To which Mitt might smartly reply, “Better to buy than be bought.”

Fair or not? Romney came by his fortune honestly, through his talents as a manager and investor (although being a son of George surely didn’t hurt in building business connections), and his campaign’s done a bang-up job of raising money out of all proportion to his popularity nationwide, notwithstanding the $17 million of his own dough that he’s injected into the campaign. Still, after all his flip-flopping and the fact that his candidacy hasn’t captivated anyone except Hugh Hewitt and the guy at My Man Mitt, there’s a certain how’d-this-happen quality to his being poised to take Iowa and New Hampshire and waltz to the nomination. Although I guess that’s less a critique of Romney than of voters who can be swayed simply by the sheer volume of advertising they see for one candidate.

It may be that I’m more sensitive to this than most conservatives because I live in a city governed by the most grotesque example of the phenomenon, who’s threatening to show Mitt what real money can do when it wants to buy the presidency. Don’t knock Huck too hard for this, in other words, because you may find yourself mouthing the same complaint six months from now.

I leave you with this, also from the Politico piece. I said the other day that his foreign policy piece was irrelevant to the primary. Here’s why:

[H]is foreign policy is not Huckabee’s main appeal with the audiences he speaks to in Iowa.

“Well, he is not afraid to say, ‘Merry Christmas,’” Gary Thies of Mapleton said when asked after the Sioux City event why he’s supporting Huckabee.

And why is that important?

“Because that’s the most important thing in my life,” Thies responds with an icy glare. “That’s what we’re doing here. Those are the principles that made this country great.”

Exit question: Why would a “Christian leader” be setting churches back $25,000 to speak?