WIth an estimated 40% of Republican caucus goers uncommitted at this point, any mistake by a campaign is potentially fatal, and Huckabee blew a hole in his head with the laughable tactic of having a negative Romney ad ready to go and calling a press conference to say that he wasn't releasing it...and then showing it to the media.

Today, the campaign is working furiously on damage control, claiming that Huckabee's sentiment that they shouldn't run negative ads is genuine and not contrived.

Good luck with that.

Politico is reporting that the cost to pull the ad was actually considerably more than the $30,000.00 Huckabee claimed during the press conferences--$150.000.00 of scarce campaign cash. This is supposed to impress us with how principled Huckabee is, but the reality is that it demonstrates how completely unprepared this man is to go up against the likes of Hillary Clinton.

It actually brings up the issue of whether Huckabee has the stones to compete against street-fighters like the Clintons. If principles are what you stand for, the you're willing to lose the election to maintain those principles. I personally don't want a candidate who won't go to the wall to win.

I actually don't believe it is a matter of principle but rather a simple calculation of whether a negative ad would damage Huckabee's "affable" image more than it would spike Romney.

More importantly, how can he claim to be the Christian candidate by acting "unChristian"?

This simply highlights the larger problem--Huckabee isn't a candidate that appeals to the broad coalition of conservatives. Even among social conservatives, Huckabee narrowly appeals to Evangelicals and not even to all of them. The peculiar demographics of Iowa are working for him, but its hard to see how he translates that into a national candidacy.

UPDATE: Chuck Norris wants to choke Mitt Romney. Mitt should just crush him with his wallet.