Rich Lowry of the National Review believes the GOP would be committing political suicide if it nominates Mike Huckabee for President.

Huckabee hires former Reagan advisor Ed Rollins to help manage his campaign.

On the Democratic side, Clinton campaign advisor Bill Shaheen, husband of former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen, resigns his position after bringing up Obama's youthful drug use as an issue and getting slammed for it. Was it just a blunder by Shaheen, or part of the normal operations of the Clintonistas, as Bill Kristol says. Either way, I think it is more of a negative than a positive for the Clinton campaign.

The trends continue to look good for Obama and Huckabee, and bad for Clinton, Romney and Giuliani. How might things play out? On the Democratic side, I can see Obama taking the nomination, even though he lacks the ideal resume in terms of foreign policy experience or even general government experience at the national level. The Democrats have nominated people in the past with a thin national political resume (Bill Clinton in '92, Mike Dukakis in '88, Jimmy Carter in '76, even John F. Kennedy was considered inexperienced when he was nominated in '60, even though he had been in Washington as a Representative and Senator since '48). The difference, of course, is that those others, with the exception of Kennedy, at least had executive experience on the state level, whereas Obama has had only a couple of years as a U.S. Senator and only State Senate experience in Illinois before that. Still, Democrats have swooned in the past for a candidate that seems to promise a return to idealism, which is why I like Obama's chances.

On the GOP side, the rise of Huckabee might just be the break Rudy Giuliani needs to win the nomination. I can see Huckabee winning in Iowa, but not here in New Hampshire, which will probably see a close finish between Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani, with McCain, Thompson and Ron Paul trailing the field. McCain and Thompson will be forced to drop out (much like Kucinich on the Democratic side, Paul will continue to campaign as he does not need a lot of money to continue). Huckabee could then take South Carolina, but Nevada might see a finish similar to NH. Then the race either breaks down into a Huckabee vs. Romney or a Huckabee vs. Giuliani campaign (with a possibility that all three could remain viable down the stretch). Brokered convention, anyone? While Romney seems like the best compromise candidate on the surface, it seems to me (and seems strange even as I write it) that Giuliani might be the better compromise, as he would be acceptable to fiscal conservatives, certainly, and might get enough social conservative votes, if those folks are turned off by Romney's flip-flopping (Rudy, while on the wrong side of the abortion issue, at least is consistent, and says he will nominate judges like Scalia for the Supreme Court) or by Romney's Mormonism.

This is all just speculation, of course. What I like about this cycle is its unpredictability.