@ Mehmentum
I have to disagree. Huckabee actually suffers from the same problem that Santorum suffered from, is that he has 0 appeal to Republicans who vote GOP for primarily economic/class reasons, similarly to Romney having no appeal among Republicans who vote GOP for cultural reasons except the Mormons.
Huckabee "appears" better because he is more likeable as opposed to Santorum who is an obnoxious prick, but Huckabee cannot win or perform well in a state where there isn't a significant contingent of evangelicals (which is why he performed well in Iowa, something like 60% of caucus goers were evangelicals), and he was also lucky enough in 2008 to not have very serious competition for that vote, which I don't see happening in 2016.
First of all, working class was not at all what I had in mind to the average Republican who votes on economic reasons. In fact, I actually sort of meant the opposite. But look at the the areas where Huckabee dominated, it's where the evangelicals are, they weren't voting on economic reasons.
The problem with that second statement is that Huckabee did fall right into the same problem Santorum did. Compare 2008 exit polls on income with 2012 exit polls. In South Carolina, Huckabee only won the <$40,000 category, he could not attract those primarily fiscal voters. The only voters he did well with were the evangelicals.
In 2012, Newt Gingrich steamrolled from under $50,000 to over $100,000. The big factor being that Huckabee had no cross-appeal, while Gingrich weirdly enough, did.
Another claim people like to make is that Huckabee lost because Fred Thompson split the conservative vote, but polls showed that the second choice of Thompson supporters were split between Mitt, McCain and Huckabee pretty evenly.
