I DON'T NORMALLY watch Lou Dobbs. I sometimes briefly peek in on his show's festivities, and that's enough to get a sense of things. Immigrants are bad. Illegal immigrants are really bad. Free trade is bad. Outsourcing is really bad. His is a timeless populist message pitting the little American guy against leviathan-like forces like Chinese factory workers and Mexican lettuce pickers. Sadly, the American people have bought his message in whole. NAFTA has become an ugly stepchild for even Hillary Clinton. And the Republicans talk a lot about the need to beat those damn Chinese.

At the end of his show before last Wednesday's Republican debate, Dobbs released the results of that evening's poll: Would the candidates sound a populist message? Some 80 percent of the respondents said no. Dobbs hoped they were wrong.

Therein lies the biggest reason why Mike Huckabee has caught on so dramatically. Huckabee is a populist, and unlike all the populists we've seen in the past 15 years (Ross Perot, Al Gore, John Edwards), he's a credible one. What's more, he's so likable that his populism doesn't have the ominous overtones of Lou Dobb's nightly demagoguery.

HERE'S WHAT I wrote on May 3 about Mike Huckabee after the first Republican debate:

"I look at this guy and wonder where he ever got the notion that he should be president. His presence on the stage bothered me. Does this guy have anything interesting or original to say? Has he ever?"

First off, mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I underestimated Huckabee.

In taking on a top tier of Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Fred Thompson, it's obvious where Mike Huckabee got the notion that he should be president. Being president has a great deal to do with being a skillful politician. It's easy to imagine Huckabee figuring that he could take these guys, even starting from way back in the pack and with no money. (I should add that the rationale behind the Tommy Thompson campaign still eludes me to this day.)

Left unstated in the above is the obvious and I'd argue indisputable fact that all the other top tier candidates are, objectively speaking, more qualified for the job than Huckabee. Huckabee probably knows this. But he also knows that in the modern era, we don't elect résumés. In 1992, we selected an unproven young man from one of America's most impoverished states. In 2000, we elected a late bloomer who hadn't done anything of significance with his life until just six years prior.

SO WHAT WOULD a Huckabee nomination mean for the Republican party? First, the good news. Huckabee, as we've all discovered, is quite good at seeking office. As a Romney guy, it pains me to say this, but Huckabee may well be our strongest potential nominee. All of the others have well documented weaknesses as wholesale and retail politicians. Huckabee doesn't.