Was I actually hearing a little while ago reasonable people think Mike Huckabee really has a shot at winning the '08 GOP nomination?

Er, no, he doesn't:

In recent interviews, he has artfully tied his religious devotion to broader social concerns. For instance, on NPR last week, he said that reclaiming a nation for Christ was not a matter of proselytizing.

"It means that we would reflect what he reflected, and that is compassion and love," Mr. Huckabee said.

Yet he was also critical of some opponents of abortion rights, suggesting that they focus too much on embryos. "I want to be concerned about making sure every child has music and art education," he said. "There are a lot of things that, to me, are a part of my being pro-life."

Compassion and love? Not proselytizing? Music and art education? Sorry -- no red-meat GOP rightist wants to hear about any of that stuff. They want anger; they want hate; they want to hear denunciations of the awfulness of their enemies (jihadists, liberals).

The first link above is from The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne -- has he really been covering politics all these years and not figured out that right-wing voters crave hate?

Huckabee might be the obvious choice to be Giuliani's running mate -- nice to Rudy's nasty, Protestant and socially conservative and Southern where Rudy is none of these things. But even if Giuliani and McCain split the non-evangelical vote and there's no clear front-runner for a while, Huckabee will never, ever make his way to the front of the pack, or anywhere close to it.