devoted to killing his campaign. The fiscal conservatives would absolutely flip. Were he to take the nomination, it might actually shatter their coalition with the social conservatives. In theory, that would be good. In practice, I remain worried about any candidate too reliant on the Christian Right -- I find them to be one of the world's more worrying interest groups. If he seemed to be making a serious effort to refocus that movement on social and economic justice, that would be interesting. But so far, his actual policies are just more of the regressive same, like the absurd FairTax idea (of which Huckabee says, in what sounds like a self-parody, "When the FairTax becomes law, it will be like waving a magic wand releasing us from pain and unfairness.") That said, Chuck Norris has endorsed him, and I take Norris very, very, seriously. Ron Paul, on the other hand, has no shot. No natural constituency capable of carrying him through the Republican primaries. No unexpected polling strength in an early primary state. And wait till his views on such weighty matters as abolishing the federal Medicare entitlement come into play. If he even inched towards a threat, he'd get crushed by the other candidates. As President, he probably wouldn't do much damage as he'd be unable, both ideologically and operationally, to do anything at all, but speaking of Paul as president is like speaking of my parakeet as emperor. And though Mr. Tweets would be a fine emperor, it's not a terribly useful thought experiment. --Ezra Klein