I found the comments of Huckabee's supporters in this latest piece from MSN.com sadly off-base. They focus not on the Huckabee's political accomplishments or vision, but his personality and religion:

"I think I'm leaning toward Governor Huckabee," says Lori Brown, who works at an accounting firm in Sheldon. "I guess I'm not sure who else I really like. But he seems to be just a real guy. I'm a Christian, too, so I see eye-to-eye with him. At this point."

On Huckabee's final swing through Iowa before Christmas, many found him funny and charming, especially when he borrowed a bass guitar to play "Takin' Care of Business" in the Sioux City High School auditorium.

"I thought he did a good job of emotionally connecting," said Michael Andres, a college theology professor in Orange City. Andres is "warming to Huckabee," although he has also been interested in Arizona Sen. John McCain among the Republicans and in Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

"I didn't know if there was a whole lot of substance," Andres said of Huckabee. "He didn't explain what he was going to do. I felt like he spent a lot of time separating himself from Romney."...

"I like him because he's a Christian, and he's in the right community for that," said Krosschell, who is retired from the Greyhound Corporation. "I was kind of up in the air when he was like an asterisk, like he said. I really didn't know who to vote for. I was part of the Christian Coalition thing. I was waiting for the right thing to come along."

Here's what the one Romney supported quoted in the article said:

Of Romney, retiree Judie Cain of Council Bluffs, Iowa, says, "I like his take on immigration."

"I'm on Social Security now, and I don't like the idea that it's going to immigrants when I paid in it all my life, and they just swam across," says Cain. In fact, only legal immigrants are entitled to Social Security benefits, and illegal immigrants pay millions of dollars a year in Social Security taxes.

"Now, I know Huckabee is probably a good candidate, too, but I don't think he's as intelligent," she said.

Interesting that the Romney supported was concerned about policy and intelligence, while the Huckabee supporters were worried about religion and emotionally connecting.

As for Huckabee being the right candidate because he's a Christian, there isn't a candidate on the GOP side that is not a Christian, at least in professed beliefs.

Yes, Romney is a Christian, and good 'ole Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter feels so to (from this 1997 interview):

Jimmy Carter calls things as he sees them. And he just made a call that leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention won't like.

Arguably the highest profile member of the Southern Baptist faith, the nation's 39th president told reporters this week that SBC leaders are wrong in characterizing Mormons as non-Chris-tians.

"Too many leaders now, I think, in the Southern Baptist Convention and in other conventions, are trying to act as the Pharisees did, who were condemned by Christ, in trying to define who can and who cannot be considered an acceptable person in the eyes of God. In other words, they're making judgments on behalf of God. I think that's wrong.''

Carter said his personal philosophy includes a nonjudgmental, reconciling type of spirituality with which he acknowledged many people - including leaders of his Southern Baptist faith - disagree. When questioned by the Deseret News about the SBC's characterization of Mormons as non-Christians, Carter said his church's leadership has become "narrow in their definition of what is a proper Christian or certainly even a proper Baptist."


But according to Carter, Mormons aren't the only ones that Southern Baptist leaders find troubling.

"They're much more rigid in defining who is an acceptable fellow Christian. There is a movement in the Southern Baptist Convention, now at the leadership level, even to criticize, condemn and even withdraw from the Baptist World Alliance, which is an alliance of Baptists."

"So, I think that the worst thing that we can do, among the worst things we can do, as believers in Christ, is to spend our time condemning others, who profess faith in Christ and try to have a very narrow definition of who is and who is not an acceptable believer and a child of God."

"I think this is one of the main reasons that Christ not only said once, but repeated on other occasions, that we should not judge others, we should let God be the judge of the sincerity of a human mind or a human heart, and let us spend our time trying to alleviate suffering, opening our hearts to others, learning about the needs of others, being generous, being compassionate and so forth.''

He said taking the good news of Christ's gospel to all the world is "a mandate that has guided Baptists as well as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others all down through the centuries. I think that that's part of my own life commitment, is to tell others about Christ, and to offer them, at least, the word of God, and to let the Holy Spirit decide, or ordain the results of those intercessions. So, I think that that's a very worthwhile effort.''

Carter has reservations, however, about Christians trying to convert other Christians, as will undoubtedly happen in Utah next summer as Baptists seek to share their message and Mormons return the favor.

"The only thing I'm hesitant about is exactly what you mean by proselytizing. If you mean should we Protestants devote our time to converting Catholics to be Protestants, that's something with which I generally disagree. I think, though, that if people don't know about Christ, I have a mandate directly from our Savior to try to share the message that he espoused both through his own words and through his own actions.''

As for members of his own 30-family congregation, "the people in my own local church have no interest in trying to condemn Mormons or trying to convert Mormons to be good old Baptists like me.''