Iowa poll: Huckabee 22, Romney 18, Gingrich 14, Palin 11

No other candidate scored in double digits. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a near-certain 2012 candidate, rated just one percent while Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who appears to be getting more and more serious about the race, didn’t even register a single percent. (For the Paulites out there, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who ran for president in 2008, placed fifth with 5 percent.)

Given the findings — and the fact that the 2012 campaign has yet to begin in earnest — the poll is right understood as, basically, a name identification test. Huckabee and Romney finished one-two in the Iowa Republican caucuses in 2008 and so it’s no surprise that they hold down those same spots in the new poll.