Congratulations to this month’s winners of a No Left Turns mug! The winners are as follows:

Dale Michaud
James Kole
Richard Lachcik
Richard Samuelson
Scott Coulter

James Madison--er, Peter Lawler--offers reflections on religion and politics in America today, with special reference to the case of Mike Huckabee, whose "evangelical identity politics" is, Peter argues, not really factious. Indeed, his generous appeals are actually in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have a piece in today’s Christian Science Monitorabout the recent resolution by the New Jersey legislature apologizing for slavery.

On the one hand, such an apology is harmless. But on the other, it feeds off of the idea that the United States has been racist from the start, obscuring the fact that it is precisely America’s founding principle that made the abolition of slavery a moral necessity.

New Jersey’s action is ironic in view of the fact that in 1999, this same legislature rejected a proposal to require all school children to recite a portion of the Declaration of Independence every day.

Bill’s analysis is more fair-and-balanced and, I think, more astute the instant analyses of NRO. Fred does deserve the most-improved award, but, in the crucial exchange between him and Huck, the Governor held his own, defending his record in a clear and manly way without losing his cool. McCain’s surge eloquence may have helped him in Michigan. Huck’s religion answer may have helped him in South Carolina. I do think Romney was a bit better than Bill does, but I do agree that he probably didn’t distinguish himself enough.

And Dean Barnett and Fred Barnes actually say that Huck won the debate, and Dean’s case is nicely supported, although finally I don’t agree.

Peter hasn’t done it yet, so I will. Peter and I did a podcast today, with Yours Truly musing about why, contrary to the conventional wisdom, McCain would make a poor general election candidate against Hillary (or almost any Democrat) for that matter, and it’s not because he’s not a down-the-line conservative. (I discovered serendipitously later in the day that a well-known political reporter for a major paper who has been covering elections since 1968 thinks the same thing, but this was off the record, so no names. . .)

1. The Luntz focus group and NRO agree that Fred was most impressive. He was lively and combative. A prepared opening salvo against Huck--which merely collected the familiar charges--stirred the hearts of anti-Hucksters. And he had a good joke about virgins. I thought, though, he was most inauthentic when he was bragging about "his" record in the senate. He was loose, for the most part, and occasionally effectively sarcastic. He wants to be the anti-Huck man. It was a mistake for Mitt to go negative on Huck, but, of course, not for Fred. His subtext is that McCain is too soft on Huck. My own opinion is that, despite his wild swinging, Fred didn’t lay a glove on Huck.

2. My own opinion is that the most impressive thing was Romney’s genuinely expert answers on Iran and the broader picture in the region. He was also, I think, best or most articulate on immigration. But the audience only liked his prattle about change.

3. McCain was good on Iraq. But he may be overdoing his change agency when it comes to the surge. And he was weak on taxes and immigration. Overall, he left a favorable impression.

4. Huck also didn’t say much memorable, although I think only his enemies would say he was actually bad. He gave a stirring out-of-nowhere defense of Israel (against Ron Paul), and other candidates felt compelled to immediately echo him. He got a rude question about whether his affirmation of a Baptist view of wifely submission would keep him from being electable. His answer managed to alllow him both to complain about being oppressed as a believer and offer a memorable defense of marital devotion. Huck might complain that he never gets any questions about the "socal issues" or really any questions that would allow him to present his core message. He was good on Letterman and great on Colbert. (Fred might do well on Colbert too.) My genuine opinion is that the debate didn’t help or hurt Huck. (Well, it DID help him in this way: His supporters are convinced he was the unfair focus of attacks and were edified by his staying in character; the debate might have done a little to energize Huck’s base.) He needs to find some way to sneak the looser Huck back on the debate stage more often.

5. Giuliani was very competent on foreign policy but sort of one-dimensional in his conservatism otherwise. He tries to make the excellent point that there are both good and bad changes, but this may not be the year for that.

6. Ron Paul gave a fine answer on why we’ve lost our way on fiscal conservatism and the most plausible answer on the cause of the likely recession. He was certainly the most authentic candidate and was pretty much set up for ridicule on his less-than-plausible foreign policy answers. If I were a Paul supporter I’d be really angry now.

Last I checked, the South Carolina Knippenbergs couldn’t agree on a candidate. But the latest two polls reveal a McBounce in South Carolina.

I assume that tonight’s debate will be important, especially for Huckabee.

If I take this poll seriously, Huckabee has four challenges in S.C. The first is that he’s splitting the evangelical vote with McCain. His support is a little more solid, but to win, he needs, first of all, to consolidate his base. Second, he’s contesting with Thompson and Romney for the affections of those who regard "true conservatism" as the touchstone of their vote. I have a hard time seeing how he adds to his modest lead here. He might get a little traction by continuing to stress his socially conservative stances, but he has a harder time running as a "true conservative" on the rest of his record. Third, McCain seems to be the second choice of a significant percentage of the Romney supporters. Should Romney do poorly in Michigan (a real possibility, I think), he’ll likely hemorrhage in S.C., with McCain picking up more support than Huckabee. Were he able to run to McCain’s right on something other than social issues and (a little less plausibly) immigration, he might do better.

Finally, the two big statewide Republicans--Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint--are supporting McCain and Romney, respectively. My impression is that Graham’s support is a mixed blessing, or perhaps even a negative, so Huckabee shouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Demint’s popularity is more solid, but I don’t think even he will be able to resuscitate Romney’s fortunes if he does poorly in Michigan.

Bottom line: if McCain wins Michigan, he’ll be harder to beat in South Carolina. Huckabee can’t afford "silver medals" in MI and SC. I might be tempted, if I were him, to let McCain and Romney slug it out in Michigan, while doing what I can to turn South Carolina into a bastion. Romney gets less in South Carolina out of a Michigan victory than does McCain.

My bad prognostication and advice, for what little it’s worth.

Update: Will this help Huckabee?

Froma Harrop here makes a legitimate a point (made better, by the way, some months ago by Peggy Noonan) about the surging female support for Hillary Clinton. Piling on by the media--particularly when it appears to be coming from a latent anti-female sentiment--will push women (even many not inclined otherwise to support Clinton) to rush to her defense. Harrop claims that the attacks on Clinton after her crying spell--especially the ones that made unfavorable mention of Clinton’s physical attributes--caused her to question whether Obama’s poll numbers in the Granite State were really accurate. She doubted it because the level of mockery in these critiques of Clinton drove her, and many of her friends, to the point of angry distraction. Thus, she argues, "Seeing that it had become socially acceptable to mock mature women, they were determined to prove that it was not politically acceptable. Many of their daughters joined them."

That all sounds very good. And there might be just enough truth in it to explain at least part of what happened on Tuesday. There’s certainly a sense that it is true coming from people like Rush, who spoke roughly with a caller yesterday when he offered (an admittedly lame) insulting one-liner aimed at Hillary. But you do see a kind of backing away from the default (and sensible) position, that Hillary’s tears were ridiculous. (Never mind, calculated.)

There’s going to be a conference on politics and public policy today at Berry on March 26-27. Thanks to the Association for the Study of Free Institutions, we’re able to have two particularly distinguished and engaging headliners.

Our headliner on the 26th will be our favorite Democrat, "Dr. Pat" DENEEN from Georgetown--both a famous author and notorious blogster.

Our headliner on the 27th will be the most expert and astute of our Republicans, Yuval Levin of the EEPC and formerly of the White House Staff and President’s Council of Bioethics. Yuval, of course, has written the best stuff on everything from stem cells to health care and even blogs a bit on both Contentions and the Corner.

We’re looking for other experts--faculty, journalists, students, and what-not--to be commentators and presenters in their own right on any issue related to the conference theme.

The details are in the early stage of development, and so now’s the time to sign up.

We’re short on money, but we’ll be able to feed you and probably even house you while you’re here.

Rod Dreher thinks that Huckabee has a shot in Michigan, in large part because "Michigan is a state that’s been harder hit than most by the economic downturn. It’s tailor-made for Huckabee and his economic nationalism in that respect." He suggests that Huckabee make a pilgrimage to the Kirk Center while he’s at it.

He also cites this piece, which mentions Michigan as part of a wider and longer "divide and conquer" Huckabee prospect: the longer the race remains three-way, the better Huckabee’s ultimate prospects are.

What gets mentioned but lost in the shuffle here is that west Michigan is chock-full of socially conservative evangelicals, and the Huckabee people know it.

They cite this survey to buttress their hopes.