Here’s the Thompson attack, which is a quibble about Huckabee’s language, not about the substance of what he says. I would have expected better from Thompson. You can watch the clip for yourself. Not the most felicitous use of words, but his meaning is clear enough: the Constitution can be amended--it is, after all, an expression of the constitutional will of the people--while the Bible cannot.

Terry adopts a critical tone about Huck’s seemingly unscripted remarks about the Constitution, although he doesn’t point out anything Huck said that’s actually wrong.

Huck is quite critical of the academic "living Constitution" view that the Constitution can and should change or evolve through judicial interpretation. The Constitution has a mechanism for change--the amendment process. And it’s through amendment that the Constitution has changed--often to fulfuill better the intentions of the Declaration of Independence.

I haven’t heard any of the other candidates speak so clearly about the Constitution. Doesn’t Huck describe the living Constitution properly understood? Isn’t his a properly democratic and constitutional answer to the pretensions of judicial activism? (I hope you’re ok with this answer, Paul.)

E.J. Dionne, Jr. notes that the recent squabble between the Clinton and Obama camps leaves white working class voters on the sidelines. I’d refine that a little. While identity politics is, to some degree, a middle class luxury, Obama obviously can reach out to African-Americans and Clinton to working women. (Unmarried women have historically accounted for a large portion of the so-called gender gap.) But the dispute leaves white working class men on the sidelines.

This is an opening for Republicans, if only they can figure out how to take it.

The very latest studies confirm what Rob Jeffrey says. Huck’s bleeding has stopped, and it appears that he and McCain are in a dead heat. Meanwhile, Romney’s mini-surge seems to have topped out, as has Fred’s. So a vote for Huck is a vote to let the process continue. A decisive McCain victory would make him very hard to stop. Apparently McCain wins if lots of old people turn out. Huck wins if lots of the young turn out. If Guiliani and Romney supporters don’t actually vote for Huck in SC, they’ll have trouble denying that they hope he’ll win. (Given the right odds, I would still put money on Mitt to surprise, but his "people" don’t actually expect him to prevail. And even Fred is talking more about doing well than winning, altlhough nothing’s more obvious than he needs to win.)

And I don’t think the Confederate flag is like the Nazi flag or anything like that. But its official display did become a symbol of racial divisiveness and injustice that it’s best to get past. (As Ryan Rakness says in the thread below, sometimes the politically correct position is actually just correct.) Elections shouldn’t turn on the Confederate flag, as they have even in Georgia. The present governor of Geogia, in a most statesmanlike way, betrayed the flag defenders who elected him, still managed to get reelected by a landslide. and just about put an end to the controversy.

To be as fair-and-blanced as I can be, I wouldn’t choose between McCain and Huck based on their flag statements. John’s self-righteous self-criticism of his 2000 position on the issue offends me as much as Huck’s attempt to use that position to gain votes now. It also could be that I will end up concluding that I overreacted to Huck’s where to stick the pole remark.

Rod Dreher calls our attention to this very winsome Beliefnet interview, in which MH explains his God’s law remarks in terms that any proponent of natural law could accept. Here’s a snippet:

Well, I probably said it awkwardly, but the point I was trying to make– and I’ve said it better in the past – is that people sometimes say we shouldn’t have a human life amendment or a marriage amendment because the Constitution is far too sacred to change, and my point is, the Constitution was created as a document that could be changed. That’s the genius of it. The Bible, however, was not created to be amended and altered with each passing culture. If we have a definition of marriage, that we don’t change that definition, that we affirm that definition. And that the sanctity of human life is not just a religious issue. It’s an issue that goes to the very heart of our civilization of all people being equal, endowed by their creator with alienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

***

I think that whether someone is a Christian or not, the idea that a human life has dignity and intrinsic worth should be clear enough. I don’t think a person has to be a person of faith to say that once you redefine a human life and say there is a life not worth living, and that we have a right to terminate a human life because of its inconvenience to others in the society. That’s the real issue. That’s the heart of it. It’s not just about being against abortion. It’s really about, Is there is a point at which a human life, because it’s become a burden or inconvenience to others, is an expendable life. And once we’ve made a decision that there is such a time – whether it’s the termination of an unborn child in the womb or whether it’s the termination of an 80-year-old comatose patient -- we’ve already crossed that line. And then the question is, How far and how quickly do we move past that line?

And lest you think he’s playing the Confederate card, consider this:

And you also have states that not only practice abortion, but if Roe v. Wade is overturned, we haven’t won the battle. All we’ve done is now we’ve created the logic of the Civil War, which says that the right to the human life is geographical, not moral. I think that’s very problematic. That’s why I think that people like Fred Thompson are dead wrong when he says just leave that up to the states. Well, that’s again the logic of the Civil War – that slavery could be okay in Georgia but not okay in Massachusetts. Obviously we’d today say, “Well, that’s nonsense. Slavery is wrong, period.” It can’t be right somewhere and wrong somewhere else. Same with abortion.

Finally, on the matter of his "compassionate conservatism," he offers this measured response, with which even Fred Thompson couldn’t disagree:

I’ve said that, that I’ve felt like as Christians and particularly even as Republicans, we needed to address issues that touched the broader perspective, and that included disease, hunger, poverty, homelessness, the environment. And it’s not a matter that we’re going to become left-wingers. I don’t think that at all. I think taking care of the earth is a matter of stewardship. It’s not about global warming, it’s about stewardship and responsibility. Things like hunger and homelessness. And it’s not about having a government program, it’s about simply reminding each of us as individual citizens that this is an area of our own responsibility. At my own church… our church is very, very engaged in everything from dealing with hunger, poverty, and we reach out to a lot of people. We don’t ask the government to do it. We do it ourselves as a church. It’s part of our ministry. The only reason the government would get involved would be that the other social institutions – primarily the family the church the neighborhood – failed. If the family or church does its own work and does it well, then there’s no reason for government to ever get into these things at all. The ideal is that they wouldn’t, that they’ll do a lousy job of it generally.

Our old friend Rob Jeffrey offers us a lesson in South Carolina politics. Rob knows the state and the personalities quite well, thus providing an excellent context for those who would try to make sense of what’s going on in the Palmetto State.

His prediction? If Huckabee wins big in the upcountry, he’ll win the state; otherwise, we may end up with a fractured result. South Carolina may end up "predicting" the outcome by paving the way to a brokered convention.

I have to say that I’m a little less unimpressed by McCain’s prospects; see, for example, this poll. But Rob has much more local knowledge, and I know enough to know that Lindsay Graham’s support doesn’t help McCain all that much.

Someone emailed me to the effect that Rich, the leading light of the Cornerites, has urged Huck to go hyper-negative against McCain and, by implication, come close to urging the decent (Romney) people of South Carolina to vote for the new man from Hope as the only way of curbing John’s momentum. It goes without saying that life is to short for me to actually look for the link.

So here might be the strategic situation for many a social conservative: Even though my heart might be with Huckabee, should I go ahead and vote for Romney because he might actually get nominated? OR even though my head is with Mitt, should I go ahead and vote for Huckabee to stop McCain?

The WaPo’s Chris Cillizza thinks that the ground in a slightly more yankified South Carolina favors McCain this time, especially as Huckabee doesn’t have the socially conservative evangelicals to himself.

Quin Hillyer thinks that genuine conservatives ought to vote for Thompson on philosophical grounds, Giuliani supporters ought to support him to promote nomentum going into Florida, socons because Huckabee hasn’t shown the capacity to build a coalition around them, and South Carolina patriots to put a finger in the eyes of voters in the three states that voted earlier and to make the winner all the more indebted to them. We’ll see whether they all take his advice.

The latest Rasmussen poll suggests that Thompson has a long way to go, and that, if he gains, it will likely be at the expense of Romney, not at that of McCain and Huckabee (who are tied, with the latter having caught up with the former, thanks, probably, to Romney’s victory in Michigan). What hurts Huckabee is that social issues just don’t loom that large in the S.C. Republican electorate. What hurts McCain is that immigration does. If I were Huckabee, I’d stress my economic message. If I were McCain, I’d focus on national security. If I were Thompson, I’d throw everything I had at Romney, hoping to bleed enough voters from him to catch up to McCain and Huckabee. And if I were were Romney, I’d want anyone but McCain to win the race, because I’d be confident that no one can match my campaign spending from here on out.

1. My personal survey of the most recent studies showed that McCain’s loss in Michigan has not eaten into his momentum much. Those who won’t abandon all hope in Rudy should note McCain’s leads in California and Pennsylvania.

2. John has extended his lead in SC and Mitt is now a strong third. If Romney were to move into second, those two might well be the only ones who really battle it out on Feb. 5 and even in FL. Even a strong third in SC and a win in NV would be pretty momentum-y for Mitt.

3. It might be the case that more and more Huckabee fans are joining our friend Clint in thinking that it might be more "strategic" to cast a vote for a candidate who might actually be nominated. And they will divide between Romney and John in a way I can’t predict. So that we can really learn from Huck’s true strength, I’m hoping that Clint and the others stay the course.

4. If the studies are to be believed, Fred is dead. (That’s what they said.)

This article explains that the abortion rate in the U.S. has declined to its lowest level in 30 years. It is based on a study completed at the Guttmacher Institute--a non-profit organization that describes itself in the following way:

The Guttmacher Institute advances sexual and reproductive health through an interrelated program of social science research, policy analysis and public education designed to generate new ideas, encourage enlightened public debate, promote sound policy and program development and, ultimately, inform individual decision making.

"We don’t regard [the findings] as good or bad," Jones said. "It’s a descriptive study."